The basement was surprisingly expansive. Floor-to-ceiling racks lined two walls, each filled with meticulously labeled wine bottles—Angel’s personal cellar. A workbench stood in the corner, cluttered with tools, an old-fashioned vice, and a broken drone.
Nikos stepped toward the wine racks, remembering Angel’s cryptic comment: “Check out my wine collection in the basement.”
He frowned.
Angel was notorious for his cryptic messages.
He studied the racks. They were organized alphabetically—rows of Bordeaux, Cabernet, Malbec, Syrah… but one bottle sat out of place. It was a dusty bottle of Zinfandel tucked under the M’s.
Curious, Nikos pulled it out.
The label was normal, aged. But as he turned the bottle, he spotted a small round depression in the back of the bottle, precisely cut, along with a matching depression in the wood behind it.
A hidden trigger.
He slipped the bottle back in, pushed, and twisted.
Click.
The wine rack shifted.
Markos’s boots sounded on the stairs just as the shelf creaked open to reveal a thick metal door embedded in the stone wall.
Markos whistled. “You’ve got to be kidding me. This is next level even for Angel.”
Nikos stepped closer, inspecting the smooth black panel next to the door.
“Any idea how to open it?” Markos asked.
Nikos lifted his hand and pressed it against the panel.
A soft green light pulsed as the panel hummed.
SCAN COMPLETE. ACCESS GRANTED. WELCOME NIKOS AETO.
With a soft hydraulic hiss, the door unlocked and slowly opened inward.
Both men stepped through.
Inside was a bunker-level secure room—walls lined with matte black gunmetal and soft white LEDs recessed into the ceiling. A bank of state-of-the-art monitors flickered to life across one side, displaying feeds from multiple security cameras around the property.
Opposite them, racks of tactical gear, encrypted comms, and weapons gleamed under the lights. High-powered rifles, handguns, stun batons, and surveillance drones were perfectly arranged, each with a biometric tag reader.
Tucked in the corner was an efficient kitchen. Through an open door, they could see shelves of freeze-dried meals and a water filtration system. There was another door on the other side of it.
“This isn’t a panic room,” Markos muttered. “This is a war room. I knew he’d been spending a lot of time up here the last few years, but damn!”
Nikos said nothing. He stepped forward, his eyes scanning the encrypted terminals, noting the labeled access ports and surveillance logs.
Angel had prepared for more than just intruders.
He’d prepared for a siege.
Fourteen
Eric stood in the center of the small living room with his eyes closed, breathing slowly. The apartment was silent, thick with absence—not mere emptiness, but the weight of something recently lost.
His fingers hung loosely at his sides, but his senses stretched wide, sweeping through the space like a net cast into still water.
