The Vault reeked of blood.
Not metaphorically—real blood.
Ezra lay unconscious, a bullet just grazing his shoulder. Nathaniel's knuckles were bruised raw. Celeste clutched a knife slick with someone else's truth. Alfreda?
She was the only one who hadn't moved.
She stood staring into the shadows.
Because from them—Lorena Black stepped forward.
Not as a memory. Not as a ghost.
Alive.
Her eyes shimmered with menace. The years had aged her beautifully—silver at her temples, but her voice was steel.
"Well," she said. "Look at my children. Squabbling like street rats over crumbs."
Nathaniel's mouth moved, but no words came.
Alfreda, however, recovered first. "We watched you die."
Lorena smiled. "No. You watched what I wanted you to see."
Behind her, two figures emerged—armed. Cloaked in jet-black Widowmaker armor. One male. One female.
She gestured to them. "Meet the Serpents. My loyalists. The ones I trained in silence while your fathers ruined my empire."
Celeste stepped forward, her blade raised. "This empire was never yours."
"Wrong," Lorena said, unshaken. "The Widowmakers were mine before they were Gaius'. Before Nathaniel's father twisted it into a circus of power and paranoia."
Nathaniel found his voice. "Why now?"
"Because now," she said, "you've opened the Vault. You've revealed Project HADES. And the world is ripe for a new Widowmaker Queen."
Alfreda scoffed. "So this was all a game to you."
"No," Lorena said softly. "It was vengeance."
Hours earlier…
In a remote medical facility once hidden by the original Widowmakers, Lorena awoke from her final cryostasis cycle. She had died—technically—three times.
Each resurrection cost her memories, each time she had to relearn her rage.
This time, she remembered everything.
The betrayal of her husband. The plot to erase her. The surgical hand that removed her from history.
And the data. She remembered the data.
Files buried in the Vault that could resurrect not just her body—but her purpose.
She smiled as the final lock of the Vault fell. They'd brought her back with their curiosity. And now, she'd finish what was started in fire and blood.
Present.
Ezra stirred, groaning. "You're supposed to be dead."
Lorena crouched beside him, brushing his hair from his brow. "Poor boy. I raised you like mine. And yet… I always knew you'd choose the wrong side."
"You made me a killer."
"No," she said, voice like silk. "I made you a weapon. What you became was your choice."
Nathaniel raised his gun.
"You're not leaving this place alive," he said.
But Lorena didn't flinch.
Instead, she laughed.
"Oh darling… I'm not the one who's leaving. You are."
With a snap of her fingers, the Serpents lunged.
Gunfire. Steel against steel. Alfreda's heel smashed a jaw. Celeste took a shot to the ribs but kept going. Ezra fought with desperation born of betrayal.
But it was Nathaniel—cold, calculated—who reached Lorena again.
Only this time, she was ready.
She slashed him across the chest with a hidden blade and whispered into his ear, "Tell your father I'm reclaiming my empire."
He fell back, blood blooming across his shirt.
Alfreda caught him. "Nathaniel!"
But Lorena was already gone—slipping into the shadows with her soldiers, leaving only blood behind.
Later, at the safehouse…
Nathaniel was stitched, sedated, and silent.
Celeste sat beside Ezra, pressing a bag of ice to his temple. "You okay?"
He nodded. "I don't know what side I'm on anymore."
"Good," Celeste muttered. "That makes two of us."
Meanwhile, Alfreda sat alone.
Staring at the file Lorena had slipped into her pocket before disappearing.
One word written across it: Mother.
She opened it with trembling hands.
Inside: a DNA report. A birth certificate. A photo.
A woman with her smile. Her eyes.
Alfreda wasn't who she thought she was.
She wasn't the daughter of the man who raised her.
She was Lorena Black's.