The guard helped him toward the ladder.
I remained by the monitor.
“Where is the gas source?” I asked Matteo.
“Main filtration room. West tunnel junction.”
“How do I stop it?”
“You can’t from there.”
“Then I come to you.”
“The tunnel is sealed.”
“Not from the wine cellar.”
Matteo understood.
“Adrian, no.”
I turned toward the door.
“Get them out.”
The emergency lights went dark.
The safe-room door unlocked with a heavy click.
I ran.
Behind me, Elena shouted my name.
I did not stop.
The hidden passage from the wine cellar opened into the lower tunnel. Smoke filled the corridor. Sprinklers had activated, sending freezing water over the concrete floor.
I moved through the darkness with one hand against the wall.
At the junction, I found two bodies.
Not my men.
Ahead, someone coughed.
“Matteo!”
“Here.”
I followed the sound.
He sat against a steel door, one hand pressed to his abdomen. Blood seeped between his fingers.
For five years, I had imagined this moment in a thousand ways.
I had dreamed of striking him.
Embracing him.
Demanding answers.
Instead, I dropped to my knees and pressed my hand over his wound.
“You look terrible,” I said.
He laughed weakly.
“You have a rainbow on your face.”
I had forgotten.
A sound escaped me that was almost a laugh and almost grief.
“You let a child paint you?”
“She is persuasive.”
“She gets that from Elena.”
I looked at him.
“You are really alive.”
“For the moment.”
“Do not say that.”
“Adrian.”
“No.”
He caught my wrist.
“The filtration room is behind this door. The system was designed to release gas into the safe room and kill everyone inside. I stopped the cycle, but the manual valve is jammed.”
“Then we unjam it.”
“There are armed men on the other side.”
“Good.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“I missed you.”
The words nearly broke me.
I gripped his shoulder.
“I hated you.”
“I know.”
“I buried you.”
“I know.”
“I stood at your grave every year.”
“I was there once.”
I stared at him.
“From a distance,” he said. “You looked older.”
“You should have come to me.”
“I tried.”
“Not hard enough.”
“I had proof that someone close to you arranged the explosion. I thought it was Vincent.”
My jaw tightened.
“Was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You disappeared for five years and still don’t know?”
