Pitch black.
Not the kind of dark that comes with nightfall, but the kind that presses on your skin, invades your lungs, and whispers in your ears like a voice you can't place but know you should fear.
The vault sealed with a hiss, locking Adrian and Isabella inside.
"Lights," Adrian ordered. Nothing responded.
He drew his weapon immediately. "Isabella—"
"I didn't close it!" she snapped. "Why the hell would I trap myself in here with you?"
"Because you knew I'd never follow you this deep unless I was forced."
"I told you—I'm not part of this."
"No," Adrian muttered, "you're just always standing in the wrong place at the perfect time."
A single strip of red emergency lighting flickered on, cutting across the room like a blood trail. The walls weren't steel, as they'd seemed. Now, under dim light, they revealed something far worse: records.
Thousands of them.
Locked drawers. File cabinets. Surveillance tapes labeled with dates from over two decades ago.
And in the center of it all, a glass case housing a bloodstained coat and a silver chain.
Adrian stepped closer. His chest tightened.
The initials engraved on the chain: J.M.
Julian Morello.
His brother.
"Why is this here?" he said aloud, voice strained.
Isabella moved beside him, slower now. "My brother had a chain just like that. I thought… I thought it was just something from your family. But my father—he said the vault was built to store… sins."
Adrian looked at her sharply. "What do you mean 'sins'?"
She didn't answer. Instead, her hand brushed over one of the older files. She opened it—then paled.
Photos.
Black and white surveillance shots of secret meetings.
Children being trained in weapon drills.
Coordinates. Names. DNA reports.
And at the top of the file: "The Phoenix Protocol."
Adrian snatched it from her. His eyes scanned it fast, his breath slow and dangerous.
This wasn't just a vault.
This was a blacksite.
A project so classified not even his father had told him the full story.
And it went back years—long before Julian died. Long before Adrian was crowned Don.
"This… this is why they came tonight," he said. "Not to kill me. To bury this."
Isabella's voice trembled now. "My father said if anyone opened this vault again, it would burn every family on the Eastern coast. Not just Morello. Not just Romano. All of them."
Adrian's knuckles went white.
"That bastard."
He stepped away, yanked open another drawer, another, another—until he found a sealed envelope, marked with his brother's handwriting. He didn't hesitate. Tore it open.
Inside: a flash drive, and one line scribbled in ink.
If you're reading this, I didn't die in the war. I died because I found out what they were building beneath our names.
— J.M.
Adrian looked up at the red-lit ceiling.
This wasn't a war over love or betrayal.
This was about erasure.
Legacy.
Men like his father and Marco Romano trying to rewrite history by torching everything their sons had uncovered.
Then, the vault lights flickered again.
A new sound filled the room.
A pre-recorded message.
Adrian recognized the voice immediately.
His father's.
"If you've found this message, then you know too much. This vault isn't protection. It's a tomb."
The doors began locking tighter. Vents hissing. Oxygen levels dropping.
"Legacy demands sacrifice. Even if it means burying our sons to keep the future clean."
Adrian cursed, spinning to the control panel. "It's a kill chamber. We've got five minutes."
Isabella rushed to help. "Can we override it?"
"No. But we can outsmart it."
Adrian shoved the flash drive into a panel slot and began forcing commands. The old code was still in his brother's signature — barely.
Then Isabella did something he didn't expect.
She reached up and pressed her palm against the scanner — and the system accepted it.
"Your biometrics—?" he demanded.
"My father updated my prints for classified access six months ago," she said. "I thought it was to control me. But maybe…"
Adrian didn't wait. He jammed in the final code.
BOOM.
A portion of the wall blew open from the inside.
They coughed, staggered, but stayed standing as smoke cleared.
Behind the shattered vault wall was an old maintenance shaft.
Barely wide enough for one at a time.
But it led out.
Isabella turned to him. "You first."
Adrian didn't move. "Not until I'm sure this wasn't your plan."
Her eyes blazed. "And what would be the point of saving your life if I wanted you dead?"
He didn't answer.
But he didn't stop her from climbing through either.
Because for the first time… he was starting to believe her.
And that terrified him more than the vault ever could.