They reached the next city before dawn, a cold, steel maze called Havencrest, where the skyline glimmered like a knife's edge.
Kael drove in silence, eyes never leaving the road. The hum of the engine filled the space between them, thick with everything unsaid.
Sera watched the world blur past outside, high-rises, flickering billboards, stray flashes of life that seemed too normal for what they'd just escaped.
When he finally spoke, it was quiet.
"You ever get tired of chasing ghosts?"
She turned to him. "I chase the truth."
He gave a short, humorless laugh. "Truth is just another ghost. Everyone sees it differently."
"Maybe," she said softly, "but I don't stop running."
They checked into a forgotten apartment near the city's edge bare walls, one flickering bulb, and the kind of silence that pressed against the skin.
Sera dropped her bag on the couch. "This place screams 'paranoia.'"
Kael shrugged, locking the door. "That's why it's safe."
"Do you ever relax?"
He gave her a look that said no without saying it.
She rolled her eyes, pulled out her laptop, and started setting up. "Fine. You play the stoic soldier, I'll find us answers."
Hours passed. Rain tapped against the window. Sera worked while Kael sat nearby cleaning his weapon, an oddly domestic rhythm of chaos and control.
"Found something," she murmured at last, frowning at the screen. "A coded message from Lena's server. Sent last night."
Kael leaned closer. "Read it."
She hesitated, eyes scanning the text. "It says… 'The files are in Havencrest. He doesn't know. But she will.'"
His expression hardened. "He doesn't know? Who's 'he'?"
Sera swallowed. "Kael… I think they're talking about you."
Before he could reply, the lights flickered once, twice then went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Kael moved instantly, hand on his gun. "Stay behind me."
A faint hum echoed through the building, not footsteps, not machinery. Something deeper. Wrong.
Sera's heart pounded. "What is that?"
"Signal interference," he muttered. "Someone's here."
Then came the sound, a sharp click from the hallway.
Kael turned just as the door burst open. A flashbang went off, flooding the room with blinding light and smoke.
Sera screamed. Kael grabbed her, dragging her down as glass shattered around them.
Gunfire. Voices. Chaos.
When the smoke cleared, two men in tactical gear lay unconscious, and one figure stood in the doorway, calm and smiling.
Dante Rios.
He looked almost regal black coat, silver cufflinks, a glint of amusement in his eyes. "Kael," he said smoothly, "you've been hard to find."
Kael's grip on his gun tightened. "You should've stayed gone."
"Gone?" Dante chuckled. "No, no, brother. You of all people should know, ghosts never stay buried."
Sera blinked. Brother?
Kael froze. His silence was louder than any denial could've been.
Sera turned to him, disbelief cutting through the haze. "Brother?"
Dante smirked. "Did he not tell you? Oh, Kael, still keeping secrets from your women, I see."
"Shut up," Kael growled.
But Dante only stepped closer. "You were always the obedient one. The soldier. And look at you now, protecting the same journalist who ruined our father's legacy."
Sera's pulse raced. "Your father's legacy?"
Kael's voice was low. "Our father was the architect of Division Nine."
Her blood ran cold. "The same agency that—"
"That started all of this," Kael finished grimly.
Dante's eyes gleamed. "You see now, Sera? You were never chasing corruption. You were chasing his shadow."
Kael aimed the gun at Dante's chest. "Leave her out of this."
Dante tilted his head. "You think she'll still trust you once she knows what you really are?"
Kael didn't blink. "I don't care."
Sera stepped between them, anger and fear tangled in her voice. "What is he talking about, Kael?"
He didn't answer. His silence said too much.
Dante smiled softly, almost pitying. "Our dear Kael didn't just serve Division Nine. He was their enforcer, the one they sent to erase evidence. To erase people."
Sera stared at Kael, searching his face for a lie, a denial, anything.
He looked away.
Dante chuckled. "There it is. The truth, clean and ugly."
The air thickened with betrayal.
Sera's voice cracked. "Tell me he's lying."
Kael lowered his gun. "It's not that simple."
"Then make it simple," she snapped. "You killed for them."
His voice broke on the edges of control. "I killed to stop worse men. To stop him."
Dante laughed, low and sharp. "You really believe that?"
Then, without warning, Dante raised his weapon, not at Kael, but at Sera.
Kael moved before thought, a blur of motion and fury. The shot went wide, grazing his shoulder. He fired back but Dante had already vanished into the smoke.
When it cleared, the hallway was empty.
Sera stood frozen, eyes on Kael. "You lied to me."
He winced, clutching his arm. "I didn't have a choice."
"There's always a choice."
"Not for me," he said quietly. "Not back then."
She turned away, trembling. "You're no better than him."
Kael's voice was rough. "You're right."
Silence filled the space — heavy.
Outside, thunder rolled across Havencrest.
Fire in the Veins stood on the same side of a war neither of them fully understood — both realizing the line between love and hate was thinner than the barrel of a gun.
And somewhere in the city, Dante smiled in the dark, whispering into his comm:
"She knows now. Let it burn."