They burst out of the kitchen garden shed and into a hidden garage Aria never knew existed. It smelled of oil and cold concrete. In the center sat a vehicle, low and dark like a panther sleeping in its den. It wasn't just a car. It was an armored thing, with thick windows and a body that looked like it could take a hit.
Get in, Dominic ordered, his voice leaving no room for questions. He pushed her firmly but not roughly towards the passenger door before circling to the driver's side.
The engine roared to life, a deep, powerful sound that vibrated in Aria's bones. The garage door slid open silently, revealing a narrow service road swallowed by darkness. Dominic didn't turn on the headlights. He drove by the faint glow of a dashboard that looked more like an aircraft's controls, navigating the twisting path with an eerie confidence.
They left the burning estate behind, the orange glow shrinking in the rearview mirror until it was just a bad dream. The silence inside the car was heavy, thick with the things that had just happened. The violence. The badge. The kiss.
Aria stared straight ahead, seeing nothing but the memory of that pin in her hand. It felt like a ghost touching her, her father's ghost. She finally turned her head to look at Dominic. His profile was sharp in the dashboard lights, his hands steady on the wheel. He was a stranger she had kissed like her life depended on it, and maybe it had.
That badge, she said, her voice sounding strange to her own ears. My father worked for the government. That was his real job, wasn't it? Not an academic. Are they the ones after me?
His jaw tightened. A muscle flickered there. Not the government. A faction within it. A cancer. Your father was an archivist for a department so secret most politicians don't know it exists. He wasn't just moving numbers on a page. He was moving truths. And he found one they couldn't afford to let out.
Aria shook her head, trying to make the pieces fit. What truth? What could be so big?
A corruption plot, Dominic said, his eyes never leaving the dark road. Not just bribes or favors. A systematic plan to control information, to rewrite policy by erasing history. To start wars, to end careers, to make billions disappear. He had names, dates, transactions. The whole rotten blueprint.
And he hid it, she whispered, the conclusion landing with a sickening thud.
He hid it with the only thing they couldn't touch without drawing attention. The only thing he loved more than the truth. You.
Aria felt a cold laugh bubble up in her throat, but it came out as a choked sob. Me? How? I don't have anything! I've never seen a file, a drive, a piece of paper! He never gave me anything!
He did, Dominic said, and his voice changed. It lost some of its hard edge, replaced by something almost like pity. He just didn't give it to you in a box. He implanted it. A biometric data drive, about the size of a grain of rice. Keyed to your unique nervous system. Your heartbeat, your brainwaves, your body's electrical signature. It's the ultimate lock. And the key is you being alive and... you.
The world didn't just tilt. It flipped over. Aria's stomach clenched. She looked down at her own hands, her arms, as if she could see the thing inside her. She felt phantom itches, imagined a foreign object under her skin. Her own body was a vault. Her father had turned her into a living, breathing secret.
When? she breathed out.
When you were sixteen. You had your appendix out. Remember? He insisted on a specific private clinic. Said it was the best.
She did remember. A foggy memory of anxiety, her father's unusually pale face in the hospital hallway, holding her hand too tightly. She had thought he was just scared for her. He was turning her into a weapon.
Oh, God, she said, covering her face with her hands. The nausea was real now. He used me. He turned me into a... a thing.
He was trying to save you, Dominic said, but it sounded weak, even to him. In his mind, the information was a death sentence. Hidden in plain sight, in you, it was a shield. As long as you were oblivious and alive, the secret was safe. They couldn't kill you for what you didn't know you had. And they couldn't extract it without killing you and destroying the data. It was a desperate, stupid, brilliant plan.
Aria dropped her hands, turning to him, tears of anger and betrayal hot in her eyes. And you? Where do you fit in this sick plan? Were you my father's hired muscle?
For the first time since they'd met, Dominic looked... tired. Not physically, but in his soul. The hard mask slipped, just for a second.
I was assigned to protect you, he said, the words simple and heavy. Six months ago, my agency got a whisper that the Ordine was closing in on Alistair Moreau's daughter. They wanted it to look like an accident. A robbery gone wrong. A tragic loss of a promising academic. I was given your file and orders to observe and neutralize any threats.
Observe and neutralize. She shivered at the clinical terms.
I embedded myself. Watched you at the library, at your cafe, in your little apartment. I read your thesis drafts. He glanced at her, and in that look, she saw it all, the weeks of him being a shadow in her life before he became the cage. I realized two things. First, you were the most brilliantly unaware person I'd ever met. You had no idea what you were carrying. Second, the order to eliminate you if extraction of the asset failed didn't come from the legitimate chain of command. It came from the cancer. My own agency was compromised.
He went quiet for a moment, navigating the car onto a deserted highway, finally switching on the headlights. The world was a tunnel of asphalt and darkness.
So I went off grid, he finished, his voice flat. I took the asse, you out of their playbook before they could make their move. I became a fugitive to protect a fugitive truth.
The full weight of it settled on Aria. He wasn't just some mafia kingpin. He was a rogue agent. A man who had broken his oath, burned his life, and kidnapped her to save her from his own people. The danger wasn't just out there. It was the very system meant to protect, twisted and poisonous.
You're a fugitive too, she said softly.
He gave a single, sharp nod. Every face on that estate tonight, the ones in the black gear, they were either Ordine contractors or agency cleaners. They're not just after you for the data. They're after me for treason. We are, quite literally, all each other has.
The statement should have filled her with despair. Instead, a strange, fragile calm began to seep in. The lies were gone. The pretty cages were gone. There was only this hard, ugly truth, the dark road, and the man beside her who had chosen ruin over betrayal.
Where are we going? she asked.
Somewhere they won't expect. A place that belongs only to me. No agency files, no Ordine connections. He reached over, his hand leaving the wheel to find hers where it rested on her thigh. His touch was warm, solid. His fingers laced with hers, a simple, profound connection in the chaos. Just hold on, Aria. We're not done running.
She looked down at their joined hands. His knuckles were bruised from the fight. She turned her hand over, palm up, accepting his grip. She was holding the hand of her kidnapper, her protector, a wanted man. She was holding the only real thing left.
For a long time, they drove in silence, the miles eating up the darkness. The adrenaline crash was coming. She felt hollowed out, scraped raw. She leaned her head against the cool window, watching the blur of trees.
Dominic, she said after a while, her eyes closed. That kiss...
Was a mistake, he finished, his voice rough. It compromised my focus. It won't happen again.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. He was staring straight ahead, his jaw set. But his hand was still holding hers, his thumb making slow, absent circles on her skin, betraying his words.
Liar, she whispered.
This time, he didn't argue. A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips, gone as soon as it came. He just squeezed her hand tighter.
The car sped on, a steel cocoon carrying them through the night. Ahead, the first faint hints of dawn were bleeding into the sky, a pale grey light that promised nothing but another day of running. Aria closed her eyes again, not to sleep, but to feel the rhythm of the road, the warmth of his hand, the terrible, terrifying truth now living inside her own skin.
She was the vault. He was
the key. And together, they were hurtling towards an end she couldn't yet see.