Read Chapter 24: The Cellar Confrontation

The phone rang at 4 a.m. Fournier’s voice was tight, stripped of its usual lawyerly calm.

“Alex. Listen carefully. An associate of mine in Beaune just overheard movement. The Bouchards are done waiting. They’re sending a crew to the estate—tonight. They mean to burn the place. Everything. The cellars, the press house, the ledgers. The whole history.”

Alex was already on his feet, pulling on his coat.

“How long do I have?”

“Less than an hour,” Fournier said. “Alex—don’t be a hero. You’re not ready for this.”

Alex hung up. He grabbed his father’s journal from the bedside table, shoved it into his coat, and ran for the car.

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The rain had returned. It sheathed the hood of the old Peugeot in a steady hiss as Alex skidded through the gates of the estate. No police vehicles. No gendarmes. The courtyard was empty, dark except for the weak spill of a security lamp over the winery entrance. They’d given him the address for the shooting. Close range. The kind of quiet job meant to leave no witnesses, only a burned headline in tomorrow’s papers: *Accidental fire claims historic estate.*

Alex cut the engine. He didn’t take the front door. He slid through the service hedge along the eastern wall, moving low, his shoes ploughing mud. The cellar entrance stood ajar—boot prints in the wet earth. Fresh.

He slipped inside.

The cellar smelled of crushed stone and damp, but beneath it, another scent: diesel. And farther down, the sharp, acidic tang of something chemical. Acceleration. He listened. The soft scuff of boots on stone, echoes bouncing along the vaulted ceiling. Two voices deep near the barrel room.

“…pour the accelerant along the racking. It’ll climb the wood easy. Ledgers in the office go first.” The voice was Leclerc’s—not the cellar master, but the accountant, the quiet number-cruncher who had always hovered at Vincent Moreau’s elbow. Of course. The one man who knew exactly where every record was kept, because he kept them himself.

A second voice, thicker. “The old man’s son—you said he’d be here. Hiding.”

“He’s in some hotel south of here. Doesn’t matter. When the fire hits the methane from the fermenters—boom. Nothing left. Not even a question.”

Alex’s jaw tightened. He moved past the first row of barrels, keeping to the shadows. His father’s old office was ahead, its heavy oak door cracked open. Inside, the safe—the small one, not the vault—stood open. Ledgers dragged loose across the floor. They were gathering them, then burning them where they lay.

He needed to get to the vault. His father’s revolver. He’d discovered it days ago, tucked behind a loose stone in the wall beside the arched doorway—old, oiled, loaded. He’d decided not to take it then. Stupid. He crept toward the vault door.

A floorboard creaked.

The thick voice called out. “Hey. Someone’s here.”

Alex froze. He was still ten feet from the vault, exposed along the central aisle.

Leclerc stepped out of the office doorway, flanked by two heavies. The accountant held a jerry can in one hand, a lighter in the other. His face, caught in the dim corridor light, was almost serene.

“Alexandre,” he said. “We were just discussing your inheritance.”

“The Bouchards sent an accountant to do an arsonist’s work,” Alex said, keeping his voice steady. “That’s a promotion for you, isn’t it, Leclerc?”

Leclerc smiled thinly. “You always overrated Vincent’s judgment. He trusted you to stay away. He thought he could protect you by keeping you ignorant. But you came back—just like he knew you would.” He tilted the can. “Have you ever watched a century of wine go up? It makes a sound like screaming.”

One of the thugs moved first—a flash of motion, a knife drawn. Alex turned and ran, not toward the office, not toward the exit, but to the vault arch. He dove through the doorway, slamming his palm against the hidden stone, feeling the revolver come loose into his grip. Cold steel. Heavy.

The thug was on him before he could raise it, swinging the knife low toward his ribs. Alex twisted. The blade caught his shoulder—a white-hot line of pain—but he didn’t drop the gun. He pulled the trigger.

The shot was deafening in the close stone. The first thug staggered back, clutching his chest, his eyes wide with surprise, then crumpled to the cellar floor.

The second thug hesitated, scanning for cover. Alex fired again—not at him, but over his head at the rack of barrels behind Leclerc. Wood splintered. The jerry can wobbled, then tipped, spilling fuel across the aisle.

Leclerc dropped the lighter.

It hit the stone. It didn’t catch—miraculously, it bounced, skittering away across the wet floor. Leclerc stared at it for half a second, hand frozen mid-grab.

Then he ran. Not toward Alex—back, toward the rear service stairs, out into the vineyard above.

Alex raised the revolver, his shoulder screaming, the barrel unsteady.

He fired once. The bullet clipped the stone beside Leclerc’s head, and the accountant flinched but did not stop. Alex swore, and began to push himself up to go after him when the sound of engines rolled through the cellar walls. Headlights flooded the service yard above. Blue lights cut through the rain.

The second thug was already on his knees, hands raised, staring at the light with dead-eyed surrender.

Alex limped to the cellar steps, the revolver warm in his hand. Through the rain, he saw gendarmes swarming Leclerc, who was face-down in the mud, arms twisted behind his back. A sharp-faced captain looked up and locked eyes with him. She did not reach for her weapon.

“If you shot the man in the cellar, you’ll have a lot of explaining to do,” she said.

“Two men came to burn my house down,” Alex said. “One of them is dead. That’s the whole explanation.”

She glanced at his shoulder, the blood soaking through his coat. “We’ll discuss it at the hospital.”

Alex blinked. “I’m not going to the hospi—"

The cellar entrance blurred. The stone wall of the stairwell seemed to tilt. He reached out to catch himself as blackness closed over the edges of his vision.

The last thing he heard was the captain’s voice, sharp and distant. “Get him on the stretcher, now. Don’t let him bleed out in the mud.”