The Fighter’s Ballerina Obsession

The Resurrection of Shadows

As the damp air of the ossuary burned our lungs, Abaddon slowly pulled away from me. The passionate mist in his eyes had cleared, replaced by a focus as sharp as a compass. The skulls on the walls weren't staring at us; they were mute witnesses seemingly approving of what we were about to do.

"We need to reach the surface," Abaddon said, wringing out his wet t-shirt. "Our connection with Marcus is severed. If we don't find the source of that Trojan, your father will be waiting for an execution in South America."

Navigating through the narrow, labyrinthine passages of the Catacombs, we reached an old, rusty manhole cover near Montmartre. When we emerged, Paris was rainy and gray. Our clothes were torn, our faces covered in soot and mud. But the authority in our gaze was enough to make the few homeless people nearby retreat in fear.

When we reached a cyber cafe, it took only seconds to breach the system with my "Mistress" identity. As my fingers danced across the keyboard, I found the source of the leak. It wasn't Laurant, and it wasn't an outside enemy.

"It’s an insider," I whispered, the screen’s light creating a cold blue glow on my face. "The leak was made from Marcus’s terminal. But he didn't do it... someone else hijacked his terminal."

Abaddon stood behind me, his hand moving to his gun. "Who?"

"Someone Dubois never mentioned," I said, opening an old archive on the screen. "His 'shadow student.' His name is Valerius. The man Dubois trained before me but left for dead because he was 'too savage'."

At that exact moment, the windows of the cafe shattered into thousands of pieces. Valerius had found us. But this time, we weren't victims. As Abaddon pulled me behind the counter, he leaned into my ear and said the words that changed everything:

"You won't dance this time, Angelica. This time, you will lead the orchestra. I am your lethal symphony."

The cold wind seeping through the shattered windows of the cafe mixed the scent of rain with the smoke of gunpowder. As Abaddon shielded me behind the counter, the silhouette appearing in the middle of the street was like a ghost. Valerius... With his long black coat and the deep knife scar on his face, the "savage son" Dubois had abandoned stood right before us.

"Abaddon," Valerius said, his voice grating like rusty metal. "Finding my father’s favorite toy and his new mistress shouldn't have been this difficult."

Abaddon stood up, his muscles coiled like a spring. "Dubois threw you in a junkyard, Valerius. You should have stayed there."

"He didn't throw me in a junkyard; he threw me into hell. But I learned to rule that hell," Valerius screamed, and simultaneously began firing with guns in both hands.

Abaddon lunged forward with the agility of a tiger. Within a second, the cafe turned into a slaughterhouse with bullets flying through the air. As I tracked Valerius’s position and the approach route of his men from the terminal under the counter, the physical war between Abaddon and Valerius turned into a ritual of two massive predators tearing each other apart.

They clashed on the wet asphalt under the rain. Valerius, unlike Abaddon, attacked with pure madness rather than technique. The sound of breaking bones accompanied every blow they traded. I bit my lip to keep from screaming when Valerius drove a concealed blade into Abaddon’s shoulder. But Abaddon didn't stop; despite his wounded shoulder, he chested Valerius like a wall and hurled him onto the broken glass of the cafe.

"Angelica, now!" Abaddon shouted.

From the tablet in my hand, I breached the transformers at the end of the street and caused a short circuit. The streetlights exploded with a massive roar, plunging the entire neighborhood into pitch-black darkness. This was an assassin’s favorite playground. Valerius’s agonized scream rose from the dark. Abaddon was hunting him like a shadow in the black.

However, with one final move, Valerius pulled the pin of a grenade and smirked. "If I don't win, nobody wins."

The sound of the pin being pulled echoed in my ears like a church bell. Time slowed down. The distorted, suicidal smirk on Valerius’s face flickered in the dark. I saw Abaddon look at me—that single second when he decided to trade his life for mine.

"Get down!" Abaddon roared.

He collapsed over me like a mountain. The explosion deafened me as if the world were ending. I felt his body shudder, absorbing all the shrapnel like a shield just before the heat could lick my back. Glass, metal fragments, and fire swept over us like a storm.

When silence fell, the only scent was burnt flesh and gunpowder.

"Abaddon?" I whispered, my voice failing. I tried to push the weight off me. Abaddon groaned as he sat up; his back was a sea of blood, but his eyes were still fixed on me. "I’m okay," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "You’re alive..."

Nothing remained of Valerius but a burning void in the middle of the road. But for us, the war was just beginning. When the emergency helicopter sent by Marcus appeared at the end of the wrecked street, Abaddon was on the verge of losing consciousness.

"Your father..." he said, placing his hand on my face. "You must go to him, Angelica. I’ll... only slow you down."

"Don't be ridiculous!" I shouted, dragging him toward the helicopter. "If we are going there, we are going together. You are my sword, Abaddon. Even if my sword breaks, I will not let go of it."

Inside the helicopter, flying over the ocean toward South America, I stitched Abaddon’s wounds with my own hands. With every needle prick, I felt his skin shudder, his pain rushing through my veins. When he fell into a drugged sleep, I turned back to the screen. The footage of the hidden camp in South America was clearing up. My father was tied to a chair, surrounded by Thorne’s last executioners.

The old fear in my eyes was completely erased. In its place came a cold, crystalline hatred. "Get ready, Marcus," I said over the comms. "When we get there, we won't just save my father. I will hold myself guilty for every breath we leave alive on that soil."