Selene stood in her mother's arms, frozen. Everything in her body said to pull away—to scream, to demand answers, to ask why she had to grieve someone who'd never been gone.
But the part of her that remembered lullabies and the scent of lilacs clung tighter.
Kai stayed a step behind, his body still, alert. Watching the coastline. Watching Selene. Watching for the danger that always followed them like a second shadow.
"I have questions," Selene said, voice thick.
"All of them."
Her mother nodded. "And I'll answer. Every one. Just… not on the porch."
Inside, the villa was quiet. Clean. The kind of quiet that made Kai's hand twitch near the holster he'd never quite let go of. Selene caught it and gave a small shake of her head. Not yet.
They sat at a long table worn from salt and time. Her mother, now introduced as Elise, poured wine into three glasses. Only two were touched.
"I knew your father was dangerous," Elise began, her fingers loose around the stem. "But I didn't realize how far he'd go until he offered you up."
Selene blinked. "Offered?"
"You were ten. And he was already talking about splitting your consciousness. Backing it up. Preserving 'the best parts' in case you ever 'deviated.' I thought he was being theoretical. I was wrong."
Kai let out a slow breath. "Mila."
Elise nodded. "She was the prototype. The first of several. But she was the only one that lived long enough to think for herself."
Selene's jaw clenched. "And he let me love her. Mourn her."
"Because that's how control works. It's not just about force. It's about confusion. About rewriting what love means until you can't tell if it was ever real."
Selene's voice cracked. "Was she real?"
"She loved you. That makes her real enough."
Kai reached beneath the table and took Selene's hand.
Warm. Grounding. Alive.
Elise leaned back. "There's more. There's always more. But first—there's something I have to show you."
Selene followed her mother down a narrow stone hallway to a hidden room carved into the cliffside. Monitors lined the walls. Files. Maps. Blueprints.
"This is the other side of Eden," Elise said.
"The one your father doesn't control. The one I built to destroy him."
Selene approached a screen showing rows of names.
Some were crossed out.
Others were marked ACTIVE.
Her heart thudded. "These are people?"
"Clones. Weapons. Children. He doesn't care what they become—as long as they're obedient. I started taking them out of his system one by one. Reprogramming them. Giving them choice."
"Why now?" Selene asked. "Why show yourself now?"
Elise hesitated. "Because you did what I couldn't. You broke away. You survived. And now you're the only one who can finish this."
Behind them, the power flickered.
Then died.
The room plunged into darkness.
Kai's voice cut through. "Get down!
A bullet shattered the window.
Then another.
Elise yanked open a hidden panel. "This way!"
They moved fast—down a spiral staircase into the lower levels of the villa.
Selene clutched the flash drive still in her pocket. The last piece of truth. Or the last nail in her father's coffin.
Outside, gunfire erupted. The sea howled.
They made it to the garage.
Three black-clad soldiers were already waiting.
Kai didn't hesitate.
Two went down before they could raise their rifles. Elise grabbed Selene, pulled her behind the jeep.
"What the hell is Protocol Black?" Selene shouted.
"His kill switch," Elise replied. "For you. For me. For anyone who knows too much."
Kai tossed her the keys. "Drive. I'll cover you."
"You're bleeding," Selene said.
"I'm always bleeding. Go."
They tore out of the garage as more soldiers descended from helicopters above. Bullets rained like hail. Selene didn't look back.
They drove for hours, winding through backroads, ducking checkpoints, cloaked in stolen license plates and adrenaline.
They didn't speak until the sun began to rise.
Elise finally said, "He knows you have the drive."
Selene gripped the wheel. "Good."
Kai leaned his head back, blood soaking through a makeshift bandage. "What's the play?"
Elise turned toward him. "We bring the house down. Publicly. Irrefutably. We leak everything. Names. Experiments. The entire network."
Selene frowned. "He'll bury it. He always does."
"Not if we give it to someone he can't silence."
Kai raised an eyebrow. "Like who?"
Selene's mind raced. "Like the Broker."
Elise's smile was sharp. "Then we find him."
That night, they found refuge in an abandoned vineyard. Moonlight poured through the broken rafters like silver ink.
Kai slept fitfully, murmuring in dreams.
Selene stood outside, the flash drive in hand.
Elise joined her. "He loves you."
Selene didn't turn. "He won't say it."
"He doesn't need to."
Selene looked at the stars. "Do you think I'm like him?"
Elise reached for her hand. "No. You're stronger. You love without control. You grieve without violence."
