The sea stretched endlessly beneath the rising sun, gold and blue merging at the horizon. The private boat cut through the waves, slicing a path toward the distant island that shimmered like a mirage.
Ava Kane leaned against the railing, her hair whipping around her face in the salt wind. She hadn't slept since Zurich. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her father's words written in that looping script Legacy is never just blood.
What did he mean?
What kind of legacy left behind a trail of bodies and secrets that could change the world?
Adrian stood near the helm, speaking quietly with the captain. His posture was calm, but there was a constant tension beneath it like a soldier who never really left the battlefield.
She studied him, trying to read his silence.
In the last two days, he'd saved her life, smuggled her across borders, and handed her the key to her father's past. Yet, she still didn't know who he was when the mask slipped.
When the sea spray hit her face, she turned away and said softly, "You're too quiet."
He glanced over, one eyebrow raised. "You prefer noise?"
"I prefer honesty," she said, meeting his gaze. "You said my father saved your life. But you never said how."
Adrian's jaw flexed. "Some debts are too ugly to describe."
"Try me."
He hesitated, then exhaled. "The Eden trials weren't voluntary. I was taken recruited, they called it after my unit disappeared in Syria. Your father was supposed to supervise the experiments, but he broke protocol. He injected himself with the antidote to stabilize me. It almost killed him."
Ava's breath caught. "So that's why you owe him."
"I owe him and I failed him," Adrian said quietly. "He told me to protect you if anything ever happened. But by the time I found you, they'd already embedded you in their watch list."
Her throat tightened. "And now they want me dead."
"No," he said, turning toward her. "They need you alive. That's worse."
The island grew closer.
It was small, rocky, surrounded by cliffs that rose like broken teeth from the sea. The locals called it Nostos Greek for "return." A place where myths said lost souls came to remember who they once were.
When the boat docked, Adrian jumped down first, helping Ava to the pier. The air was heavy with salt and the faint scent of thyme from the wild shrubs that clung to the rocks.
A winding path led from the shore to an abandoned monastery at the top of the cliff.
Ava frowned as they approached. "This place is centuries old."
Adrian nodded. "Perfect cover."
The iron gate creaked as he pushed it open. Inside, the monastery was silent walls draped in vines, the air cool and musty. Dust motes floated in the shafts of sunlight that spilled through the broken roof.
Ava ran her fingers across the stone altar, tracing strange symbols carved into its surface mathematical notations mixed with ancient Greek.
"This wasn't a church," she murmured. "It was a lab."
Adrian was already scanning the walls. "Your father liked layers physical and coded. Look for patterns."
She knelt beside an old mosaic, her eyes narrowing. "Here the tesserae aren't uniform. Some of these stones are metal."
Adrian crouched beside her. "A lock."
Together, they pressed the tiles in sequence the pattern matching one of the formulas from her father's journal.
A deep click echoed through the room. The altar split down the middle, stone shifting aside to reveal a staircase descending into darkness.
Ava's breath caught. "Oh my God"
Adrian flicked on his flashlight. "Stay close."
The stairs spiraled downward into a chamber lined with cold steel and old tech computers, sealed tanks, glass tubes long drained of fluid.
The Eden insignia was etched faintly on the far wall.
Ava stepped closer, her pulse thundering. "He built this himself"
Adrian was already at the console, brushing dust from the surface. "There's still power. He must've had a secondary generator."
He activated the screen. Lines of code flickered to life, followed by a video feed.
Her father's face appeared older, thinner, eyes haunted.
"If you're watching this," he said, voice crackling with static, "then Eden has breached containment. The project was never meant for control it was meant for survival."
Ava froze.
"The code inside the serum isn't human," he continued. "It's an adaptive strand discovered in the Arctic genome self-repairing, self-evolving. It bonds with the host's DNA and rewrites instability into strength. But in the wrong hands, it could erase individuality entirely."
Adrian's eyes darkened. "A genetic overwrite."
"Ava," her father said softly, looking directly into the camera now, "you were never supposed to bear this burden. But if they come for you, remember legacy isn't what's in your blood. It's what you choose to do with it."
The screen went black.
Ava's knees weakened. "He knew this would happen"
Adrian caught her before she fell. "He prepared you for it."
Her voice shook. "He didn't prepare me for you."
That made him pause. "Me?"
"You're part of this," she whispered. "You were his creation, too. So why do I feel like I'm supposed to trust you?"
He stared at her for a long moment, then said quietly, "Because you already do."
Their eyes met the air between them charged, unspoken, dangerous.
And that was when the ground trembled.
Ava jerked back. "What was that?"
Adrian grabbed her wrist, pulling her toward the stairs. "We're not alone."
They reached the upper hall just as the first explosion hit. The old monastery shook, dust raining from the ceiling. Outside, black-clad soldiers were swarming the cliffs, their vehicles cutting through the fog.
Ava's heart raced. "How did they find us so fast?"
"Lysandra," Adrian muttered. "She's always one step behind me."
He shoved a small flash drive into Ava's hand. "That's the data. Run for the docks."
She looked at him in panic. "What about you?"
"I'll buy you time."
"Adrian, no"
But he was already moving, loading his weapon with smooth, practiced motions. His voice was low but firm. "Go, Ava. Don't make your father's sacrifice mean nothing."
Tears blurred her vision as she turned and ran down the path, through smoke and shattered stone.
Behind her, gunfire erupted, echoing through the cliffs.
She stumbled toward the shore, clutching the flash drive to her chest. The sea roared against the rocks, and for a moment she thought she saw Adrian through the haze fighting, falling, rising again.
Then a blinding light burst from the monastery, and the shockwave threw her into the sand.
When she woke, the island was silent.
The monastery burned on the cliffs above, its reflection flickering across the waves. The boat was gone.
Ava's hand trembled as she looked down at the flash drive still clutched in her palm.
Adrian was gone.
But the sea whispered his words back to her "You already do."
She rose slowly, jaw tight, eyes blazing with grief and purpose.
"Then I'll finish this," she whispered to the wind. "For both of us."
The waves crashed in answer, the flames behind her turning the sky the color of blood and dawn.
And far across the sea, in a city that never slept, Dr. Lysandra Vale smiled at the live feed on her screen.
"Found you," she whispered.