The cold of the vault didn't touch him.
He stood beneath the flickering emergency light, spine pressed against the concrete, listening to the blood drum in his ears like a second heartbeat. Not his. Not anymore. Something older. Something waking.
He could've killed him.
He should have.
Silas Marlow had once activated the pain chip without blinking. Had watched him seize and foam at the mouth in a polished hallway while sipping black tea. Had measured his loyalty in units of compliance. But now… he hadn't said a word. He hadn't run.
Igor could smell the fear on him, faint but real. Not panic. Resignation.
So why did you let him go?
Because the kill switch wasn't working.
Not the one they planted in his neck.
The one in his mind.
He dragged in a breath through his nose, slow and trembling, like his body had to relearn the shape of control. The voices in his head weren't commands anymore.
They were memories. Screams from the mines. His voice, younger, begging not to be taken again. Maisie's voice was not a command, but a tether.
She had touched his face once. No gloves. No fear.
You are not a weapon, she had said. You're still in there.
That echo pulsed louder now than any order the prior foreign voices in his head had said.
Igor moved silently through the vault corridor, barefoot on cold stone. He kept to the shadows, not hiding, not hunting. Choosing.
Every step was a declaration: I am not yours. Not anymore.
He passed the cryo-chambers without looking. He didn't need to. He could feel the rot behind the glass. The stasis. The waiting. The same sentence they gave him, just colder.
But what chilled him more was this:
He was still capable of killing Marlow.
He just hadn't decided when.
The fire crackled low in the marble hearth, more for aesthetics than warmth. Harry Lennox stood with one hand in his pocket, the other wrapped around a tumbler of rye he hadn't sipped in over an hour.
His office smelled of wood polish, dried eucalyptus, and the expensive silence of wealth, broken only by the faint mechanical click as the door opened behind him.
"Come in, Marlow."
No footsteps. Just the soft shut of the door.
Harry turned slowly. The butler stood precisely where expected, half in shadow, posture impeccable. A faint sheen of frost still clung to the hem of his gloves.
"You were in the vault," Harry said. It wasn't a question.
Silas Marlow inclined his head. "Routine temperature recalibration. The cryo-caskets tend to shift with the weather."
Harry's jaw flexed. "And the breach? The fluctuation on the east quadrant camera feed?"
"A power flicker," Marlow replied smoothly. "Nothing entered the estate. I've already corrected the sequence."
Harry stepped closer, eyes narrowing. "You're sure? You've checked the backups?"
"No anomalies. The system restored its loop. False positive." A pause. "The perimeter's secure."
Harry studied him a moment longer. Marlow's voice was flat, elegant. His expression was unreadable as ever. Too unreadable.
He set the glass down on the sideboard with a soft clink. "I find it strange," he said, "that every time something inexplicable happens in this house, every flicker, every irregularity, you're the first one to report it and the only one who understands how it works."
Marlow didn't blink. "That's what you hired me for, sir."
"No," Harry said quietly. "I inherited you. Along with the security clearances and the locked basement."
A subtle tension passed through Marlow's posture. Just enough for Harry to see it. That was new.
"Tell me something," Harry continued. He circled the desk, voice low. "How long have you been in service to this family, exactly?"
"Long enough to understand its value," Marlow said.
"Long enough," Harry echoed. "But not… aging. Not like the rest of us."
The silence hung sharp between them.
Then Marlow smiled. Barely. "I take care of myself."
Harry stared at him, this man who had arrived with Mara, who had never left, who seemed to know the mansion's veins better than its master. For the first time, Harry felt like he wasn't the spider in the web.
He was just a guest.
"Keep the eastern wing locked down," he said tightly. "And let me know if the power 'flickers' again."
"Yes, Director."
Marlow turned, unhurried, and stepped back into the shadows of the hallway.
Harry waited until the door clicked shut before exhaling through his teeth and muttering to himself:
"One day I'll open that vault and find you inside it."
And he wasn't sure if the thought made him feel better or worse.