Chapter 164 The Only safe Place is with Him

Chapter 164 The Only safe Place is with Him

Isabella’s POV

When the second alarm screamed through the mansion, the sound cut through me like a blade. I felt it all the way inside my chest. Something like fear. Something like adrenaline. Something like the sinking realization that my life would never return to what it once was.

But most of all, something like certainty.

Because Alexander did not let go of my hand.

He gripped it strongly, never loosening for even a heartbeat. And even in this chaos, even with guns firing in the distance and the estate shaking beneath our feet, I felt safer with him than I had ever felt with anyone in my life.

We sprinted through the main hall. Smoke drifted from somewhere above us. Shouting echoed down the corridors, overlapping, clashing. I could hear Liam shouting orders on our left. Tessa’s footsteps ran behind us. Guards rushed past, forming defensive lines.

Everything was breaking apart.
Everything was war.

My mind raced with every step.

The Circle. My father. The Orpheus Sequence. Some genetic code inside me that I never knew existed. Something they were willing to kill for. Something my father hid. Something I inherited without knowing.

But none of that mattered right now.

Only one thing mattered.

Staying alive beside Alexander.

We reached a junction in the hallway where three corridors met. The lights flickered. The air smelled of gunpowder and burning carpet.

Alexander stopped abruptly and pulled me behind the marble pillar. His breath was controlled, but his eyes burned with the kind of fury that terrified anyone else and grounded me.

“Isabella,” he said quietly. “Listen carefully.”

My pulse hammered everywhere. “I am listening.”

“You do not leave my side. Not for a second.”

“I won’t.”

“If something happens, you follow my voice and only my voice.”

“I know.”

“And if someone tries to take you, you scream. You fight. You make it impossible for them to move you even an inch.”

I swallowed. “Nothing is taking me away from you.”

The way he stared at me for that brief second made something twist inside my chest. Some emotion deeper than fear. Deeper than panic.

Then footsteps pounded toward us from the northern hall. Loud. Fast. Multiple sets.

Alexander pulled me closer against him, steadying his gun with his free hand.

Men in black tactical gear appeared around the corner. Five of them.

My breath stopped.

They moved in perfect formation. Clean. Silent. Lethal.

The Circle’s elite.

Alexander fired first. Two men went down before they even raised their weapons. Liam appeared from the side and took the third. But the last two aimed directly at me.

I froze.

Alexander moved faster than any human should be able to.

He threw me behind him and stepped into the line of fire. He shot one. Liam took down the other.

The hall went silent again.

My ears rang. My chest felt too tight.

Alexander turned, grabbed both my arms and pulled me closer, scanning me rapidly.

“You are not hit,” he said. It wasn’t a question. More like a command he needed to be true.

“No,” I whispered. “You shielded me.”

His jaw tightened. “I will always shield you.”

Before I could answer, more gunfire erupted deeper in the estate.

Liam shouted from behind us. “Northern passage is compromised. They are forcing their way toward the sublevel stairs.”

Tessa stepped forward, breathless. “They want the vault. That is where the files about her father’s research are kept.”

I felt cold.

Alexander looked at Liam. “Block the northern wing. Reroute the guards to the main staircase. No one gets past that point.”

“What about you,” Liam asked.

“I am taking Isabella to the sublevel first. They cannot reach that vault.”

Liam nodded and sprinted off.

Alexander grabbed my hand again and ran.

We moved down another hallway. The mansion kept shaking as explosions sounded outside and the windows rattled in their frames.

I tried to keep up, but my mind kept sinking into memories I didn’t recognize.

My father’s voice from years ago.
A locked room in his office I was never allowed to enter.
The way he always said there were people he didn’t trust.
People watching.
People waiting.

All the pieces slid together painfully now.

“Alexander,” I said between breaths. “If they know something about my father, if there is something he hid inside the vault, then you need to tell me the truth.”

“I will tell you everything,” he said. “But later. When you are safe.”

“When will that be,” I asked bitterly.

He didn’t answer.

Because there was no place in this world where The Circle would ever stop.

We reached the grand staircase leading to the lower levels. Two guards stood by the railing, firing at attackers trying to push through the left wing. Smoke hung in the air.

Alexander led me down the stairs quickly. The walls shook from another explosion and I clutched his arm.

“We need to get to the vault before they do,” he said.

The stairwell opened into a smaller corridor. This one was darker, quieter. No gunfire. No shouting.

For a moment I allowed myself to breathe.

Alexander slowed, letting me walk closer beside him instead of behind him. I didn’t know if it was intentional, but it made something warm flutter inside my chest.

Then we reached a steel door.

The entrance to the vault.

Alexander placed his palm on the biometric scanner.

I heard the lock disengage with a heavy click and the door slid open.

The room was colder than I expected, lined with tall shelves, documents stored in metal drawers, old binders, sealed boxes. A single rectangular table sat in the center, covered in scattered files.

