The Zenith's proposal hung in the air like a poisoned mist. "Her blood for his life."
Elara felt the eyes of a hundred masked predators boring into her. The plunging neckline of her gown felt like a target, her breasts heaving with such intensity that the delicate silk whispered against her skin, the soft mounds jiggling with every panicked breath. She looked at Dante, searching for a sign, a flicker of the man who had claimed her in the motel.
Dante's hand shifted from her waist to her nape, his fingers tangling in her hair, forcing her head back. To the crowd, it looked like a cruel display of dominance. To Elara, it was the only thing keeping her upright.
"You want her blood?" Dante's voice was a low, lethal vibration. He leaned in, his silver wolf mask brushing against her gilded bird mask. "You haven't even paid for the dirt she walks on."
In one fluid motion, Dante didn't reach for a dagger—he reached for the detonator.
"Now," he hissed.
A series of muffled explosions rocked the foundations of the cathedral. The massive crystal chandeliers above the dance floor groaned and then plummeted, shattering in a rain of glass and darkness. Screams erupted as the "Holy" elites scrambled for the exits.
"Go! To the altar!" Dante roared, shoving Elara toward the stone dais as he drew two matte-black pistols.
The ballroom became a slaughterhouse. Dante fired with surgical precision, his bullets finding the gaps in the white robes of the Circle's guards. Elara scrambled up the steps of the dais, her long silk skirt snagging on a splintered chair. She ripped the fabric, exposing her thighs and the lace-topped stockings she had donned for Dante, her heart thundering in her ears.
She reached the altar just as Sloane lunged from the shadows behind the Zenith's throne. He wasn't aiming for Dante; he was aiming for her.
"Come here, little bird!" Sloane snarled, his hand closing around Elara's throat.
His grip was oily and thick. He slammed her back against the cold stone of the altar. The impact made her breasts bounce and strain against the plunging silk, a sight that made Sloane's eyes glaze with a sickening, perverted hunger.
"I told the Boss I wanted ten minutes," Sloane whispered, his face inches from hers. "I think I'll take them right here while the building burns."
He began to hike her dress up, his rough hand scratching against her inner thigh. Elara screamed, kicking at him, but he was too heavy, too strong. He leaned down, his mouth heading for her exposed chest, when a bullet hissed past her ear and buried itself in Sloane's shoulder.
Sloane howled, spinning away. Dante was there a second later, the butt of his gun connecting with Sloane's jaw in a spray of teeth and blood.
"I told you," Dante growled, standing over the fallen Underboss. "I'd take your eyes."
But before Dante could deliver the final blow, the floor beneath the altar groaned. The Zenith had triggered a fail-safe. The stone slab tilted, and both Dante and Elara slid into the yawning black maw of a hidden chute.
They fell for what felt like an eternity before hitting a pile of damp, rotting hay.
Elara gasped, her lungs burning. She felt a heavy weight on top of her—Dante had used his own body to cushion her fall. As he rolled off, she saw they were in a tunnel carved from raw earth and bone. The air here was different—it didn't smell like incense; it smelled of copper, waste, and old, stagnant death.
"Where are we?" she whispered, clutching her torn gown to her chest.
Dante stood, his tuxedo ruined, his mask gone. His face was a mask of cold, hard lines. "The inner workings. The part they don't show the CEOs."
They moved down the tunnel, the only light coming from the glowing embers of Dante's tactical torch. As they rounded a corner, the "Panorama" of the Circle's true disgusting nature was revealed.
The catacombs were lined with iron-barred cells. But these weren't for prisoners of war. These were the "Disposal Units" her father had designed. Inside, women—the "Assets"—were kept in various stages of "cleansing." Some were being forced to work at sewing machines, creating the very white robes the elites wore. Others... others were being subjected to the "Holy" rituals of the Zenith's inner circle.
Elara stopped at a cell where a young woman, no older than eighteen, sat huddled in a corner. The girl's back was scarred with the same sun-and-cross symbol Elara had seen on the pins.
"This is what they do," Dante said, his voice hollow. "They take the innocent, they 'purify' them through pain, and then they sell the survivors to the highest bidders at the Masquerade."
Elara felt a wave of nausea so intense she had to lean against the damp wall. Her breasts heaved, the physical reaction to the horror making her nipples throb with a strange, painful sensitivity. She looked at the bars, then at the blueprints in her mind.
"Dante... my father... he didn't just design the rooms. He designed the ventilation," she realized, her voice trembling. "There's a gas line. Every cell is connected to a central tank. If they feel they're being compromised, they don't release the prisoners. They 'cleanse' them permanently."
"Where is the valve?" Dante demanded, grabbing her by the waist.
"The central hub. It should be right under the main cathedral altar."
"Then that's where Sloane took your father," Dante said.
They began to run, the sound of their footsteps echoing through the halls of misery. But as they neared the hub, the sound of rhythmic chanting began to fill the air. A low, guttural drone of dozens of voices.
They reached a heavy iron door and peered through the grate.
The room was vast, lit by a thousand flickering candles. In the center, her father was strapped to a vertical rack, his body a map of bruises. Standing before him was the Zenith, now wearing a robe of pure, shimmering gold. And standing around them were the "Holy" council, their masks gleaming in the candlelight.
"The time of the Tabernacle is at hand," the Zenith proclaimed, raising a long, serrated blade. "The Architect has failed, but his blood will still sanctify the ground."
"Dante, we have to stop them," Elara pleaded, her body pressed against his back, her breasts jiggling with her frantic sobs.
Dante looked at the room—at least forty armed guards. Then he looked at Elara. He reached back, his hand finding the curve of her hip, squeezing with a possessive force that promised she was his, even in the heart of hell.
"I'm going to create a diversion," Dante whispered. "You find the gas valve. You shut it down. If I don't make it out, you run. You take the files and you burn this city to the ground."
"No, Dante—"
"Do it, Elara!" he commanded, his eyes burning with a dark, sacrificial love.
He kissed her then—a hard, fast taste of steel and obsession—before he kicked the door open and stepped into the light, his guns roaring.
Next Step:
Would you like to move to Chapter 10, where Elara must crawl through the "disgusting" ventilation shafts to reach the valve, while Dante fights a losing battle against the Zenith's elite guard, leading to the first major tragedy of the story?