Chapter 4 - THE BROTHER'S BETRAYAL
-4
Matthew stepped out from the shadows of the wine racks, holding a heavy steel pipe in one hand while his other hand fumbled nervously with the collar of his shirt. He looked smaller down here in the damp dark—less like a corporate heir and more like a frightened boy caught doing something he knew would get him disowned.
"Put down the pipe, Matthew," I said, my voice dangerously calm as I shifted my weight, shielding the baby entirely with my body.
"I can't do that, Jonathan," Matthew muttered, refusing to meet my eyes. He stared at the floor, his boots scuffing against the damp concrete. "If I let you walk out of here with that kid, Julian is going to strip me of every last cent, throw me out of the trust, and leave me out on the street with the federal indictments hanging over my head. You don't know what they have on me... the gambling debts were just a trap to hook me. They own me."
"They own all of us, Matthew," I replied, stepping slowly toward the far end of the cellar where an old storm grate led upward to the garden. "Including you. Read the file on that desk. You aren't even a Miller either. None of us are. We're just pieces on a chessboard they carved out of stolen babies and forged birth certificates."
Matthew blinked, his brow furrowing in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"Read it," I urged, nodding toward the open medical dossier on the table. "Our father wasn't a patriarch; he was a warden. And this entire estate is a maximum-security prison built to launder stolen bloodlines."
For a second, hesitation flickered across Matthew's face. He glanced at the papers on the desk, his grip on the steel pipe slackening.
"Don't listen to him, Matthew!"
A sharp, breathless voice echoed from the doorway.
Vanessa stood in the entrance of the wine cellar, her black dress stained with dirt at the hem, her hair loose and wild around her shoulders. Behind her stood two of Julian's tactical guards, their weapons raised and aimed squarely at my chest.
"He's stalling!" Vanessa shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at me. "He's trying to trick you so he can escape with the leverage! If Julian doesn't get that baby back in the next ten minutes, we are all dead men! Do you hear me? Dead!"
Matthew snapped out of his daze. The brief spark of human conscience vanished from his eyes, replaced by the cold, survivalist panic of a coward. He tightened his grip on the steel pipe and stepped forward, blocking my path to the storm grate.
"I'm sorry, Jonathan," Matthew whispered, his voice trembling. "I really am. But I like living."
"You call this living?" I demanded, my anger flaring hot and bright. "Being a puppet on a string for a monster like Julian Vance? You traded your soul for a corporate title that doesn't even legally belong to you!"
"Enough talk!" Vanessa screamed at the guards. "Shoot him in the leg! Just get the baby!"
The guard on the right raised his rifle, his finger tightening on the trigger.
I didn't wait. I dropped flat onto the concrete floor, curling my body around my son as a bullet shattered a wine rack above us, sending a cascade of shattered glass and red wine crashing down around our heads.
Before the guard could adjust his aim for a second shot, a heavy, metallic clang echoed from the ceiling vents overhead.
Crash!
The old iron storm grate in the ceiling ripped away from its rusted bolts, and a figure dropped heavily from the garden above right on top of the two tactical guards, taking them both down in a flurry of tactical limbs and heavy thuds.
It was Sophie’s mother—our head housekeeper, Maria.
She wasn't just a domestic worker. As she whipped out a heavy-duty industrial stun baton and brought it crackling across the second guard's chest, her movements were crisp, lethal, and undeniably military.
"Get out of here, Mr. Miller!" Maria shouted over the crackle of electricity and the groans of the unconscious guards. "Take the boy through the drainage pipe! I'll hold them off!"
"Maria—you're..."
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"Ex-military intelligence, sir!" she barked, kicking the steel pipe out of Matthew's hand with a vicious roundhouse kick that sent my brother sprawling backward into a stack of empty crates. "Now move! Julian's main reinforcement team just breached the north gates!"
I didn't waste another second. Clutching my son tight against my chest, I scrambled past the sprawling bodies of the guards, dove into the dark, echoing drainage culvert, and began crawling desperately toward the pale circle of light waiting at the end of the tunnel.
