Chapter 99: THE LAZARUS CODE.

Serena & Adrian POV.

SERENA

The storm that rolls over the compound is the wrong kind of violent, too sudden, too electrical, too much like the sky itself is listening.

I stand at the glass wall of the war room, watching the clouds spiral over the pine ridge. My reflection stares back at me: hair damp from the earlier confrontation outside, dress torn at the shoulder where one of the new Disciples grabbed me in greeting, too eager and too reverent. They don’t touch me out of lust.

They touch me like I’m an omen. I’m trying to ignore the weight of that.

Most days, I fail. Behind me, the map table hums softly. Red holographic marks shift over the territories our enemies are reclaiming. Every time a mark blinks, it feels like a heartbeat in a corpse.

The Lazarus Code.

That’s what the encrypted file is called, my mother’s file, the one Adrian and I pulled from the burnt server tower in Rome before the basilica collapsed. A cold name for something that smells like blood and resurrections.

I don’t open it, not yet.

The room smells of stormwater and gun oil, and the combination pulls me back to a place in my childhood: my mother’s office. She ruled that space the way Adrian rules a battlefield: quietly, analytically and almost lovingly. The kind of authority that makes people kneel without understanding why they’re kneeling.

My hands hover over the holo-keyboard. The file pulses like a heart. I need to open it. But the air shifts behind me before I can. “You’re holding your breath again,” Adrian says from the doorway.

I don’t turn immediately. His presence is a force field, one that wraps around my spine before I consciously register him. His voice carries none of the exhaustion in his eyes; I don’t need to look at him to know it’s there. The Disciples adore me. His own men are fracturing and every hour since the basilica inferno, the hidden war under our skin has only grown darker.

“You should sit,” he says softly.

“You should sleep,” I answer. He doesn’t. I don’t. We’re both terrible at obedience.

He steps to my side, close enough that I feel the heat of him through my sleeve. Adrian always stands like he’s shielding me from a threat I haven’t noticed yet. Tonight, he stands as if he is the threat and the only one capable of protecting me from himself.

“The Lazarus Code,” he murmurs when he sees the pulsing file. “You don’t have to open it until you’re ready.”

“I’m never going to be ready. But I need to see what she wanted me to find.”

His jaw sets at the word she. My mother’s ghost is a wedge between us, sharp enough to split us, sharp enough to bind us. Some days I don’t know which side we’re on.

“Serena…” He reaches for my hand, hesitates, and lets it fall. “You don’t have to face it alone.” “I’m not alone,” I say quietly. But something cold coils in my gut.

Because the code is locked behind an authentication sequence, biometrics, genetic and one final requirement: a phrase only her heir would know.

My throat tightens. My mother never expected me to live long enough to inherit anything. Adrian’s voice gentles. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“That if she built a code this complicated, it wasn’t meant to enlighten me.” I swallow hard. “It was meant to control me.”

His eyes flash with a dangerous softness. “No one will control you. Not even her memory.” He says it like a vow. But vows don’t stop the truth.

I need to open this file and know what she died protecting and what she meant for me to become. A thunderbolt cracks overhead. The lights flicker. The Lazarus Code pulses again, brighter.

I inhale. My finger moves and the door bursts open. A disciple, young, breathless and trembling, nearly crashes into the room. “Madonna... Serena... there’s movement on the lower ridge. Two of Adrian’s men. They asked for him. They refused to come inside. They’re armed and… and they’re not alone.”

Not alone. In the world we live in, that one phrase is its own kind of death sentence. I turn to Adrian, expecting strategy. Instead, I find stillness.

Frozen. Like he already knows. “Who is it?” he asks. The young disciple swallows. “Luca and Mateo.”

My pulse spikes. Those are his inner-circle men, the ones who swore loyalty before he ever claimed me, before the Vatican, before the basilica’s burning cross. Men who would die for him or betray him.

Adrian’s face shutters like a door slamming shut. “I’ll handle it,” he says. I step forward. “We handle it. Together.”

His eyes lock onto mine. Something raw flickers there, a warning or a plea. I can’t tell which. “Serena…” Don’t ask,” I cut in. “You know I’ll say no.”

We leave the Lazarus Code pulsing behind us.

The path to the lower ridge is slick with rain and pine needles. The air is colder than it should be, mountain air that bites, like the night itself is sharpening its teeth.

Two figures stand near the treeline. Their outlines aren’t menacing; they’re familiar. Too familiar, Luca. Mateo. They look different.

Their postures are wrong, shoulders tense, eyes darting and fingers tapping against triggers as if unable to rest. They should drop to one knee when Adrian approaches.

They don’t. “Boss,” Luca says, voice hoarse. “We came to warn you.” Adrian doesn’t move closer. “Put the guns down.” “We can’t,” Mateo whispers. “They’re watching us.” “Who?” I ask. Lightning flashes and in that split second of illumination, I see it.

Something metallic was embedded behind Mateo’s ear. A faint red light is blinking under wet skin. My blood runs cold. “They’re tagged,” I say. “Someone’s tracking their movements.”

Luca flinches. “We didn’t defect. We didn’t betray you. But the moment the basilica fell, we lost contact with our own shadows. Someone hacked our comms. Someone rerouted our orders. Someone...” “Someone?” Adrian presses.

Mateo’s face pales. “Someone who knows all our protocols. Someone who knew your fallback plans before we even activated them.” The Disciples shift uneasily behind us. Adrian’s voice drops to a lethal whisper. “Who betrayed us?”

