The night stretched endlessly over the city, the lights outside Adrian's penthouse painting ghostly patterns across the walls.
Lena sat curled on the couch, wrapped in one of his jackets, while Adrian stood by the window, phone pressed to his ear, voice low and sharp.
"Yes, lock down every safehouse," he said. "And I want surveillance running on every exit route out of the district."
A pause.
Then a colder tone. "If you see Victor, don't engage. He wants her alive. That's his weakness."
He hung up, exhaled slowly, and finally turned toward her.
Lena's gaze was distant, fixed on nothing. Her fingers traced the rim of a teacup she hadn't touched.
"Did you know he was watching us before tonight?" she asked quietly.
Adrian hesitated. "I suspected."
She looked up, eyes narrowing. "Suspected? You mean you knew."
"I didn't want to panic you."
She gave a soft, humorless laugh. "Panic me? Adrian, my blood glows in the dark, my memories are lies, and someone is trying to erase me from existence. I think panic's the least of my problems."
He ran a hand through his hair, frustration flickering across his face. "I was trying to protect you."
She stood, her voice trembling. "No. You were trying to control me."
---
The words hung heavy in the air.
For the first time, Adrian didn't look like the untouchable man she'd met weeks ago. He looked tired. Haunted.
He moved closer but kept his distance. "There's something you don't understand, Lena. If Victor gets to you first—"
She cut him off. "You keep talking like he's the only one who lied to me. But you've been lying too."
Adrian froze.
Lena's voice dropped. "When you said you didn't know what Marcus did to me… that wasn't true, was it?"
He didn't answer.
Tears filled her eyes. "Tell me I'm wrong, Adrian."
Silence.
---
When he finally spoke, his voice was rough, barely a whisper. "I found the tapes two years ago. My father recorded every test subject. Every procedure."
Her knees went weak. "And you watched them."
"I had to know what he did. What he was capable of."
Her voice broke. "And you saw me there. You saw what he did to me, and you still hired me?"
"I didn't bring you here for this," he said desperately. "I wanted to keep you safe—"
"By lying to me?" she snapped.
He stepped forward. "Lena—"
"Don't," she said, backing away. "Don't you dare say my name like you care when you've been using me to fix your father's sins."
He clenched his jaw. "You think this is easy for me? I've been trying to undo what he did for years! You're not a project to me—"
"Then what am I?" she demanded. "A reminder? A burden? A convenient excuse to make you feel like the hero?"
His silence was her answer.
---
She turned away, tears falling freely now. "You watched me suffer and said nothing. You could've told me the truth from the beginning."
"I thought I could save you from it," he whispered.
"No one gets saved by lies, Adrian."
She walked toward the door, her hand trembling as she reached for the handle.
He caught her wrist — not hard, but enough to stop her. "If you walk out now, he'll find you."
She looked back at him, her voice cold and broken. "Maybe that's better than staying with someone who already did."
---
For a moment, neither spoke. The rain outside began again, soft but relentless, like the city itself was crying with them.
Adrian finally let her go. "There's one more file," he said quietly. "The final Phoenix log. It's locked under my name."
She stopped but didn't turn around. "And?"
"It contains the original DNA blueprint — yours and my father's combined."
Her breath hitched. "Combined?"
"Yes." His voice cracked. "You were his legacy, Lena. But not the way you think."
---
She turned slowly, eyes wide with disbelief. "What are you saying?"
Adrian swallowed hard. "Marcus didn't just test the serum on you. He used his own genome to stabilize it. That's why the serum worked."
Lena stared at him in horror. "So part of me—"
"—is him," Adrian finished. "And part of you carries what he left behind."
Her hand went to her chest as if trying to tear the truth out of herself. "Get out," she whispered.
"Lena—"
"Get. Out."
He hesitated, his face breaking, then turned and left the room without another word.
---
When the door clicked shut, Lena slid to the floor, her body shaking. The glow under her skin flickered again — not bright this time, but faint, like dying embers.
She whispered to the empty room, "What did you do to me?"
Outside, thunder rumbled — and miles away, in a darkened control room, Victor Hale watched her through a flickering monitor.
He smiled.
> "She's beginning to reject the lie. Just as planned."