The vault didn't look like a bank; it looked like a cathedral dedicated to greed. The walls were lined with rows of cold, obsidian-faced servers, their blue lights blinking like the eyes of a thousand mechanical demons. In the center sat a pedestal holding a physical book bound in human skin—the Golden Ledger.
"The lasers," Dante hissed, pulling Elara back as a lattice of crimson light flickered into existence, crisscrossing the path to the pedestal.
The air in the vault began to hum. These weren't just security beams; they were thermal cutters. Elara looked at the pattern, her architect's mind instantly mapping the geometry. To get through, she would have to be more than precise—she would have to be fluid.
"I can do this," she whispered, shedding the white silk robe until she was standing in only her sheer, damp undergarments. The cold air of the vault bit at her skin, her breasts heaving and jiggling with the frantic rhythm of her heart. Every curve of her body was a liability in this cage of light.
"Elara, no. It's too tight," Dante argued, his eyes raking over the sheer vulnerability of her form. The sight of her—nearly naked, her private parts throbbing with the sheer adrenaline of the heist—made his protective instincts roar.
"You have to hold the door, Dante! If that seal closes, we're both dead!"
Dante cursed, turning his back to the lasers as he braced himself against the heavy vault door, his dual pistols leveled at the corridor where the sound of heavy boots was already echoing. "Go! Now!"
Elara stepped into the grid.
She moved like a dancer in a nightmare. She arched her back, sliding her body beneath a low-slung beam, her breasts swaying and straining against the thin lace of her bra. She could feel the heat of the lasers just millimeters from her skin. She twisted her hips, her thighs grazing the floor as she navigated a vertical cluster of beams.
With every movement, the jiggle of her chest was a dangerous variable. She had to hold her breath, forcing her lungs to remain still so her breasts wouldn't rise and hit the thermal cutters. Her skin was slick with sweat, making the lace of her panties cling to the throbbing heat between her legs.
She reached the pedestal.
She grabbed the Golden Ledger. The moment her fingers touched the skin-bound cover, a klaxon screamed.
"Dante! I have it!"
"Get back! The Enforcers are here!"
The vault door began to hiss as Dante was forced to kick it open, firing into the smoke-filled hallway. A group of Stage 2 Enforcers—men with cybernetic enhancements and the same disgusting, hungry eyes as the guards at the gate—burst through the smoke.
"The girl!" one of them roared, his voice a mechanical rasp. "The Zenith wants her heart on the altar!"
Elara didn't wait. She dove through the final gap in the lasers, her body rolling across the cold marble floor. Her breasts jiggled and bounced as she hit the ground, her skin scraping against the stone. Dante caught her mid-roll, hauling her up and shoving her behind him.
He fired until his magazines were dry, then transitioned to his combat knife. The fight was brutal and intimate. Dante moved with a "Panorama" of violence, his blade finding the gaps in the Enforcers' armor. Blood sprayed across the white marble, splashing against Elara's pale legs.
She scrambled to the central control terminal, her fingers flying across the keys. "I'm overriding the pressure seals now! Dante, we have sixty seconds before the foundation buckles!"
"Do it!" Dante yelled, snapping the neck of an Enforcer who had tried to grab Elara's hair.
She hit the final command. Deep beneath the bank, the sound of ancient stone groaning began to rise. The structural pillars, weakened by the diverted gas lines, started to hairline-fracture. Dust began to rain from the ceiling.
"We have to go!" Elara screamed, clutching the Ledger to her chest.
They ran for the service lift, the ground shaking beneath them. As they burst into the lift, Dante slammed the 'Up' button. Through the closing doors, Elara saw the Zenith standing at the end of the hall. He wasn't running. He was standing perfectly still, his porcelain mask tilted as if he were listening to the music of his empire crumbling.
He raised a hand, pointing a single finger at Elara.
The elevator surged upward. As it reached the lobby, the entire building gave a final, sickening shudder. The marble floors began to cave in, swallowing the "Holy" bureaucracy and the "Disgusting" processing rooms in a cloud of white dust and debris.
They burst out of the front entrance just as the facade of the Bank of the Eternal Sun collapsed into the street.
Dante threw Elara into the SUV, his chest heaving, his eyes fixed on the Golden Ledger in her lap.
"We didn't just take their money," Dante said, his voice thick with a dark triumph. "We took their names. Every politician, every judge, every Stage 3 leader in the world is in that book."
Elara looked at her hands. They were covered in dust and blood. She looked down at her chest, her breasts still heaving, the white lace of her bra torn and revealing. She felt a strange, cold power blooming in her chest.
"The Zenith isn't dead," she whispered. "He wanted us to take this. He wanted the weak members of the Circle to be purged so he could start over."
Dante grabbed her chin, his thumb raking over her lower lip. "Then we'll find him in the ashes. But first..."
He looked at the way her body was still trembling, the way the adrenaline had turned into a raw, sexual need in both of them.
"First, we go to the safe house. I'm going to read every name in that book, and then I'm going to make you forget the sound of the world ending."