Chapter 37 - The Vault Under St. Michael’s
"Mommy?" Mason whispered, his voice trembling so hard he could barely pronounce the syllables. "Daddy... is Mommy an angel?"
Daniel stood paralyzed, his brain refusing to process the impossible image before his eyes. He had attended her funeral. He had held her cold hand in the hospice room. He had signed the cremation authorization—or so he had thought.
"Get inside the crypt! Under the altar! Now!" Emily’s voice echoed down across the cemetery, sharp, tactical, and commanding—nothing like the soft-spoken woman who used to bake sourdough bread on Sunday mornings.
From the cemetery entrance, Victor Sterling’s heavy security detail opened up with suppressing fire against the bell tower. Heavy caliber rounds chipped away at the stone balustrade, forcing Emily back into the shadows of the steeple.
Daniel grabbed Mason, kicked open the rusted iron gate of the chapel’s subterranean crypt, and plunged into the darkness beneath the stone floor.
The air below was damp, thick with the scent of mold, candle wax, and dry limestone. Hanging lanterns cast long, flickering shadows along the vaulted corridor. At the end of the stone hall, beneath an ancient carving of the Archangel Michael slaying a serpent, a heavy steel door stood ajar.
Footsteps clattered rapidly down the spiral stone staircase. Daniel raised his weapon, his finger trembling on the trigger, breathing hard against the wall.
Emily rounded the corner, her tactical rifle slung over her shoulder, a bleeding graze along her left collarbone. She stopped dead in her tracks five feet away from Daniel, her chest heaving, tears suddenly welling in her sharp green eyes.
"Daniel..." she whispered, her voice finally breaking into the familiar, fragile cadence he had loved for seven years.
"Stay back," Daniel rasped, his gun unwavering, pointed dead at the center of her chest. "Don't take another step."
"Daniel, please. Look at me. It’s me."
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"You died," Daniel breathed, rage and agony tearing through his vocal cords. "I buried you! I held Mason while he wept every night for two years! I let Vanessa into our lives because I thought my son needed a mother, and she put a dog collar around his neck! She tortured him, Emily! While you were playing soldier in the dark!"
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