Chapter 3 - The Cellar Discovery
The wine cellar of Sterling Manor was a subterranean vault of climate-controlled limestone and custom mahogany racks, housing over ten thousand rare bottles. The air was cool, smelling of damp earth, cork, and expensive fermentation.
Julian stood in the shadow of a heavy archway, watching as Elena climbed a rolling library ladder to reach the upper tier of the Bordeaux section. She looked exhausted. Her shoulders sagged slightly as she retrieved the heavy glass bottles, her breathing shallow in the chilled air.
As she stepped down from the ladder, her foot caught on the hem of her long uniform skirt. She gasped, losing her balance, the expensive bottles slipping from her grip.
Before the glass could shatter against the stone floor, Julian moved.
He surged out of the darkness with blinding speed, catching Elena by the waist with one arm while his other hand deftly snatched two of the falling bottles out of mid-air. The third bottle landed safely on his thick, padded boot.
Elena let out a muffled shriek of terror, her hands flying to his chest to push him away. "You!" she gasped, her eyes going wide as she recognized the soot-stained face of the vagrant from the gate. "How did you get in here? The perimeter alarms—"
"Quiet," Julian whispered, his voice dropping its raspy, theatrical pitch, revealing the rich, commanding baritone that usually silenced boardrooms. "Please, don't scream. I'm not here to hurt you."
Elena froze, her hands still resting against the coarse wool of his coat. She blinked, her gaze darting from his eyes to the expensive bottles balanced effortlessly in his grip. "You caught those... like a professional athlete. Who are you?"
"A man who owes you two days' wages," Julian said quietly, setting the bottles safely onto a tasting table. He took a step back, giving her space, though his intense, analytical gaze never left her face. "Why is Marcus Trent drinking twelve-hundred-dollar wine on duty?"
Elena looked at him in bewilderment, her protective instincts battling her confusion. "How do you know what this wine costs? And why are you asking about Mr. Trent?"
"Because," Julian said, gesturing toward the back corner of the cellar where a locked wire crate stood open, "that crate is supposed to be inventory-sealed by the executive office in Manhattan. If Marcus is ordering from it, he isn't just bending rules. He's stealing from Julian Sterling."
A bitter, humorless laugh escaped Elena’s lips. She crossed her arms over her chest, rubbing her arms against the cellar chill. "Everyone steals from Julian Sterling. Mr. Trent takes the wine. Mrs. Gable skims ten percent off the grocery invoices by using fake local vendors. The groundskeepers sell the rare orchid bulbs to collectors in Boston."
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Julian felt as though the limestone walls were closing in on him. "And you? What do you steal, Elena?"
She looked him dead in the eye, her turquoise eyes flashing with sudden, fierce pride. "Nothing. I work my fourteen hours, I take my meager paycheck, and I send eighty percent of it to a memory care facility in Providence so my mother doesn't get evicted onto the street. I don't steal because I still have my dignity—which is a lot more than I can say for the people running this mansion, or the billionaire who owns it."
