31. Ezra
“What is this place?” I asked Brie quietly, afraid to raise my voice and rouse any creepy crawly things potentially lurking in the darkness at the foot of the stairs. Not to mention, the temperature dropped the lower I went, which didn’t help quell my anxiety that she was about to attempt murder.
It seemed like the perfect place to hide a body until the ground on the vineyard thawed and she could bury me out there, where no one would ever locate my remains.
Instead of answering, Brie pressed against my back and reached past me. A moment later, the space illuminated, and I audibly gasped.
Moving deeper into the cellar, I spun in a slow circle until I once again faced Brie. “How have I been working here for nearly four years and never knew this place existed?”
“It’s a family secret,” she said. “Well…and Cal knows about it, but that’s a story for a different time.”
“And now me,” I said, stabbing a finger into my chest. “Now I know about it too.”
Brie grinned. “You do. I trust you to keep it between us, or we’ll be forced to change the code again.”
“Again?” I asked, raising a brow .
“Delia brought a high school boy she’d been… seeing down here once. They’d been drunk and young and stupid, and he’d shattered one of the bottles from Great-Grandpa Delatou’s first ever batch of wine. So Daddy forbade her from seeing him again, banned him permanently from Delatou property, and immediately changed the code.”
I whistled low. I understood being an overprotective parent—my sole purpose in life was to shield Hansen from the worst of human nature, to ensure he wasn’t exposed to the darkest parts of people—but I also thought it was different with a father and son. The father-daughter relationship wasn’t one I’d ever understand.
“Your dad is terrifying.”
Brie snorted, turning her back to me as she paced along the shelves, running her hands over the bottles displayed there like trophies, some of the labels yellowed and curling at the edges with age.
“You think that’s bad? I lost my virginity in the backseat of the limo at my senior prom. Ella, the only one of my sisters still living at home at the time, spilled my plans for the evening to my parents.”
I grimaced, already sensing what was coming. “He didn’t.”
“Oh, he did. Showed up at the Villa, pulled my date from the backseat by his hair, and threatened to beat him with the baseball bat he was brandishing if he ever touched me again.”
“Oh my god,” I said, hand flying to my mouth. “That’s…extreme.”
She simply nodded. “I was so embarrassed, I didn’t show my face at school for the rest of the year. It was the first and only time I let my dad throw our family name and money around to influence the school into letting me complete my last few weeks of high school remotely.”
I shook my head, a chuckle escaping me.
“I asked him for his blessing, you know,” I told her.
“You what ?” Brie exclaimed, whirling toward me, her fists coming to rest on the gentle swells of her hips.
I hitched a shoulder up in a half shrug. “At Thanksgiving. The guys got to talking about fixing up Christmas dinner, and your dad mentioned how happy he was to have help for once. One thing led to another, Cal opened his big mouth—”
“He does that sometimes,” Brie said with a chuckle.
“—and I told your dad I’m crazy about you and wanted the chance to pursue it.”
“What did he say?”
“Told me we’re both adults and don’t need his permission but that I had his blessing anyway.”
Brie sighed, a blissful smile spreading across her face. “I love that man.”
“He loves you too,” I assured her. “That’s why he gets a little crazy.”
“I guess as a parent yourself, you’d know firsthand.”
I nodded. “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure Hansen grows up without knowing the pain I’ve endured. I hate more than anything that he already understands what it’s like to lose a parent, exactly like I did, but luckily for him, he gets to grow up with the same role model and teacher I had. Between me and my dad, we shouldn’t screw him up too badly.”
Brie stepped closer to me, sliding her arms around my waist and tipping her head back to look up at me. “That little boy is lucky to have you as a father, Ez. You’re doing amazing with him.”
I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to fight off the emotion suddenly clogging my throat.
“I try,” I croaked eventually, and she rose onto her tiptoes to press a kiss to the underside of my jaw.
She grabbed my hand and pulled me deeper into the cellar. The walls were exposed brick, and though the space was dry and cool, a slight scent of softly decaying earthiness hung in the air.
