تسجيل الدخولPRESENT DAY
Dominic finally opened his eyes again and realized how much the apartment still owned him until the door clicked shut behind him upon arriving.
The sound echoed soft, final against walls that had once known laughter, murmured confessions, and the quiet rustle of shared mornings.
City lights spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows, long shadows stretching across the living room like reaching hands. Traffic murmured far below, distant, and dull, as if the w
“DOMINIC!” Luca’s voice roared through the tunnels. Another explosion shook the corridor violently. “You should’ve stayed at Blackstone!”Dominic advanced instead.“YOU F8CKING SHOULD’VE STAYED AWAY FROM MY FAMILY!” He yelled angrily.More blood and gunfire started to exchange again, the tunnel becoming war itself. The unknown operators attacked from the upper ridges again suddenly.This time, they are hitting Luca’s men directly where three men dropped instantly.Another tumbled screaming into the lower shaft below.“They’re everywhere!” Aurelio cursed sharply as he took a shot.“No, they’re not.” Reyes muttered grimly beside Dominic. He looked towards Luca and his men before staring towards the direction of the gunfire from the unknown operators. “They’re herding us.”Realization hit Dominic immediately on their every movement, every engagement and every tunnel split.The one Althea found. He thought hardly.The Axis Gate kept compressing all three groups toward the same convergence
The Axis Gate fought back with no mercy and Dominic understood it now.The Gate itself resisted intrusion like a living thing buried beneath centuries of stone and blood.The deeper they descended, the worse it became.Gunfire thundered endlessly through the tunnels.Muzzle flashes erupted violently against ancient walls while three separate forces collided beneath the earth in a storm of violence and confusion.Dominic’s men.The unknown operators.Luca’s network.Somewhere beneath all of it, the Axis Gate is manipulating them all.“LEFT!” Dominic shouted over the chaos while firing toward the advancing corridor ahead.One of Luca’s men dropped instantly, blood spraying against the stone before another rushed into position behind him.Explosions shook the tunnel violently and dust cascaded from above.The walls groaned like the mountain itself resented their presence.Michael moved beside Dominic with brutal precision, eliminating another approaching shooter before dragging one wound
The descent finally began slowly and the tunnels swallowed the sound almost immediately.Stone walls narrowed around them while overhead lights attached to tactical gear cast shifting shadows across ancient surfaces carved long before any of them were born.Water dripped steadily somewhere deeper below.The air started to smell metallic and old like buried history and rust.And worst of all, the tunnels felt wrong.Althea had warned them repeatedly.“Pressure manipulation.” She enumerated dozens of times. “Behavioral funneling. Instinctive directional control. You have to focus.”Now Dominic understood exactly what she meant.Every few minutes, his body would automatically want to turn right despite logic telling him otherwise.The tunnels subtly curved.Perspective shifted and the space started to compress unevenly.Psychological architecture. Dominic thought darkly.Sebastian muttered quietly behind him, “This place is engineered to make people panic.”“It’s working.” Enzo answered
Only the faint glow of dashboard instruments illuminated the inside of the armored vehicles as the convoy moved without headlights.Dominic led the descent northward through abandoned mountain roads few people even knew existed anymore.Rain fell intermittently but it was not enough to slow their movement but it did make the darkness heavier as the drive continues.More suffocating.Inside the lead vehicle, nobody spoke for nearly twenty minutes. Their weapons are rested ready while maps remained open across Sebastian’s lap and the men are looking at them from time to time.Vincent continuously monitored the encrypted movement tracker while Michael reviewed the last structural overlays Althea gave them before leaving.Enzo meanwhile stared out the window like a man reconsidering every life decision that brought him here.“I hate tunnels.” He muttered but no one answered. He let out a heavy sigh. “You know what’s beneath tunnels?”Sebastian rubbed tiredly at his forehead.“Please don’t
Althea nodded once before she finally stepped fully into the operation.The surgery began immediately.Scalp incision.Bone access.Pressure release.Too much blood appeared almost instantly.“Suction.” Althea instructed firmly.The nurses around her moved quickly.AURELIA projected vascular overlays across the monitor while Althea’s hands moved with terrifying precision beneath the surgical lights.“Pressure rising, Doctor.” The junior doctor informed her calmly.“I see it.”Microfractures spread deeper through the cranial plate than expected.The swelling worsened and beneath it, rupture risk climbed rapidly.Helena monitored the secondary displays beside her.“Temporal artery integrity collapsing.” She quickly relayed.Althea’s jaw tightened faintly.“Clamp.”Tool exchanged instantly and the operating room became rhythm.Movement.Control.Minutes disappeared, turning into hours.Despite that, Dominic remained inside her mind.Every time the monitors stabilized briefly, her thought
The convoy carrying Althea cut through the highway long after Dominic’s team disappeared into the night.Rain had started somewhere beyond the mountains and roads started to get slick and dark. The direction almost empty except for occasional checkpoints Helena’s operators cleared ahead of them.Inside the armored vehicle, silence pressed heavily against the windows.Not the peaceful silence but the kind that came before blood, uncertainty and waiting.Althea sat near the center of the vehicle with the patient file open across her lap while Helena reviewed scans projected through the portable system beside her.Neurovascular trauma.Massive cranial injury.Multiple arterial compromise.Possible brain swelling already progressing.And beneath every clinical detail is time that is running out quickly.“He’s young.” Helena murmured quietly while enlarging another scan.Althea’s eyes scanned the imaging automatically. “Shearing near the temporal lobe.” She only murmured back and then slid
The attack began before dawn.The sky was still wrapped in darkness when the engines started.Inside the motor court, three matte-black vehicles idled in silence, their headlights off. The cold air carried the faint scent of oil and damp earth as men moved with quiet precision around them.Dominic
Sebastian stood near the map. “You shouldn’t bring him here again.” He said quietly. He remained silent for a long while to let his words sink in. “There will be more of these meetings and a while ago should be his last. It will get darker and deadlier.”Dominic leaned back against the table.“I kn
The puzzle still lay perfectly assembled on the coffee table.For several minutes after Nicholas finished it, the room’s atmosphere had stayed light. It was filled with small jokes, quiet admiration, and the easy warmth that only a child could bring into a house that had seen too much blood lately.
The study had fallen into a heavy silence even of the files still lay open across the desk. The pages inside the folder had been spread like remnants of a storm that just passed.The handwriting of Dominic’s father stared up from the margins, looking cold and clinical as though the past had finally







