36. Grace
Grace
I sat on the cool stone floor with my back against the thick wooden door. The chair I’d swung at the door had finally given up, and pieces of it littered the space around me. One full leg clung to part of the seat in my right hand.
My hands were a mottled mess of red wine, blood, and simple exertion. What was I going to do next? Keep waiting? Who even knew what was going on outside the wine cellar?
I made myself stand up and scanned the room for what must have been the tenth time.
Pendant lamps hung above a long table, joining with the wall sconces to cast a warm glow over the room.
Bottle racks ran from floor to ceiling along every stone wall.
Hundreds of bottles. At least tens of thousands of dollars of wine.
It was the kind of room you booked for special occasions at a fancy restaurant. But this wasn’t just ambiance. It was a hidden space in a basement where a ridiculously wealthy and obviously unhinged man had forced me.
I dropped the chair leg and crossed to the nearest rack.
I pulled a bottle off a shelf where it sat alone with spotlights highlighting it.
A heavy bottle of dark wine with a label that read Domaine de la Romanée-Conti from 1945.
It wasn’t one of the thousands in the little racks.
This one was a treasure. Werner Kessler probably kept track of it by serial number.
Fuck you, Werner!
I launched the bottle across the room, and it smashed against the opposite wall. The glass shattered, red wine sprayed across the stone wall, and the smell of it filled the room.
For three whole seconds, that was enough.
Brilliant, Grace. Really productive. He’s upstairs with your egg. He’s not going to notice.
I sank back down to my spot by the door and picked up the chair leg. Someone would have to come eventually, and that leg would crack across their skull.
Hours ago—or probably thirty or forty minutes in reality—Richter had forced me into the room so the visiting police wouldn’t find me.
I’d screamed, pounded my fists against the door, then slammed one of the wooden chairs into it over and over.
But no one came. The logical part of my brain had reminded me that if they could hear me from here, Richter would have locked me up somewhere else.
Then ten or fifteen minutes ago, somewhere above me, there had been an explosion.
How close? No idea. Could the police have done that?
Or was it Garrett? I’d swung the chair at the door harder, shouted until my voice was hoarse, and all it left me with was a sore throat, a broken chair, and fists that were so swollen it hurt to hit the door.
And everything was silent.
Whatever the explosion had been, no one had come down here to find me.
I pulled my legs up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them.
The shorts had seemed like a good idea at Henri’s, given the heat, but the cellar was cold, and the stone floor was even colder.
Get up and sit in one of the chairs, at least. But if I did, I might not hear someone in the hallway outside of the cellar.
The massive door’s bolt was heavy and made a loud creak, but I had to be ready when someone opened it.
‘I’ll come for you,’ Garrett had said. I hadn’t been able to hear it over my own pathetic little whimpers while Richter shoved my face into the glass, but I’d seen his lips form the words.
We barely knew each other, but I knew he wouldn’t leave me.
I just had to hold on until he got there. So I clenched my fingers around the broken chair leg and held the fuck on.
There was a sound at the door. Scraping. The iron bolt sliding back.
I leaped up and darted to the side, to make myself as invisible as possible in a large rectangular room. I clasped the chair leg in both hands like a baseball bat, with the splintered end ready to hit whoever came through the door.
Please be Garrett. Please be Garrett.
The door pulled open, and as soon as I recognized the height wasn’t Garrett’s, I swung my chair leg with all my might.
But it was Conrad Richter, and he blocked my arm with one of his, doing one of those complicated wrist things to steal my makeshift weapon and toss it across the room. “You’re very predictable, you know that?”
I scrambled backward, pulling out chairs as I moved. “Stay away from me.”
“We don’t have time for this.” The cut across the bridge of his nose was red and raw, the skin around it already darkening into a bruise. Good. At least I’d managed to break his nose in the car.
“We’re leaving.” His voice held an edge—not like at Henri’s, when he’d been calm and in control. Not like in the car or in the collection room. “Now.”
Leaving? Why? Where to? Because the police had come? I darted to the opposite side of the table from him. It was long enough I could play this chase game, and if he were in a hurry, maybe he’d give up on me.
He was between me and the door.
Logic, Grace. He’s faster. He has a gun, but he hasn’t pulled it. What does that mean?
He moved left. I mirrored right. He moved right. I mirrored left.
“You’re a pain in my ass.”
“So leave me alone.”
He made his choice. He went left around the table, and I sprinted around it, straight for the door.
But he’d feinted. Planted his off-hand on the corner and vaulted over the table. His feet connected with my side, sending me crashing into the wine racks. Before I was able to reorient myself, he grabbed my wrist. “You’re just making this worse for yourself.”
He yanked me hard toward the door.
I twisted against him.
He spun me, one practiced motion, and my back hit his chest. I felt the knife at my throat again, but it wasn’t there. He hadn’t pulled anything. It was my imagination. He pinned my upper arms against my sides so I couldn’t fight him.
Go for his instep! I planted my foot hard on his, and he loosened his grip long enough for me to wrench free, but he shoved me against the wall next to the door. My head hit the wall, and the world spun.
Run, Grace! Run! I had a clear path to the door, but everything was spinning around me. Swimming. I couldn’t… couldn’t…
A figure appeared in the corridor, coming down from the steps. The height was right. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew. Garrett came for me. My knight in shining armor was here.
Richter closed the distance with me, his hand finding my throat. He squeezed, pressing me into the racks, bringing his face inches from mine. “I should snap your neck right here and be done with this.”
It was all threats. It hurt, but he wasn’t compressing my windpipe enough. If Garrett was here, that meant his team was here. Which meant Richter needed me as a hostage to get out. He needed me in one piece.
I hit his ribs with my left hand, the one on the opposite side from Garrett. I had to distract Richter and make enough noise that Garrett could sneak in. If Richter heard him coming, it would be the same as at Henri’s. He’d spin me to his chest, pull the knife, and maybe he’d kill me this time.
“Or I could choke the life out of you.”
I tried kneeing him in the groin, but he blocked it. Tried pulling his wrist away, but he was too strong.
Hitting and kicking wasn’t the opening Garrett needed.
My right hand flattened on the wall. No. Not a wall. A rack of wine bottles. And on the side where Garrett could see what I was doing. I closed my fingers around the neck of one of them and slid it out while I whimpered loudly enough to mask the sound.
Please understand the plan, Garrett. Please.