Chapter Five

Sera’s fingers trembled. She looked down again, turning her empty palms over like the notebook might reappear if she just blinked hard enough.

But it was gone.

Gone and now in Mara’s hand, flickering across the monitor like a taunt.

“I didn’t drop it,” she whispered. “I didn’t even feel it leave how ”

Lucien stepped back from the screen, face tight, jaw locked. “She never touched you. Not directly.”

“No, but ”

“She’s trained for that,” he said, low. “Pressure point sleight-of-hand. She’s been embedded in covert units before. Deep cover. Infiltration. Black badge clearance.”

Sera turned to him sharply. “And you just let her live with you?”

“She was never supposed to be active,” he snapped. “I kept her close because I thought I could control her.”

She laughed once bitter and quiet. “Guess you thought wrong.”

On the screen, Mara was moving now toward the east wing. She didn’t rush. She didn’t hide. Her confidence was a message: I don’t need to run. You’re too late.

“She’s not leaving,” Lucien muttered.

“No,” Sera said slowly, eyes narrowing. “She’s waiting.”

“For what?”

“For me.”

Lucien looked at her.

“She wanted me to find that notebook,” Sera said, breath speeding. “She wanted me to follow the trail. That whole ‘camera breach’? She wanted you to panic. She wanted us down here.”

Lucien’s eyes darkened. “Why?”

The overhead lights dimmed again.

On the wall behind them, a second screen flickered to life.

Security cam. Basement level.

A door was opening.

From the outside.

Lucien spun. “Someone’s breaching the vault.”

Sera felt it now that drop in pressure, the way the air shifted. She turned to the terminal and hit the emergency lockdown key.

Nothing happened.

“System’s jammed,” she said. “Your backups aren’t responding.”

Lucien was already grabbing a sidearm from the weapons locker. He tossed a second one to her.

She didn’t catch it.

“Don’t give me that unless you’re ready to watch me use it.”

He stared at her. “I wouldn’t give you anything I didn’t think you could handle.”

Another feed activated grayscale, grainy.

A man stepped into view.

Tall. Hooded. Quiet.

And for a second, Sera saw the profile.

Her knees almost gave out.

“Elise’s face…” she whispered. “He looks like her.”

Lucien’s voice was ice. “Aiden.”

The screen glitched.

Then went black.

Footsteps echoed down the stairwell.

The footsteps were slow.

Measured.

Not the rush of an intruder.

The descent of someone who knew exactly where he was going and who was waiting for him when he arrived.

Sera gripped the edge of the terminal, her breath sharp in her lungs. Across from her, Lucien had gone unnervingly still, weapon raised, his entire body wired like a drawn bowstring.

“Do not speak first,” he said, eyes fixed on the door. “Do not move unless I move first. And if I say run, you run.”

Sera nodded, but her fingers were numb. Because if the man on that screen was who Lucien thought he was, this wasn’t just a breach.

It was an unburial.

Aiden Mara. Dead on paper. Gone from every official system. But Elise had spoken his name with fear real fear and now he was here, inside the vault of the man her sister once trusted.

A soft click echoed from the other side of the steel door.

Lucien raised his weapon higher. “It’s coded. No one gets through without my ”

The lock turned.

The door hissed open.

And there he stood.

Aiden.

Mid-thirties. Pale. Underfed but calculated. Dark clothing, a scar across the side of his neck. No mask. No gun. Just eyes too sharp for someone who was supposed to be dead.

His gaze went straight to Sera.

“You look like her,” he said, voice low. “But you’re louder.”

Lucien stepped forward, gun trained. “One reason I shouldn’t shoot you right now.”

Aiden lifted his hands. “Because you’re not the target tonight.”

Lucien didn’t lower the gun. “Then who is?”

Aiden’s eyes flicked back to Sera. “Not who. What.”

She frowned. “What the hell does that mean?”

He took a step forward. Lucien didn’t shoot but the muzzle stayed centered on Aiden’s chest.

“I came for the notebook,” Aiden said. “But Mara made a mistake. She brought it to you.”

“You were watching?”

“I never stopped watching.” His eyes never left Sera. “Your sister trusted the wrong person. Not him.” He nodded toward Lucien. “Mara.”

Sera’s voice cracked. “What happened to Elise?”

Aiden blinked. A small, bitter smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.

“She survived.”

Sera exhaled a sound that was almost relief. “Then where is she? Why hasn’t she come to me?”

“Because if you find her,” he said slowly, “you die. And she knows that.”

Silence fell heavy in the room.

Lucien spoke next, voice like ice shattering. “Then what now?”

Aiden dropped his hands. “Now you let me finish what Elise started. Or I’ll do it with or without you.”

Another pause.

Then the lights overhead sparked again.

Not red.

Green.

Lucien lowered the gun by an inch.

And the vault door behind Aiden sealed shut locking all three of them in.

The heavy lock behind Aiden clicked into place.

Sera spun toward the door, her pulse pounding. “What did you just do?”

“I didn’t do it,” Aiden said calmly. “That was Mara.”

Lucien stepped forward. “She sealed us in?”

“No,” Aiden corrected. “She isolated you.”

Lucien narrowed his eyes. “Explain.”

Aiden walked further into the room, slow, careful, hands still visible. “Mara’s not here for Elise. She’s here for what Elise buried. And she’s using you your obsession with control to flush it out.”

Sera stepped in between them. “What does Elise have that’s worth all this?”

Aiden tilted his head, like he was debating how much to give away. “Evidence. Leverage. A list. Hidden in pieces. Not digital. Handwritten, coded, moved around this house like a smuggler’s vault.”

Lucien's eyes narrowed. “You’re talking about Project Halo.”

The temperature dropped a degree.

Sera didn’t know the term. But the way Lucien’s voice flattened it was something that mattered.

Aiden nodded once. “Your company was one of the filters. Elise found the backdoor. She followed the money and it led here.”

“Led where?” Sera asked, stepping closer.

Aiden’s gaze met hers. “To you.”

Sera flinched. “Me?”

“Elise used you,” he said. “The same way she used me. You were her ghost exit plan. A final variable. She believed if she disappeared, someone would keep digging. Someone who didn’t have a file. A footprint.”

Lucien's voice sharpened. “And Mara’s afraid she was right.”

Aiden nodded once. “Now Mara’s trying to clean the board.”

Sera felt dizzy. The room, the vault, the secrets all of it pressed against her chest like a weight she hadn’t trained to carry.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered.

“You will,” Aiden said. “Because she’s going to come for you next.”

Lucien stepped closer to her, shielding her instinctively. “Let her try.”

“No,” Aiden said. “You don’t understand either.”

He looked at them both.

“She’s not coming to kill her,” he said.

A beat of silence.

“She’s coming to trade her.”