“Keep her.” Those were the two words I heard my mafia husband say about another woman on our fifth wedding anniversary, / Chapter 36 / 40

Chapter 36 - The Price of Survival

Together, husband and wife moved as a single, lethal unit.

Adrien fired three rounds with terrifying precision, taking down a flanking shooter behind a row of ancient coffins, while Elena emptied her magazine into the mercenaries guarding the western corridor. Mateo’s team threw concussion grenades into the gallery, the resulting explosions disorienting the remaining hostiles and sending blinding smoke billowing through the crypt.

Lucian, realizing his tactical advantage was gone, scrambled toward a hidden iron door set into the catacomb wall.

"Elena, he's reaching the escape shaft!" Adrien shouted, coughing violently as blood speckled his lips.

Elena raised her sidearm, tracking Lucian's silhouette through the haze. She fired twice. Both shots hit Lucian in the back of his leg and side, sending him crashing heavily against the iron door. He slumped against the metal, groaning, but his hand slammed into a red emergency switch mounted to the wall.

*BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.*

A high-pitched sequence echoed across the entire catacomb network.

"C4 charges!" Mateo yelled, his face turning pale. "We have thirty seconds before the ceiling comes down!"

Adrien grabbed Elena by the arm, dragging her toward the southern aqueduct passage. "Leave him! The whole square above us will drop into the crypt! Move!"

Elena looked back one last time. Lucian was glaring at them through the smoke, coughing up blood, laughing maniacally as dust showered down upon him. "You won't escape what comes next, Adrien! The Council knows! They will burn your world to the ground!"

"Let them try," Adrien growled.

Mateo and the survivors shoved Adrien and Elena through the heavy iron aqueduct grate just as the northern wing detonated.

The shockwave tore through the underground tunnels with the fury of an erupting volcano. Elena felt the air violently sucked from her lungs as she was thrown forward into the rushing sewer waters, her arms locked securely around Adrien. Millions of tons of ancient limestone, stone statues, and mummified remains collapsed in a catastrophic cave-in, burying the rotunda and Lucian Moretti beneath an impenetrable mountain of crushed rock.