“As he should be,” I say.
A few minutes later, I step into the most spectacular cellar I’ve ever seen. It’s an enormous vaulted space, made entirely of pale stone bricks with multiple archways, and lit with candelabras overhead and sconces along the sides of every archway. “Whoa,” I breathe as we walk through the space, my hand still tucked in the crook of Mr. Bozhidar’s arm.
He gives me a strange look. “Do you wish for me to slow down?”
“No, I’m fine.” I inhale and take in the sweet musty scent of fermenting wine and oak barrels.
Neli snorts.
I look around. “Do you ever hold events down here? It’s an amazing space.”
“Events?” he asks.
“Yeah, you know, like a fun Halloween masquerade or a New Year’s Eve party.”
“Never,” he says. “Though I am an avid observer of all variations of All Hallows’ Eve, especially Day of the Dead, but a party would invite too much temptation.”
I lower my voice, though we’re the only three here. “You mean people who would steal from you?”
“I cannot imagine anyone would dare. In my castle, we deal with thieves in the usual way,” he says dismissively.
“What’s the usual way?” I hope he means they call the police, but I’m sensing he’s talking about something very different. Something much worse. Damn. I really need to stop this. There is nothing to be afraid of—with him or this place. The creepy vibe is all in my head. The creepy vibe is all in my—
“At Castle Sangria, we take a long piece of rope and—”
“Tie them up, of course!” Neli interjects from behind with a nervous tone. “Then we call the authorities. But we rarely hold any events. Our main focus is on production. Let’s get on with the tour so we can get to the good part—the tastings for Stella.”
He gestures to the sides of the vaulted archway we pass through, where there are various rooms. “Production area, armory, torture chamber, barrel room—”
“Sorry, what?” I interrupt. “Did you say torture chamber?”
“Tasting chamber,” Neli chirps. “He calls it a chamber because it’s such a large area, bigger than a room. It’s under renovation now.”
I glance to my right at a dimly lit space, where I can barely make out glints of metal, but she rushes to my side and blocks my view.
I lick my dry lips. “Th-then you must do a lot of tastings here if you have such a large room for it.” Not creepy. Not creepy. Not cree—
“We did before the renovation,” she says.
I’m about to ask what kind of advertising they used for that, but I’m distracted by the quick movement of Mr. Bozhidar. One moment he’s by my side, and the next he’s pulling a dusty bottle of wine from the large rack in a nearby side chamber. The man is like a goth ninja.
He holds it up from where he stands by the wine rack. “Here it is, the best merlot in the world.”
He’s very proud, as he should be. We join him. Neli produces a corkscrew from a nearby cabinet along with some glasses and pops open the bottle. She pours us each a small sample. I swirl it around in my glass, smell it, and then sip.
They both wait for my reaction.
“It’s wonderful, very smooth with notes of cherries and cocoa.” I sip again because it’s so good, as is feeling Mr. Bozhidar’s intense gaze on me. It simultaneously soothes and excites me. “Some hints of vanilla and cedar from aging in oak barrels.”
“Excellent,” he says, filling my glass.
“We’re glad you like it,” Neli adds.
“Finish your wine, Stella,” he says. “I have a cabernet sauvignon you must try.”
I sip again, and he watches my throat as I swallow. I almost feel like I need to chug to get to the cabernet he’s so eager for me to try. “Aren’t you going to drink yours?”
He swallows his wine and wipes the red drops from his lips with a linen napkin Neli hands him. He tosses it carelessly to a nearby end table. He certainly acts like he’s the king of the castle. Well, if he funded the entire venture, maybe he is.
Neli sighs, stuffs the napkin in her pocket, and sets her glass down on the end table, searching the rack for our next tasting wine.
By the time I’ve sampled his six reserve wines, I’m feeling tipsy. I practically float upstairs on Mr. Bozhidar’s arm. “Now you should try my wine,” I tell him. “I’d love your opinion on it. It’s important that our wine wins some awards too. It’s not looking good for our winery right now. Major financial troubles.” Oops! Did I say that out loud? Here’s my plan and backup plan—first, make the wine as great as it can be for the future of Stellariva. But that takes a while with the fermenting and all that, which is why I have a backup plan to win an award with our current wine. Even a smaller wine competition could help. I found one in the Finger Lakes of New York that looks promising. We already missed the major competitions here in California.