UNCLAIMED

Blood in the Margins

The alarms didn’t sound.

That was how Lena knew something was wrong.

Blackwood Tower was built to scream at the slightest breach pressure shifts, unauthorized access, even emotional anomalies flagged by biometric systems. Silence meant the system hadn’t detected danger.

Or it had been told not to.

Dominic moved fast, issuing orders through his comm, his voice low and lethal. “Lock down floors twenty to thirty. Manual override only. No automated responses.”

“Why manual?” Lena asked, keeping pace beside him.

“Because machines don’t question orders,” he replied. “People do.”

They reached the private elevator. Dominic keyed in a code Lena hadn’t seen before one he’d sworn never to use.

The doors slid shut.

“You trust them?” Lena asked quietly.

“I trust patterns,” he said. “And right now, the pattern says someone wants us isolated.”

The elevator descended not up.

Lena’s ears popped as they dropped below ground level, past secure vaults and data centers she hadn’t known existed.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Dominic didn’t answer until the doors opened onto a concrete corridor lined with steel doors and red indicator lights.

“The margins,” he said. “Where the empire bleeds.”

The words sent a chill through her.

Inside, the air was colder, heavier. The walls bore scars patches where bullets had been dug out, scorch marks from old fires.

“This place hasn’t been used in years,” Lena murmured.

“Exactly.”

They entered a room dominated by a long steel table and a single hanging light. Dominic pulled up surveillance feeds grainy, partially corrupted.

“Someone rerouted internal sensors,” he said. “Subtle. Elegant.”

Lena swallowed. “Evelyn.”

He didn’t respond but he didn’t deny it either.

A soft chime echoed.

Incoming transmission.

Dominic’s hand hovered over the control for half a second then he accepted it.

The screen flickered to life.

The same man from the café appeared unremarkable, forgettable.

“Mr. Blackwood,” the man said pleasantly. “Ms. Vale.”

Lena’s nails bit into her palms. “Where is my father?”

“Still alive,” he replied. “For now.”

Dominic’s voice was ice. “What do you want?”

“To finish the conversation your father started,” the man said. “You’ve been sitting on his work for too long.”

Lena frowned. “His work?”

The man smiled thinly. “You didn’t think he was just running, did you?”

Dominic shot her a sharp look.

“What work?” Lena demanded.

“Insurance,” the man said. “Files, accounts, dead-man switches. He built a map of power that makes Blackwood’s holdings look… quaint.”

Dominic’s jaw tightened. “You’re lying.”

“Am I?” the man asked lightly. “Ask her why the syndicate hasn’t killed him yet.”

Lena’s chest tightened. “Because he’s leverage.”

“Because he’s valuable,” the man corrected. “And so are you.”

Dominic stepped closer to the screen. “Get to the point.”

“We want what Thomas Vale built,” the man said. “And we want you to help us retrieve it.”

Lena shook her head. “I don’t have anything.”

“Not consciously,” he said. “But you’re the key.”

The words echoed in her skull.

“What does that mean?” she whispered.

“It means,” the man continued, “that your father didn’t trust anyone else. Not even himself. He encoded everything around you memories, habits, emotional triggers.”

Lena felt sick. “You’re saying he turned me into a vault.”

“Yes,” the man said simply. “A living one.”

Dominic’s eyes darkened with fury. “You used your daughter as a lock?”

The man shrugged. “He used her as a guarantee.”

Lena’s breath came fast now. Images flickered through her mind her father teaching her numbers as lullabies, patterns hidden in bedtime stories, the way he’d always insisted on repetition.

“Stop,” she whispered.

“You see?” the man said gently. “It’s already waking up.”

Dominic slammed his fist into the table. “You’re not touching her.”

“Then you’re choosing her over him,” the man said. “And over your empire.”

Silence fell.

The man leaned closer to the camera. “We’ve already proven we can reach inside your tower. We can collapse markets. Turn allies. Expose secrets.”

He smiled. “We can also stop.”

Lena looked at Dominic, fear and anger twisting together. “Don’t listen to him.”

Dominic didn’t look away from the screen. “What’s your deadline?”

“Forty-eight hours,” the man replied. “Bring us the vault-or we start removing pieces.”

“Pieces of what?” Lena demanded.

The man’s smile faded.

“Your world.”

The feed cut.

The room felt suddenly smaller, air thick and oppressive.

Lena slid into a chair, hands shaking. “He did this to me. My father.”

Dominic crouched in front of her, his voice quieter now. “He was trying to protect you.”

“By turning me into a target?” she snapped. “By wiring my mind like a weapon?”

“He trusted you,” Dominic said. “That matters.”

She laughed bitterly. “No. He used me.”

Dominic reached for her hands hesitated then took them gently. “They don’t get to decide what you are.”

She met his gaze, eyes burning. “Then what am I?”

For a moment, Dominic didn’t answer.

Then he said softly, “You’re someone who gets to choose.”

The lights flickered.

A distant thud reverberated through the concrete.

Lena’s head snapped up. “What was that?”

Dominic’s comm crackled to life with frantic voices.

“breach in the lower levels manual override failed”

Dominic stood, eyes cold and focused. “They’re not waiting forty-eight hours.”

He looked at Lena. “Can you access what your father hid?”

She swallowed hard. “I don’t know how.”

Dominic grabbed his weapon. “Then we buy you time to remember.”

Another explosion rocked the walls, closer now.

Red lights flared to life, painting the room in blood.

Lena rose to her feet, fear sharpening into something else something dangerous.

“If they want the vault,” she said, voice steady despite the chaos, “they’re going to have to go through me.”

Outside the room, footsteps thundered closer.

And somewhere deep in her mind, something old began to stir.