Damian Wolfe
Vault 07 – Sublevel 3, Undisclosed Location
The vault recognized my biometrics with a hiss of steel and silence. Cold, precise. Like everything my father built.
I stepped into the chamber—rows of reinforced servers, glowing like the heartbeat of a dead empire. Only a few of us even knew this place existed. Fewer still had keys.
One of those people just handed me a poisoned dagger.
The Bishop was already inside, face partially lit by cascading code on the monitor. He didn't look at me as he spoke.
"It came in through Jasper's courier. No flag, no warning. Just like they wanted."
I didn't answer. I already recognized the drive.
Aria's drive.
Not the original. A copy.
But it wasn't the contents that made my pulse tighten. It was the architecture. Beautiful. Vicious. Beneath the shell data, the worm flickered to life, burying into our network like it had teeth.
A tracer. Sophisticated. Custom-built.
She made this. For me.
"She's good," Bishop muttered, fingers dancing over the keyboard, isolating the spread. "Elegant code. Hits the system slow—like it's asking permission to ruin you."
I said nothing.
"She knew this would come to you," he continued. "Whoever she's working with, they know Monarch's structure. Vault routing. Secure drop procedures. This wasn't about exposure. It was a test."
"No," I said quietly. "It was a message."
He finally turned. "Then what's it say?"
I stared at the infected server node on the screen, the tracer looping one simple signature over and over like a brand.
Vale.
"She knows I'm watching," I said. "And now she wants me to see her."
Bishop leaned back. "So she's calling your bluff."
"No," I murmured. "She's raising the stakes."
Because if she was smart enough to plant this in a file Jasper would smuggle to Vault 07, then she wasn't just testing him. She was marking him. And me. Seeing who followed the lie to the source.
And now she had her answer.
"She knew you'd catch it before it did damage," Bishop said. "So what now?"
I closed the distance to the console, reached down, and ejected the drive with a soft click. I held it in my hand—this beautiful little betrayal—crafted like a love letter wrapped in razor wire.
"She thinks I'm the king," I said. "That I'm the one sitting on the throne she wants to burn."
"And aren't you?" Bishop asked.
I looked up, jaw set.
"I didn't build this empire. I inherited its rot."
I slipped the drive into my pocket.
"But if she wants to play with fire—"
I turned back to the vault door, steel closing in behind me.
"Then I'll show her what it means to burn."
---
Aria Vale
Location: Safehouse, 4:47 a.m.
The moment the tracer pinged, I stopped breathing.
A soft pulse on the screen. Not loud. Not urgent. Just steady—like a second heartbeat beneath my own.
Vault 07 accessed.
My fingers curled around the edge of the desk, nails digging into the wood. He'd taken the bait.
He saw it.
Damian fucking Wolfe opened the file.
I wasn't sure if the cold in my spine was triumph or terror.
"Tell me it's in," Kira said behind me. She stepped closer, booted, black-clad, eyes sharp from too many nights without sleep. Her voice carried the weight of readiness—like she was just waiting for permission to break something.
"It's in," I said. "And it's alive."
She leaned over my shoulder, watching the tracer loop Damian's coordinates. "So we were right. Vault 07's still in use."
I nodded. "Still buried under layers of firewalls and encrypted protocol, but yeah—it's real. Active. And if he went there himself…"
"Then that vault holds more than backup drives and blackmail."
"Legacy," I said, throat dry. "Blood legacy."
Kira looked at me then—really looked at me. "You sure about this? Once we step near that vault, we're not just tapping at his secrets. We're detonating the foundation."
I stared at the screen. At the path I built. At the man I couldn't stop wanting—even now.
"This isn't just about Damian anymore," I said. "It's about what he was born into. What my father died protecting. What they've all been hiding."
"And if Damian's just another one of them?" Kira asked. "Not a protector. Not a savior. Just a king built from the same rot?"
"Then I'll take his crown," I said. "And his empire with it."
Kira's lips twitched. Not quite a smile. "Then let's move."
---
~Two Hours Later~
Location: Perimeter near Vault 07's outer security hub – Unmapped industrial zone
The air was thick with metal and mildew. Beneath the city, where the grid thinned and signals bled out, Vault 07 sat like a myth carved in steel. No signage. No entry records. No shadows cast unless you knew where to look.
We stood across the street, unmarked van humming low, sensors feeding a quiet stream of data.
"It's quiet," Kira said. "Too quiet. No patrol, no drones. They want it to look abandoned."
"Until someone knocks."
I held up a tablet. The tracer was still pinging.
"He's inside," I said. "Not long. But long enough to trigger the dead man's switch."
Kira raised an eyebrow. "You planted a ghost key?"
"Encrypted and buried in a subprotocol. It's not an attack. Just a mirror."
"A mirror of what?"
"His access signature. If he opens the right door again—we'll know what it unlocks."
Kira studied the compound, calculating. "We need to go in fast. Quiet. And if we trip anything…"
"We won't," I said. "Because we're not going through the front."
I turned the tablet and pulled up an old blueprint—one buried in a military archive my mother left hidden behind coded poetry.
"There's a second access point. South wall. Sewer-adjacent. Built for emergency evacuation."
Kira grinned now. "You always did have a thing for dirty back doors."
I didn't smile.
Not yet.
We were getting closer to the center. To the place where all the threads tangled.
Vault 07 wasn't just a place. It was a memory.
And I was about to walk into it.
To find the truth.
To face Damian Wolfe's legacy.
And maybe—
To finally expose him for what he really is.