Chapter 2: Vault 7
Dante grabbed Mara’s wrist.
“Move.”
Another shot exploded from somewhere above the kitchen.
A guard crashed through the doorway.
“Second shooter!”
Dante didn’t hesitate. He pulled Mara through a service corridor lined with steel shelves and swinging doors.
Bullets tore through the walls behind them.
“Left!”
She obeyed.
A waiter stepped into the hallway.
Dante shoved him aside and kicked open a heavy security door.
They burst into a freight elevator.
The doors started closing.
A bullet punched through the narrowing gap.
Metal screamed.
The elevator dropped.
Mara pressed a hand against her bleeding shoulder.
“You’re not taking me to the police.”
“No.”
“Then where?”
“The only place that can explain that key.”
The elevator stopped beneath the Moretti estate.
The doors opened onto darkness.
Concrete walls.
Cold air.
Armed guards waiting with rifles already raised.
“Boss.”
“Seal every entrance.”
The guards moved instantly.
Dante walked down a narrow corridor until they reached an old steel door.
No keypad.
No handle.
Only a circular lock shaped like a winged lion.
He held up Mara’s key.
It fit perfectly.
The lock turned.
A deep mechanical rumble echoed underground.
The door opened.
Dust rolled across the floor.
No one had entered in years.
Rows of abandoned vaults stretched into the darkness.
Vault 1.
Vault 2.
Vault 3.
They kept moving.
At the end of the corridor stood a larger door.
VAULT 7.
Dante stopped.
“My father sealed this room twenty years ago.”
“You’ve never opened it?”
“He ordered everyone to stay away.”
He inserted the key.
The lock clicked.
The vault door swung inward.
The smell hit first.
Old paper.
Rust.
And dried blood.
Mara stepped inside.
A desk sat in the center of the room.
A shattered lamp.
Bullet holes in the walls.
Dark stains across the floor.
Someone had died here.
Dante opened the desk drawer.
Empty.
The second drawer.
A leather notebook.
Inside was a list of names.
Politicians.
Judges.
Bankers.
Crime families.
Every name had a red line through it.
Except one.
Dante Moretti.
His own name.
Mara looked around.
“There’s another door.”
Hidden behind a collapsed shelf.
They pushed it aside.
A narrow passage descended deeper underground.
Fresh footprints marked the dust.
Dante’s hand moved to his pistol.
“Someone’s been here.”
A metallic click echoed from below.
Mara froze.
“That wasn’t us.”
The lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the tunnel.
Then a calm male voice echoed through the black.
“Welcome back, Mr. Moretti.”
A red laser sight settled on Dante’s chest.
A second laser appeared on Mara’s forehead.
Then a third.
And a fourth.
Dante slowly raised his gun.
The voice laughed.
“Don’t.”
The tunnel walls shifted.
Hidden panels slid open.
Masked gunmen stepped out from both sides, rifles already aimed.
There were too many.
The man in front removed his mask.
Gray hair.
Scar across his jaw.
Dante’s expression hardened.
“You.”
The man smiled.
“I was wondering when the lion’s daughter would finally find the key.”
Mara stared at him.
“I don’t know who you are.”
“Oh, you will.”
He looked directly at Dante.
May you like
“Kill him.”
Every rifle fired at once.
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