Then Cyrus placed his hands on my neck, bringing me back. “I think it’s time I show you something.” His thumb stroked my jawline. “Something you should have seen a long time ago.”
CHAPTER 32
ADORA
Above the elevator,there was an antique dial. The manor had four floors, and I watched the mechanical arm twitch to the second level. The cab creaked when it halted, and Cyrus opened the spring-loaded scissor gate to climb in. Two lanterns hung from inside the elevator cab, and he pressed 0 for the cellar. The elevator jolted before it descended.
“Fair warning, it’s dark and cold,” Cyrus said. “We have to keep it in the fifties, so the wine doesn’t age too quickly. But not too cold where the corks could dry out and let air seep through.”
“Why is it dark?”
“Over time, light causes labels to fade.”
And I wondered if time would cause this ache to fade, too.
Once we reached ground level, Cyrus grabbed one of the lanterns from its hook.
The scissor gate opened to the wine cellar, and grand columns lined both sides of the room, creating magnificent archways leading to a labyrinth of tunnels.
Wine bottles slept on curved wooden shelves screwed into the stone, and barrels were stacked atop one another along the arched walls—an eerie, hidden vineyard.
We walked down the middle of the room side-by-side until Cyrus led me to a wooden door. He knocked softly with his knuckle at first before entering. I stayed close behind him, peeking around his shoulder.
In a small room, candles trapped in various sized lanterns flooded the floor. And there he lay, a sleeping Darnell Cantini with a wheelchair at his side.
I was transported back to my kitchen with Ivy when she’d told me the truth about him and Mom, and an aggrieved chill covered my skin. I rubbed my arms to hide it, unable to feel sorry for the dying man.
Cyrus’s lips fell open with a sigh. “He doesn’t have much time left.”
He couldn’t have known what his father had done.
If he had known, he wouldn’t have brought me here.
He wouldn’t torture me like this.
Maybe Viola wanted to protect her children, so they never had to question whether they were as cruel as their father. The same way I constantly questioned how deeply Mom’s genes were rooted in me. So, I bit my tongue to trap barbed words.
“He should, at least, make it to the wedding,” he added.
I kept my eyes on the dying man—sunken eye sockets, hollowed-out cheeks, and shadowy contours on his face. He once was a handsome man—Cyrus looked just like him—but he was withering away. I was just glad to be here to witness it. “Will he be there for the announcement?”
“Yes,” Cyrus answered. “He’ll be there.”
A wicked smile tugged at my lips. “Good.”
Cyrus closed the door. “But this is not why I brought you down here.” He held up the lamp in front of him, lighting the way.
At the end of one of the chambers was a curved wooden door. Cyrus pulled out a set of keys from his pocket and inserted one into the lock. A groan echoed when he opened the door, and a stale breath of death slipped past us.
More than two dozen coffins were staring back at me in the low-ceiling room.
I was standing in the Cantini Crypt.
“Meet my ancestors,” Cyrus said, running his palm along one of the coffins. “My family stays in the crypt so their spirits can protect—”
“The Crypt of Secrets,” I finished, my gaze sailing about the Jacobean room, with walls made of stone and a hand-carved coffered ceiling.
Cyrus had once told me about the Crypt of Secrets, the room containing the secrets of Weeping Hollow. The Cantini family kept truths locked behind cloaks and daggers, only accessible to their bloodline and only revealed when necessary.
