Chapter 4 - Severing the Electric Leash
Vincent did not wait for Paul Bellini to finish his drink.
He stepped into the bright light of the halogen lamps with his weapon raised.
Paul’s eyes went wide as he reached for the revolver on the barrel.
Vincent fired a single round into the concrete directly between Paul’s feet.
The ricochet took a chunk of limestone out of the floor, spraying stone dust into the guard's face.
Paul froze, his fingers hovering inches above the iron.
The safecracker dropped his tools and fell flat on his stomach, trembling violently.
"Don't move your hand, Paulie," Vincent said, his voice entirely conversational.
"Don Vincent," Paul choked out, his color draining until he looked like chalk.
"We thought you were on the turnpike."
"I took the scenic route," Vincent replied, stepping forward until the barrel was level with Paul’s nose.
Elena moved around the perimeter, kicking Paul’s gun into the shadows behind a row of Bordeaux casks.
She bound the technician’s hands with zip-ties from his own toolbox without saying a word.
Vincent looked down at the younger Bellini.
"Your brother Tony has made a very expensive mistake tonight."
"I don't know anything about it, boss!" Paul pleaded.
"I was just told to watch the box."
"You know enough to be standing in my cellar while my butler’s body is cooling upstairs."
Elena knelt in front of the open titanium face of the safe.
The electronic lock had been bypassed, but the four-dial mechanical combination was still locked.
She looked up at Vincent.
"Do you remember the numbers?"
Vincent kept his eyes on Paul.
"Seventeen. Thirty-four. Nine. Fifty-one."
Elena spun the heavy dials with rapid clicks.
On the final turn, the heavy internal bolts slid back with a resounding metallic clunk.
The four-hundred-pound door swung open.
The interior shelves were illuminated by a small internal LED.
The stacks of bearer bonds were untouched.
A small velvet box containing his grandfather's signet ring sat on the middle shelf.
Beside it lay a black leather notebook, worn at the corners and tied shut with a strip of waxed cord.
Elena reached inside and lifted the book with both hands.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she touched the leather.
It was the first time Vincent had seen a crack in her composure.
"This is it," she whispered.
"Look at the back," Vincent instructed quietly.
Elena turned the book over.
A thick section of pages had been cleanly excised near the binding with a razor blade.
"The ledger is incomplete," she said.
"Only the part that matters to Tony," Vincent replied.
Paul took a half-step backward toward the stone archway.
Elena did not even look up as she leveled her pistol at his kneecap.
"Take another step, Paulie, and you will crawl for the rest of your short life."
Paul froze instantly, his hands raised above his head.
"What now?" Elena asked Vincent.
"Now we cut their eyes and ears," Vincent said.
He walked to the utility closet tucked behind the third rack of vintage Amarone.
Behind the wooden lath sat the main circuit breaker for the estate's backup generators.
Vincent pulled the primary emergency lever down with both hands.
A deafening hum shuddered through the floor as the secondary transformers tripped out.
Every halogen light in the cellar exploded into blackness.
Above them, through two floors of solid stone, the mansion plunged into pitch-black silence.
The emergency sirens did not sound because their relays had just been severed.
In the total dark, Elena clicked on her penlight, pointing it directly at the floor.
Paul was hyperventilating against the stone wall.
"Where is the exit?" Elena asked.
"The old coal tunnel," Vincent said.
"It leads under the carriage house to the gardener's cottage."
"Marcus knows about the cottage," Paul stammered from the dark.
"He has two men parked behind the green tractor."
Vincent grabbed Paul by the back of his neck, driving his face against the cold brick.
"How many men did Tony bring inside the gates tonight?"
"Twenty... maybe twenty-five," Paul gasped.
"All ex-military."
"They have night vision, Vincent."
"Cutting the power won't stop them."
"Night vision needs ambient light to resolve depth," Elena noted calmly.
She pulled two emergency flares from the safecracker’s canvas bag on the floor.
"And when they look down a dark corridor, magnesium burns out their retinas."
Vincent looked at the girl in the dim light of the penlight.
Samuel had not simply raised a daughter; he had trained a ghost.
"Let's move," Vincent ordered.
He tucked the black leather ledger into his interior coat pocket next to his heart.
They left Paul tied to a vertical support post beside the technician.
The coal tunnel was barely four feet wide, its ceiling dripping with condensation.
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Above their heads, the frantic thud of boots signaled that Marcus had realized the house was dead.
The hunt was no longer silent.