The men exchange a tortured look. Then Luca speaks the name. “The Shepherd.” My heart stops, but Adrian... Adrian goes utterly, terrifyingly still. “No,” he says quietly. “He’s dead.”

Mateo shakes his head violently. “You saw a burned corpse. Not a confirmation. Not a DNA match, not a body you lifted yourself.”

“He planned this,” Luca says. “He planned everything. Including you, Serena.”

My breath fractures. Rain falls harder. Thunder trembles through the ridge. Adrian steps forward, gun drawn. “If this is a trap…” “It is,” Mateo says. Right as a red laser sight slides onto Adrian’s chest, all hell breaks loose.

ADRIAN POV

The moment I hear Mateo’s breath hitch, I shove Serena behind me.

A shot cracks through the rain, two and three.

The Disciples scatter, returning fire. Luca and Mateo drop to their knees, hands over their heads, shouting warnings drowned out by thunder and gunfire. The ridge explodes into chaos, shadows moving between trees and muzzle flashes strobing like lightning, but my focus is singular.

Serena.

She’s pressed against a rock outcrop, not panicking, not trembling, but assessing, eyes sharp, calculating angles and tracking movement like she’s been training for this her entire life.

This is the problem with loving a woman like Serena: she isn’t made to be protected. She’s made to lead. Which means she’s made to be targeted.

Another shot rings out. Bark splinters inches from her cheek.

I move toward her and a figure emerges from the trees. Not attacking.

Watching.

The shape is shadowed, hooded, and too calm for the chaos around him. The kind of calm that comes from knowing the outcome before the first trigger is pulled.

“The Shepherd,” I whisper. He doesn’t speak. He only tilts his head, once, slowly, like he’s studying Serena, evaluating her and deciding if she fits the prophecy he almost burned the world to fulfill.

Rage claws through my ribs. I raise my gun and he vanishes. A smoke charge detonates, blinding the ridge in a thick grey veil. “Serena!” I shout.

“I’m here!” she answers somewhere to my left. The smoke swallows her voice, stretches it, and distorts it.

Someone grabs my arm. I whirl, Luca. “Boss, we were followed. We didn’t know. They planned this to isolate her.”

“Isolate who?” “Serena.” Every word feels like a knife. “Why?” I demand.

Luca swallows hard. “Because she’s the key.” My face goes cold. “Key to what?”

Mateo answers from somewhere behind us, coughing on smoke. “To the Lazarus Code.” The ground rips out from under me. A scream tears through the fog, not fear. Serena’s fury.

I run toward it, ignoring the bullets carving the air, ignoring the shouts behind me.

I find her near the cliff’s edge, back pressed against a pine trunk, hands slick with mud, breath sharp. A shadowed figure holds her by the arm, dragging her toward a waiting transport at the tree line.

I don’t think, but I fire and the man drops. Serena yanks free, stumbling toward me.

But before I can reach her, a voice cuts through the smoke, calm, clear and cold. “Adrian.”

The world freezes. The Shepherd stands ten feet away, unarmed, untouched by the melee around him. Rain slides off him like the storm refuses to touch him. “You want answers,” he says quietly. “You’ll get them.”

My finger tightens on the trigger. He shakes his head once. “You won’t shoot me. Not when she’s the one who pays the price.” I look at Serena.

Her eyes widen.

There, beneath her collarbone, something glows through the fabric of her shirt. A faint red light. A targeting marker and not hers, but mine.

“You’ve had a sniper on her this entire time,” I say, voice dead, cold.

The Shepherd’s smile is a shadow. “A simple incentive.” Serena’s breath trembles. “What do you want?” His eyes land on her with something like reverence.

“The code your mother built,” he says. “The one she encrypted in your bloodline. The one that can resurrect the syndicate… or end it forever.”

Thunder rolls.

He steps back into the fog. “Open the Lazarus Code, Serena,” he calls. “Or watch the Devil bleed.” A gunshot cracks, not at her, not at me, but at the ground between us, just like a warning.

Then his silhouette fades into the storm, impossible to chase without exposing Serena to the sniper’s line of fire. I grab her, crush her against me, and shield her with my body even though I know it won’t stop a bullet at this range.

She whispers against my chest, voice shaking with fury, not fear: “We have to open the code.” “No,” I snap. “He wants you to.” Her hands are in my shirt. “If we don’t, he’ll kill you.” Another bullet hits the rock beside us.

A message and a countdown.

Her voice breaks, not with tears, but with resolve sharp enough to cut through bone. “Adrian. I’m not losing you.” Lightning ignites the ridge.

The sniper laser shifts right to her heart.

A choice, a trap, a war, and then... The holo-band on her wrist flashes with a notification. Lazarus Code: Authentication Sequence Initiated.

Voice authorization required. She didn’t touch anything, and she didn’t trigger anything, but something or someone activated it remotely.

Her eyes rise to mine, horror blooming.

“Adrian… I didn’t do that.” The holograph pulses brighter, faster, like a heartbeat racing toward rupture. Rain hisses on the trees. The sniper’s laser moves again and the Lazarus Code displays one final message:

INPUT GENERATED PHRASE: “THE RESURRECTION BEGINS WITH THE HEIR.” Serena’s voice is barely a whisper. “That’s… my mother’s voice.” The code unlocks and immediately the sniper fires.