"I don't feel strong."
"You don't have to. You just have to keep going."
Selene glanced at the horizon. "We're running out of places to hide."
"Then we stop hiding," Elise said. "And we make him afraid."
In the morning, they headed north.
But the storm was already coming.
And this time, it had a name.
Victor Hart.
And he wanted his daughter back or dead.
Whichever came first.
Selene didn't sleep that night.
Even after her mother Isabelle had wrapped her in trembling arms, even after Kai had placed his hand on the small of her back and whispered "You're safe"
Selene couldn't close her eyes without seeing the words Protocol Black burned behind them.
She stood in the moonlit villa kitchen, barefoot, staring out the window, watching the coastline for shadows.
"They're coming," she said softly when Kai joined her.
He didn't ask who. He knew.
"They never stopped," he replied.
Behind them, the house creaked. Selene glanced at the hallway. "We don't tell her. Not yet."
Kai gave a tight nod. "She just got you back. Let her believe it's real. For a little longer."
Selene's fingers curled around the edge of the counter. "This ends with one of us in the ground."
"Not if I have anything to say about it."
She looked up at him then. "You'll protect me?"
His jaw flexed. "Always. Even if it's from your own family."
Selene's heart stuttered. Because that was the truth, wasn't it? Her family was a war zone. And she was standing in the minefield.
The next morning, over strong coffee and silence, her mother spoke.
"I kept everything," Isabelle said, eyes on the waves. "Documents. Proof. What your father did. What I tried to stop."
Selene's voice was tight. "And Mila?"
Her mother's face fell. "She was my penance."
"You knew she wasn't real."
"I knew she wasn't you. But I also knew she had a soul."
Selene blinked. "Is that what this is now? Redemption?"
Isabelle looked at her, eyes tired. "No, Selene. This is war."
Kai shifted beside her. "Then we need allies. And fast."
Isabelle nodded. "I have one left. His name is Rafiq. He helped me vanish. He can help again."
Selene's throat tightened. "Where is he?"
"Geneva," Isabelle replied. "But he's surrounded. Watched."
"Of course he is," Kai muttered. "Everyone in this game is already bleeding."
They moved fast.
Two hours later, they were on a private boat, cutting across the Mediterranean under overcast skies. Selene stood at the bow, wind ripping through her hair, heart heavy with too many truths and not enough time.
Kai joined her, silent.
She didn't speak until she felt his hand brush hers. "Do you think there's a version of us that's not running?"
"Yeah," he said. "But I think it starts when he's dead."
Selene looked at him. "My father."
Kai nodded. "He has to fall, Selene. Or we never get free."
Her stomach twisted. "Then we kill a ghost."
"Not a ghost," he said darkly. "A man who thinks he's God."
GENEVA :48 HOURS LATER
The city was all glass and civility, but beneath the surface: teeth.
Rafiq's safehouse was buried beneath a tech firm on the outskirts. Getting in required retinal scans and a passcode only Isabelle knew.
But they weren't the only ones who knew where to find him.
They entered the compound just as smoke bloomed in the distance.
"Someone beat us here," Kai growled, hand going to his weapon.
Selene's pulse pounded. "Move."
Inside, chaos.
Guards down. Lights flickering.
And in the center of it all Rafiq. Bleeding. Propped against the server stack, one hand pressed to his ribs.
Isabelle dropped to her knees beside him. "Rafiq "no"
He coughed blood. "They knew I'd talk."
Kai scanned the room. "Clear. For now."
Selene knelt. "What did you find?"
Rafiq's gaze met hers. "Your mother… was never the only one who defected. There's a name… in the Eden files… someone inside your father's circle. Someone helping him."
"Who?" Selene asked.
He gritted his teeth. "Your uncle."
Selene's blood ran cold. "He's dead."
"No," Rafiq gasped. "He's the architect. He's the one who created Mila."
Selene reeled. "But my father,he…"
"Was the funding. Your uncle was the vision."
Rafiq's eyes began to close.
"Stay with me," Isabelle whispered.
He looked at her one last time. "Burn it down… Isabelle. Burn everything."
Then he went still.
Selene stood slowly. Rage building in her chest like a storm.
Kai touched her elbow. "Say the word."
She turned to him, voice low. "We find my uncle. We end this."
"And your father?"
She looked past him, eyes hollow.
"His turn is coming."
But far away, in a darkened office, a man watched the footage of Rafiq's death on a monitor. He was tall, silver-haired, cruel-eyed.
