Beneath the City

The catacombs were a labyrinth of shadow and decay, but I knew them better than I knew my own face. My father had taught me the layout when I was six, drawing maps in the condensation on my bedroom window. *Just in case, Aria. Just in case the wolves come.*

He hadn't told me the wolves would be his own creations.

I led Felix through the darkness, my hand on the damp stone wall. He was moving slower now, his breathing ragged. The adrenaline from the firefight was fading, leaving only the pain of his injuries.

"We need to stop," I said, pausing at a junction where three tunnels met. "You're bleeding."

"I'm fine," Felix rasped, though he leaned heavily against the wall. "Just a scratch."

"A scratch doesn't soak through two layers of Kevlar," I said, shining my flashlight on his side. The fabric was dark and slick.

"We can't stop here," he argued. "Vesper said Lucius has a secondary team sweeping the lower levels."

"Vesper is busy playing queen," I said bitterly. "We're on our own."

I dragged him into a small alcove, hidden behind a fallen slab of concrete. It was cramped and smelled of old rust, but it was defensible.

I opened the medkit I'd stolen from the transport truck. "Hold still."

I cut away his shirt. The wound was ugly—a jagged tear just above his hip bone. But it had missed the major organs.

"You're lucky," I said, packing the wound with gauze. "Another inch to the left and we'd be having a very different conversation."

Felix hissed in pain but didn't pull away. "Luck had nothing to do with it. Kael was aiming for my head. I slipped."

I finished bandaging him and handed him a bottle of water. He drank greedily, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Aria," he said, his voice serious. "About the ring."

I looked down at my hand. The Signet of the Founders gleamed in the dim light, heavy and cold. It felt like a shackle.

"What about it?"

"You can't keep it. It's a target."

"I know."

"Then why did you take it?"

"Because Vesper was right," I said, staring at the ruby crest. "Lucius didn't steal this power. He was given it. My parents built this machine, Felix. They designed the surveillance, the black sites, the funding networks. Lucius just kept the lights on."

"So you're going to take over the family business?" Felix asked, his tone sharp. "Become the next Director?"

"No," I said. "I'm going to dismantle it. From the inside."

I stood up, pacing the small space.

"The key Dante gave his life for... it rebooted the system, but it didn't destroy it. The protocols are too deep. Too redundant. To kill it, I need access to the source code. The original architecture."

"And where is that?"

"In the Vault," I said. "The one beneath the Citadel. The one only a Founder can open."

Felix stared at me. "That's suicide. The Citadel is on lockdown."

"Not for me," I said, twisting the ring on my finger. "Not anymore."

Suddenly, a sound echoed through the tunnel. A low, rhythmic *thump-thump-thump*.

Music.

Bass-heavy, distorted by the stone walls.

"What the hell is that?" Felix whispered.

I moved to the edge of the alcove, peering into the darkness.

"It sounds like... a club."

We moved cautiously toward the sound. The tunnel opened up into a wider passage, the floor slick with condensation. The music grew louder, joined by the faint murmur of voices.

We reached a grate set into the ceiling. Light filtered down through the bars, illuminating the murky water at our feet.

I climbed up the rusted rungs and peered through the grate.

We were directly beneath a street. But not just any street. We were under the Financial District.

And above us, on a massive screen mounted to the side of a skyscraper, was my face.

*BREAKING NEWS: TERRORIST ATTACK AT GALA. SUSPECT AT LARGE.*

My photo—a grainy image from the security footage at the ballroom—was plastered across the screen. Beside it was a photo of Felix.

*WANTED ARMED AND DANGEROUS.*

"We're famous," I whispered, dropping back down.

"Great," Felix muttered. "Just what I always wanted."

"We can't go up," I said. "Every camera in the city is looking for us."

"So we stay down here?"

"No," I said. "We go deeper."

I led him away from the grate, following the flow of the underground stream. The water was rising, fed by the storm drains.

We walked for an hour, the silence of the catacombs pressing in on us. My mind kept drifting back to Dante. To the way he had looked at me in the hospital room. To the way he had smiled before the helicopter took him away.

*Greedy.*

He had called me greedy for saving them both. Maybe he was right. Maybe I should have let him go.

But I couldn't. I loved him. And that love was the only thing keeping me tethered to my humanity.

We reached a heavy iron door, rusted shut. Above it, a faded sign read: *EMERGENCY ACCESS - SECTOR 7.*

Sector 7. The old maintenance tunnels for the subway system.

"Help me with this," I said.

Together, we heaved against the wheel. It groaned, protested, then turned with a screech of metal.

The door swung open.

We stepped through into a tiled corridor. It was cleaner here, drier. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead.

We had made it out of the catacombs.

But as we turned the corner, I saw it.

A pharmacy. Its glass front shattered, alarms silent.

And inside, reflected in a broken mirror, was the news ticker on a television screen.

*LUCIUS VANE DEAD. DAUGHTER ARIA VANE NAMED PRIME SUSPECT.*

I froze.

Lucius Vane.

Vane.

Not Blackwood.

I looked at Felix. He was staring at the screen, his face pale.

"Aria," he said. "Did you know?"

"Know what?"

"Your father's name," he whispered. "It wasn't Blackwood. It was Vane."

I stared at the screen.

Lucius wasn't just my parents' enforcer.

He was my uncle.