“Did you know my great-grandpa opened this place during Prohibition?” Brie asked as she led us through another doorway and down a hallway. No modern updates had been made beyond the installation of electricity, and sconces dotted the walls at regular intervals. Beneath our feet, the floor was hard, packed dirt, loose bits floating upward with every step, turning the air around us hazy.
“I did not,” I replied, curious where she was going. She didn’t actually expect us to sleep down here, did she?
Before I could ask, we reached the end of the line, where our path was blocked by a solid brick wall.
Brie turned to me with a wicked, mischievous grin. “He had to get creative with storing his products. Prohibition ended seven years after this place became operational, so for nearly the first decade of business, my family smuggled wine from right here to much of the Midwest.”
My eyes widened in shock.
“Yep,” Brie said proudly. “Chateau Delatou was built on a foundation of criminal activity. We may be on the right side of the law these days, but I like to think some of that recklessness still lives on in me and my sisters.”
From what I’d seen in my years around the family, it definitely did.
“I don’t understand. How did they operate as a winery without being able to…sell wine?”
“Great-Grandpa ran it as one of those old-fashioned soda shoppes. Though, I guess back then, it wouldn’t have been old-fashioned,” she added with a giggle.
“Well, while that’s an interesting piece of Delatou family history, it doesn’t explain what we’re doing down here.”
Wordlessly, Brie reached for the final sconce on the wall, gripped its base, and pulled.
A moment later, after a loud thunk and much lower, ominous creaking, a crack appeared in the brick wall before us.
“Smuggler tunnels,” I breathed.
“Smuggler tunnels,” she confirmed with a smirk. “You wouldn’t believe the trouble my sisters and I got into down here as kids. We’d climb on each other’s shoulders to reach the sconce and go crazy.”
“Oh, I’m sure I can imagine,” I said with a laugh. “Where does it lead?”
Brie pressed a palm flat on the door and pushed it further open. “Follow me and find out.”
Then she disappeared beyond the door, the darkness swallowing up her body almost instantly.
I could do nothing but trail after her, curiosity dragging me forward.
Emboldened by the darkness that descended once I crossed the threshold and the door shut behind me, I reached out blindly for Brie. As my hand connected with what I assumed was her arm, she stilled, and I used that moment to locate her hips and latch on.
I pushed her backward until her body collided with something hard.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
“What are you doing?”
“This,” I said, then dropped my mouth to hers.
Without the ability to see, I relied on sound and sensation to guide me as I moved my lips against hers. The soft mewling that came from her throat, which had a chuckle rumbling through my chest. The way her hands moved into my hair, tugging, dragging me impossibly closer. I moved my hands off her hips and groped around on the thing behind her, pleased to discover it was a wine barrel sitting upright. Gripping her around the backs of her thighs, I lifted her onto it, putting her at the perfect height to press my hard angles against her soft curves, my aching cock coming to rest perfectly against her stomach.
The pressure had sparks bursting behind my closed eyelids.
“Fuck,” I growled, moving from her lips to trail a path of open-mouthed kisses across her jaw and neck. “I need to get you naked immediately.”
Through heavy breaths, Brie said, “Let’s get out of here. Then I’m yours all night.”
Without another word, I reluctantly pulled my hands from her body, though I grabbed one of hers instead. Hopping off the barrel, she retrieved her phone from the ground and directed the flashlight ahead, navigating us toward our destination .
Less than two minutes later, we came to another hidden door, and when we stepped out, we found ourselves standing in an unfinished basement.
“Where are we?” I asked. “Is this someone’s house?”
“Not anymore,” Brie said, not offering anything else as she pulled me toward an ascending staircase. At the top, she punched in yet another code, and we emerged into a large, modern foyer. To my left was a heavy oak door, the wind howling beyond. To my right was a hallway. Brie moved to the wall and pressed a rocker switch, flipping on the can lights in the ceiling.
Stepping to the center of the room, she held out her arms and said, “Welcome to the Villa.”