Alexander led me inside and shut the door behind us, locking it from the inside.

I leaned against the wall, chest rising and falling quickly. “Tell me what we are looking for.”

“Not what. Who.”

I frowned. “Who.”

He nodded. “Your father. Everything we know about him is stored here. And everything they want is tied to something he did.”

The word father felt strange on my tongue. I hadn’t spoken it in years. I didn’t talk about him. I barely thought about him.

“Alex,” I said softly. “What do you know about him.”

Alexander stepped closer. He rarely hesitated, but right now he did, and that scared me.

“Your father was part of a government research group twenty years ago,” he said. “Something experimental. Something dangerous.”

“What kind of research.”

“Genetic encryption.”

My stomach twisted. “What does that even mean.”

“It means exactly what it sounds like,” he said. “He worked on encoding information directly into DNA.”

I stared at him. “That can’t be real.”

“It is real,” he said quietly. “And according to files The Circle obtained this morning… he completed it.”

I took a step back. “That is impossible.”

“Is it,” he countered. “Because The Circle believes that whatever code he created, whatever information he embedded, he placed it inside only one person.”

My voice broke. “Me.”

“Yes.”

I felt dizzy. The room felt too small. Too cold. Too bright.

Alexander reached for me, placing both hands on my shoulders. “Breathe.”

“I am breathing,” I whispered, but my lungs felt tight.

“You are safe with me,” he said softly. “I need you to believe that.”

“I do,” I said instantly.

He exhaled in relief. The look in his eyes softened, the fire dimming into something warmer. Something that pulled me closer.

But before I could move, the lights flickered.

Then the alarm began again.

Not the mansion alarm.

The vault alarm.

Someone was breaching the sublevel.

Alexander’s expression hardened instantly. “They found another way down.”

He pulled me behind the table and drew both his guns.

The pounding began.

Loud, relentless, shaking the steel door.

I crouched beside him, gripping the pistol Liam gave me.

“Do not shoot unless I tell you,” Alexander said calmly.

“But if they get inside—”

“They will not get inside.”

The pounding grew louder.

Metal groaned.

My heartbeat pounded in my throat.

Tessa’s voice suddenly came through the intercom panel on the wall. “Alexander, they bypassed the northern defense. They are heading straight for you.”

Alexander cursed under his breath and shot the intercom.

The door bent inward slightly.
Sparks showered the floor.
A metal tool cut through the locks.

“Alex,” I whispered. “They are almost in.”

“I know.”

His voice was steady, but his grip on the gun tightened.

I touched his arm. “We cannot stay trapped in here.”

His jaw clenched. “We are not trapped.”

I swallowed. “Do you have a plan.”

“Yes.”

He took one step closer to me. Close enough to feel his breath. Close enough that in another world, in a normal world, he might have kissed me.

But here, now, his voice was low and fierce.

“I will not let them take you. Not alive. Not ever. I would die before that happens.”

My chest tightened painfully. “Do not say that.”

“It is the truth.”

“No,” I whispered, grabbing the front of his shirt. “We survive. Both of us. Together.”

His eyes softened in a way I had only seen once before. “Isabella.”

The door cracked again.

Metal shattered.

The Circle soldiers forced their way inside.

Alexander pushed me behind him instantly.

The first man stepped through.

Alexander shot without hesitation.

A second followed. Liam arrived from another corridor and took him down.

Gunfire echoed through the vault.

I stayed crouched, heart racing, trying to stay small and out of the way like Alexander told me. But then I saw it.

A third attacker slipping in from the side door Liam left half open.

He was moving toward me, not Alexander.

Straight toward me.

Alexander was facing the opposite direction. He could not see him.

Panic shot through me.

I raised the pistol with shaking hands.

“Isabella, stay back,” Alexander yelled.

But the man rushed toward me.

He reached the table first and swung his weapon.

I fired.

The recoil jolted my arms, but the bullet hit his leg. He stumbled, shouting in pain.

Alexander turned instantly and finished him with a single shot.

Silence fell across the vault.

My hands shook violently.

Alexander rushed to me, grabbed my face with both hands, eyes wide with a kind of fear I had never seen in him.

“Are you hurt.”

“No,” I whispered. “I… I hit him.”

“You did exactly what you needed to do,” he said fiercely. “You saved yourself.”

He pulled me into him, holding me against his chest.

I closed my eyes and let myself sink into his warmth. His heartbeat pounded against my ear. Fast. Hard. Alive.

“You did well,” he murmured into my hair. “You did so well.”

“I was scared,” I whispered.

“You can be scared. I will still protect you.”

I tightened my arms around him. “Alex… what happens now.”

He slowly pulled back and looked into my eyes.

“Now,” he said softly, “we end this.”

The vow in his voice sent chills down my spine.

But not cold ones.

The warm, burning kind.

The kind that told me he would burn the world to keep me safe.

And I would walk beside him into whatever fire came next.

Together.