Chapter 2: The Real Inheritance
The words didn’t make sense.
Emma felt her stomach tighten.
“Me?” she whispered. “Why would anyone—”
A loud bang cut her off. The music room door had been forced open.
Boots stepped onto marble.
The men were inside.
Her father’s voice sharpened.
“Three steps forward,” he said. “Left side panel. There is a release switch under the piano frame. Now, Emma.”
Her hands shook as she reached blindly beneath the polished wood.
Another voice from outside the piano room called out:
“She’s not here.”
A pause.
Then her stepmother’s voice, closer now.
“Check under the piano. He always taught her to hide there.”
Emma’s fingers found a tiny hidden lever.
Click.
The floor beneath her shifted.
A narrow hatch slid open just enough for her to slip into darkness below.
Emma dropped silently into a narrow tunnel lined with old stone and wires.
Above her, the piano shifted back into place.
Footsteps entered the room.
“She was here,” one man said sharply.
Her stepmother responded calmly. “She still is. Just not where you think.”
Emma’s father’s voice returned through a second hidden speaker in the tunnel.
“You’re inside the old emergency passage,” he said. “This house was never just a mansion.”
Emma looked around, breathing hard.
“Then what is it?”
A pause.
May you like
Then the answer came like a blade.
“A vault. And you are the key.”