He smiled.
"So she knows," he said.
Beside him, Selene's father poured a drink.
"She was always going to find out," he murmured.
The silver-haired man leaned forward. "Then let's give her something to die for."
They toasted.
And far from Geneva, in a bunker buried beneath Swiss soil, new files loaded onto a black server marked only with one word:
PANDORA.
Selene didn't know it yet.
But what was coming… would break everything.
The flight from Geneva to Florence was silent.
Selene sat by the window, head against the cool glass, watching the clouds blur beneath them. In her hand, she held the flash drive Rafiq had given her moments before he died. It was warm from her grip. Cold from what it held.
She hadn't spoken since they left the safehouse.
Kai didn't push her. He sat beside her, reading her silence like a language only he understood.
When the plane touched down and they stepped into the golden haze of an Italian morning, Selene finally spoke.
"I need to know everything about him."
Kai didn't ask who. He just nodded.
Isabelle met them in the car, her face drawn. "The name Rafiq gave us,Sebastian Dorne. He was my brother."
Selene turned sharply. "He is your brother."
"No," Isabelle said quietly. "That man died the day he sold your DNA to your father."
The car pulled away from the tarmac, tires hissing on wet asphalt. Selene stared out the window.
"So he built her," she said, voice distant. "Mila. He looked at everything I am and turned it into… that."
Kai reached over and laced his fingers through hers. "He'll answer for it."
Selene didn't look at him. "So will I."
They holed up in an old monastery converted into a private villa,a Blackwell property Kai had access to through favors he'd never speak of. It was quiet, nestled in the hills, with thick stone walls and enough distance from the world to plan a war.
Selene sat at the desk in the study, eyes locked on the files Rafiq had decrypted. There were pages of research. Timelines. Charts that looked more like maps of nightmares than anything medical.
One file stopped her breath.
Her name. On the top of a file labeled "Template Alpha."
Below it: Subject viability: 97.4%.
She scrolled.
Kai read over her shoulder. His voice was rough. "They wanted to copy you."
Selene's fingers trembled. "They already did."
She turned to face him.
"What if I'm not even the original?"
Kai froze.
"Selene"
"I mean it, Kai. What if I'm her? What if I'm just a version that worked?"
He stepped closer, voice low and firm. "Don't go there. I know you. Every scar, every fight, every sleepless night you survived. You are real. You are you."
"But how can you be sure?"
"Because you bleed. You love. And because she didn't look at me the way you do."
Selene's throat tightened. "You noticed."
He nodded. "I always knew it wasn't you."
Selene looked at him, really looked at him.
"I'm scared, Kai."
He stepped closer. "So am I. But I'd rather walk through hell with you than pretend heaven exists without you in it."
Their kiss was slow. Desperate. Honest.
Not an escape, but a reckoning.
Later that night, Selene found her mother in the garden, surrounded by lavender and silence.
Isabelle didn't turn when Selene sat beside her.
"Did you love him?" Selene asked.
Isabelle's eyes didn't move. "My brother? Once. Before I knew what he was."
Selene's voice cracked. "Do you love me?"
Isabelle turned slowly. Her face was wet with tears. "More than I ever had words for."
"Even though I look like her?"
"You are her," Isabelle said. "But only in the way fire is still fire, no matter where it's lit."
They sat in silence as the wind moved through the trees.
Finally, Isabelle said, "There's one more name. Buried in those files."
Selene turned. "Who?"
"Yours," Isabelle said. "Not just as Alpha. As the trigger."
"What do you mean?"
"I think your father designed a failsafe. Something only you could activate. Or destroy."
Selene swallowed. "Why me?"
"Because he didn't trust anyone else. Not even himself."
Kai appeared at the edge of the garden.
"We've got a hit," he said. "Sebastian Dorne is in Zurich. Using a fake name. Planning something."
Selene stood, heart heavy.
"Then we go," she said. "And this time we don't run. We bury the past."
Isabelle rose beside her. "And if he's building more?"
Selene's eyes were cold fire. "Then we burn it all down."
Far beneath Zurich, in a lab that smelled of steel and silence, Sebastian Dorne looked over the next phase.
Three chambers. Three figures inside.
All identical.
All her.
"She was always my masterpiece," he said softly. "And like all great works,she'll live forever."
But he didn't see the red light blinking in the corner.
Didn't see the camera feed being hijacked.
Didn't know Selene was watching.
Her face lit by the screen.
Her voice deadly calm.
"I'm coming for you."