Chapter 10 - The Vault Beneath the HospitalSmoke filled the underground passage.
Luca moved through it with Marco and Mara behind him.
Every second mattered.
The hospital above was chaos.
Sirens.
Fire.
Screaming.
But the real battle was beneath them.
They found the elevator.
No power.
Luca looked at Mara.
“Can you open it?”
She nodded.
“Give me thirty seconds.”
“You have ten.”
Mara sighed.
“Your bedside manner is terrible.”
The doors opened.
They descended.
Level B7.
B8.
B9.
The display stopped.
No label.
Luca stepped out.
The corridor was made of concrete.
At the end stood a steel door.
A biometric scanner.
Luca placed his hand against it.
Nothing.
He frowned.
Then blood from his shoulder touched the scanner.
The door opened.
Inside was a vault.
Not money.
Not weapons.
Files.
Hundreds.
One table.
One photograph.
Luca's father.
And a little boy.
Luca stared.
The boy was him.
Another child stood beside him.
Adrian.
Both were maybe six.
Their father stood behind them.
Smiling.
A handwritten note lay beneath the photograph.
My sons.
Luca picked it up.
His hands shook.
One of you will survive.
He read the next line.
One of you will become the key.
Mara stared over his shoulder.
“What does that mean?”
A monitor switched on.
A recording began.
His father appeared.
“Luca, if you're seeing this, the project failed.”
Luca's jaw tightened.
“You were never supposed to know about Adrian.”
The recording continued.
“He carries the mutation more aggressively than you.”
A graph appeared.
Then another.
“But you were the first child in whom the disease remained dormant.”
Luca whispered:
“Emma.”
His father nodded in the video.
“Yes.”
“Your daughter may be the breakthrough.”
Luca's fists clenched.
His father continued.
“Not because she can cure you.”
The screen went black.
Then one final sentence appeared.
Because she can stop the disease permanently.
Luca stared.
Mara whispered:
“What does that mean?”
A second recording opened automatically.
His mother appeared.
Younger.
Terrified.
“If your father is gone, then the Valtieri are coming for the child.”
The image shifted.
A laboratory.
Emma's genetic chart.
Then Adrian.
Then Luca.
A final line:
ONE BODY. THREE BLOODLINES. ONE CURE.
Suddenly the vault doors slammed shut.
Someone had locked them in.
Marco raised his gun.
“Trap.”
Gas began filling the room.
Luca coughed.
“Get the door open!”
Mara searched for a control panel.
Nothing.
Then a voice came through the speaker.
Adrian.
“Brother.”
Luca looked up.
“Let us out.”
“I can't.”
“Where is Emma?”
Silence.
Then:
“She asked me something.”
“What?”
Adrian's voice trembled.
“She asked why Daddy disappeared.”
Luca's heart broke.
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
Luca's breathing stopped.
“What truth?”
Adrian whispered:
“That your father abandoned you too.”
Then the gas thickened.
Luca fell.
The last thing he saw was a camera lens watching him.
And behind that lens…
A tiny pair of green eyes.
May you like
Emma was standing somewhere above.
Watching.
