Chapter 4 - The Escape into the StormThe cold rain hit us like a wall of ice as we sprinted across the gravel pathway toward the jagged cliffs overlooking the Newport coastline. Behind us, the mansion's alarms wailed into the stormy night, cutting through the roaring crash of the ocean waves.
"Over here!" Clara yelled over the howling wind, pulling me toward a steep, narrow stone staircase carved into the side of the cliff that led down to a secluded rocky cove.
We scrambled down the slick stone steps in the pitch dark, our breath coming in ragged gasps. The wind whipped our hair and soaked our clothes to the skin, but the adrenaline pumping through my veins kept me moving.
We hit the sandy shore of the cove, ducking beneath a massive granite overhang that shielded us from the worst of the rain.
I leaned against the cold rock wall, sliding down until I sat in the damp sand, gasping for air. Clara dropped down beside me, her knees pulled up to her chest, shivering violently from the cold and the sheer shock of the past ten minutes.
"Are you hurt?" I asked, my voice shaking as I reached out to check her arms for injuries.
"I'm fine," she muttered, pulling her wet jacket tighter around herself. She looked up at me, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears in the pale moonlight filtering through the storm clouds. "I'm sorry, Bennett."
"What are you sorry for?"
"I lied to you," she whispered, her voice breaking. "I didn't just stumble into your house six months ago looking for a cleaning job. Julian tracked me down at my university—I was studying forensic accounting—and convinced me that your family was still hiding the stolen patents. He told me getting a job as your housekeeper was the only way inside."
I looked at her, watching the rain drip from her eyelashes. The anger I should have felt was completely absent. All I felt was a deep, aching exhaustion.
"You wanted justice for your grandfather," I said quietly. "Can you really blame you?"
"I can blame myself for believing Julian," she shot back, her voice hardening with sudden fury. "Tonight, when he pulled that gun... I saw the look in his eyes. He didn't just want the patents back, Bennett. He wanted to burn your entire family down, including your mother. He’s completely unhinged."
I pulled my knees up, staring out at the violent, churning dark ocean. "My father built a monster. And now it's come back to devour us both."
"We can't just hide down here," Clara said, standing up and brushing the sand off her jeans. "Julian knows the estate better than anyone. He’ll have the perimeter gates locked and the local roads blocked within minutes."
"My phone is still in my office desk," I groaned.
"Mine is in my locker in the staff wing," she replied grimly.
We were completely cut off, stranded at the bottom of a cliff in the middle of a nor'easter storm, with a dangerous, armed criminal hunting us inside my own home.
Suddenly, the beam of a high-powered tactical flashlight swept across the top of the cliff above us, cutting a bright white swath through the pouring rain.
"Bennett!" Julian's amplified voice boomed across the cove, bouncing off the cliff walls like a ghost's echo. "I know you're down there! You can't run from your family's sins! Come out, or I go inside and pay a very special, late-night visit to your dying mother!"
My heart stopped.
My mother. In all the chaos, I had forgotten she was asleep in the east wing—vulnerable, bedridden, and completely defenseless.
"He's going to hurt her," I whispered, panic surging through my veins as I scrambled to my feet.
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"Not if we get back inside first," Clara said firmly, grabbing my hand with a grip of iron. "There's an old maintenance tunnel. My grandfather designed this entire estate's infrastructure back in the eighties. There's a drainage pipe that leads straight up into the mansion's basement."
Without waiting for me to answer, she turned and plunged into the crashing surf toward a dark, rusted iron grate half-submerged in the rocks.
