Chapter forty-five
Riven
The storm got worse the farther up the mountain we drove.
Rain slammed against the windshield hard enough to blur the road while thunder cracked over Greyveil Summit like the fucking sky was splitting apart.
Dion drove fast anyway, one hand on the wheel, the other pressing against the blood soaking through his shoulder.
“You gonna die before we get there?” I asked flatly.
“Trying not to.”
“Lemme know if that changes.” He laughed once under his breath.
First genuine sound I’d heard from him all night. The silence after that wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t hostile either. Just tense. Heavy, like both of us understood something ugly now.
Stonebridge wasn’t broken; it was built this way. Dion turned off the main road and onto a narrow gravel path cutting through the mountainside. Trees swallowed us almost immediately. The headlights barely pierced the rain.
“You ever been up here?” he asked.
“No.”
“Most people haven’t.”
That tracked. The deeper we drove, the less the road looked real. Nature had almost reclaimed it entirely. Mud swallowed the tires while old rusted signs leaned sideways in the brush.
MINING ACCESS
CLOSED BY COUNTY ORDER.
The sign looked ancient, but fresh tire marks cut through the mud beside it. Recent. Very recent. Dion killed the engine near the edge of a steep ravine. For a moment neither of us moved. Rain hammered the roof above us. Then he reached beneath his seat and grabbed a flashlight and handgun.
“You armed?” I pulled my own pistol from my waistband.
“She’d kill me if I wasn’t.”
The second the words left my mouth, my expression darkened slightly. Because everybody knew Nadia slept with weapons hidden everywhere. Under mattresses, inside boots, taped beneath tables. Trauma turned survival into instinct. I shoved the thought away, focusing on the task ahead.
We climbed out into the storm. Cold rain soaked through my clothes instantly while Dion led us through thick trees toward the mountain. At first I didn’t see anything. Then lightning flashed overhead, and the entrance appeared.
It was huge, carved directly into the mountain behind overgrown fencing and collapsed support beams. An old mining tunnel, except it wasn’t abandoned. Fresh tracks tore through the mud leading inside. SUV tires. My stomach tightened instantly.
“The race,” I muttered. Dion nodded grimly.
“This is where they came from.” We stepped inside.
Everything immediately changed. The storm noise faded behind us until only the drip of water and distant creaks of metal remained.
The tunnel air smelled old. Wet concrete, rust, and mildew.
And underneath it? Oil. Machines. Human activity.
My flashlight swept across old rail tracks cutting deeper underground.
Fresh scrape marks, meaning they were used recently. Dion crouched beside them.
“These aren’t original.”
“No shit.”
The metal looked newer than the tunnel itself.
Maintained. Somebody kept this place operational.
We moved deeper. The tunnel widened slowly the farther down we went.
Old mining supports gave way to reinforced concrete walls.
Wiring ran along the ceilings. Ventilation ducts.
Electrical panels. Not abandoned, hidden.
“What the fuck?” Dion didn’t answer. I don’t think he could.
Because suddenly this wasn’t conspiracy anymore. This was infrastructure. Olympus had built beneath Stonebridge for decades, maybe longer. My flashlight passed over symbols spray-painted onto the walls. Kingsmen, Phantoms, LBC. Scorpions. They were territory tags. Dion noticed them too.
“The gangs knew about the tunnels.”
“No,” I said quietly.
I understood immediately. They didn’t. Not knowingly. Drug runs, weapons, smuggling. Olympus probably fed routes to gang leaders for years without ever explaining where they originally came from. Useful idiots, all of us. The tunnel opened abruptly into a massive underground loading station.
And my blood ran cold. Vehicles. Not many, but enough.
Black SUVs lined one wall beside stacks of shipping crates and industrial shelves filled with supplies.
Medical equipment, fuel, burner phones, weapons.
Not gang weapons either, military-grade shit.
Dion moved toward one of the tables slowly.
Files covered it. Maps, photographs, and schedules were all there, lying scattered.
I grabbed the nearest folder. Inside were pictures of Stonebridge residents. Children. Teenagers. Runaways, some marked missing for years, some I recognized from town. Every file had notes beside it. Behavioral notes. Psychological and even medical ones. One word repeated constantly:
COMPATIBILITY.
“What the fuck is this?” Dion whispered.
Human trafficking, but not random. This was selective, targeted. Olympus wasn’t just kidnapping people. They were choosing them. My stomach twisted violently. Then I saw one photo that stopped me cold.
Roxy. Young, maybe fifteen. She was badly bruised. A barcode sticker attached to the file. Beside it:
UNSUITABLE
Something inside me snapped. I slammed the folder onto the table hard enough to send papers flying.
“These sick fucks.” I seethed. Dion looked pale now, actually pale.
Then his flashlight hit another wall, and both of us froze. Children’s height measurements carved directly into the concrete. Rows of them, dates beside each line, some ending abruptly. Like whoever marked them disappeared afterward. The air suddenly felt harder to breathe.
“Riven…” Dion said quietly. I turned.
He pointed toward a set of heavy steel doors farther inside the station.
One stood slightly open; light spilled through the crack.
Not old lighting, but bright. Modern and active.
Voices echoed faintly from inside. Both of us immediately killed our flashlights.
Darkness swallowed the station except for the light ahead.
The voices grew clearer as we moved closer. Calm and professional.
“…South side shipment moves Friday.”
“Too risky after the race.”
“The girl complicated things.” Nadia. Every muscle in my body tightened instantly. Another voice answered:
“She was always going to.”
“Hades made the wrong choice keeping her alive this long.” My blood froze.
Beside me, Dion went perfectly still. Not from fear, but recognition. I glanced at him sharply. His jaw tightened violently.
“What?” I mouthed silently.
Dion didn’t answer, but something changed in his face. Something deeply fucking wrong, like a memory just surfaced. Inside the room, papers shuffled before another voice spoke.
“Once transition happens, Stonebridge stabilizes again.”
Transition, the same word from before. The race, the attack, the tunnels.
Olympus was preparing for something. Not hiding anymore, but evolving.
Then came footsteps heading toward the door.
Both of us moved instantly, ducking behind stacked crates as the steel door creaked open wider.
A man stepped out dressed in black tactical gear with the pillar tattoo visible beneath his sleeve.
Not gang. Olympus. He lit a cigarette casually and leaned against the doorway. Close enough now that I could kill him. I tightened my grip on the gun. Dion grabbed my wrist hard before I could move. I looked at him furiously. His expression stopped me cold. Not fear, horror.
Because the man standing in the doorway wore a silver ring carved with a symbol Dion clearly recognized. And suddenly? I realized something terrifying. Dion knew more about Olympus than he’d been saying.