Chapter 6: The Traitor’s Hand
Marco fired.
Dante shoved Mara sideways.
The bullet ripped through the wall behind her.
Water exploded from a cracked pipe.
“Marco!”
Marco didn’t flinch.
“You should’ve stayed out of Vault 7.”
Dante fired back.
Marco disappeared behind a concrete pillar.
Mercenaries poured into the tunnel from both ends.
They were trapped.
“Take the left!”
Mara grabbed the second key and ran.
Dante covered her, firing short controlled bursts.
One mercenary dropped.
Another kept coming.
Too close.
Dante slammed the rifle into the man’s face, broke his nose, and drove him into the water.
“Move!”
They reached a rusted maintenance platform.
Marco stepped onto it from the opposite side.
Calm.
Dry.
As if he had planned every second.
“You’re making this harder than it has to be.”
“You killed him,” Dante said.
“I silenced him.”
“He was my father’s man.”
“He was a liar.”
Marco raised a remote detonator.
“You think Vault 7 was a secret?”
He pressed the button.
The tunnel shook violently.
Support columns cracked.
Water surged through the sewer.
Concrete crashed down behind Mara.
The exit vanished.
Marco smiled.
“Now no one follows.”
Dante lunged.
Marco fired again.
The bullet grazed Dante’s arm.
Mara saw a loose chain hanging from an overhead maintenance crane.
Without thinking, she jumped.
She caught the chain.
Swung across the rushing water.
And kicked Marco square in the chest.
He slammed into the railing.
The detonator flew from his hand.
Dante caught it.
Marco looked at Mara with something close to recognition.
“You really don’t remember.”
He pulled a knife.
Fast.
Too fast.
He drove it toward Dante.
Mara intercepted him.
She trapped his wrist.
Twisted.
The knife fell.
Marco stared at her.
“That technique…”
His eyes widened.
“No.”
He stepped back.
“It’s impossible.”
“What is?”
Marco looked terrified for the first time.
“You’re not Lucia.”
The tunnel exploded.
A support beam collapsed between them.
Marco vanished into the smoke.
Dante grabbed Mara.
“This way!”
They climbed an emergency ladder into an abandoned subway station.
The platform was empty.
Old trains rusted on dead tracks.
A single maintenance light flickered overhead.
Mara looked at her hands.
“They keep saying I remember.”
Dante was about to answer.
A voice echoed across the platform.
“You’re remembering the wrong life.”
An elderly woman stepped out of the shadows.
White hair.
Black gloves.
A silver pendant shaped like a winged lion.
She looked at Mara with tears in her eyes.
“My child.”
Mara took a step back.
“I don’t know you.”
The woman smiled sadly.
“I know.”
She held up a photograph.
A little girl stood between two adults in front of a mansion.
The girl was Mara.
The woman was in the picture.
So was Dante’s father.
Dante stared at the photo.
“My father knew you?”
The woman nodded.
“He didn’t save Lucia Bellori.”
She looked directly at Mara.
“He stole you.”
Before anyone could speak again, a train horn roared through the abandoned station.
A locomotive with no lights came out of the darkness at full speed.
May you like
It wasn’t abandoned.
It was coming straight toward them.
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