Chapter Twenty-Eight — Goodbye, Vinny
Chapter Twenty-One — Goodbye, Vinny
The tunnel felt unreal.
Gunfire echoed somewhere distant now.
House soldiers screamed through collapsing containment lines.
Silas moved through smoke and blood like a beautiful disaster.
But inside the circle around the coffin—
everything went quiet.
Blaine stood directly behind Avery, one hand gripping her shoulder firmly enough to
ground her while the other hovered near her waist.
Not touching fully.
Ready.
Always ready.
“If it gets worse,” he said quietly near her ear, “I pull you back.”
Avery nodded once.
Barely.
Then slowly—
she removed one glove.
Cold air hit exposed skin instantly.
The entire tunnel seemed to react.
Emergency lights flickered violently overhead.
The poison thickened in the air like static before a storm.
House soldiers farther down the corridor physically recoiled.
Blaine’s grip tightened slightly on her shoulder.
“Avery.”
“I know.”
Her bare fingers trembled.
Not from the poison.
From him.
Vinny.
Dead in front of her after days of refusing to believe it fully.
Avery stepped closer toward the coffin slowly.
Cold white vapor curled around her ankles while black veins spread silently beneath
Vinny’s pale skin.
He looked beautiful still.
That felt unfair.
Beautiful people weren’t supposed to die in poisoned tunnels because powerful men got
scared.
Tears blurred her vision again.
“You idiot,” she whispered shakily.
A memory hit instantly — Vinny grinning while holding poison flowers outside her
apartment.
You know what’s romantic? Surviving mutually assured destruction together.
The grief cracked open completely.
Avery reached toward him.
Blaine’s arm wrapped carefully around her waist immediately behind her.
Steadying.
Protecting.
Holding.
The contact grounded her just enough to keep breathing.
Then her fingertips touched Vinny’s hand.
Nothing happened.
No violent surge.
No deadly collapse.
Just cold.
God.
So cold.
Avery broke instantly.
A sharp shattered sound escaped her chest while tears spilled freely down her face.
“Vinny…”
His skin stayed motionless beneath her touch.
Dead.
Actually dead.
Not sleeping.
Not recovering.
Gone.
Blaine held her tighter automatically as her knees weakened.
The poison trembled through the tunnel air violently in response to her grief, but somehow
— with Blaine anchoring her — it didn’t explode outward this time.
It pulsed.
Mourned.
Like the contamination itself grieved with her.
Avery carefully intertwined her fingers with Vinny’s cold hand.
The gesture destroyed her.
Because this was all she ever wanted — to touch him without fear.
And death was the only thing that finally made it safe.
The realization nearly hollowed her out completely.
She could feel his hand under hers. Cold in a way that had nothing to do with temperature
— the particular absence of warmth that had always been there before, that she had spent
years being careful not to take. He used to move his fingers just slightly when they were
close to touching. A tell he probably didn’t know he had. She’d noticed the second time they
met and kept noticing for years and never said anything because saying it would have
meant admitting she was paying that kind of attention.
She was paying that kind of attention.
She had always been paying that kind of attention.
The grief wasn’t loud anymore. It had moved past the part that screamed. Now it was just
present, the way the journal was present at her hip — something she would carry,
something she would keep, something that belonged to her because she had refused to let it
get buried.
Behind them even Silas had gone quiet.
Avery leaned forward shakily until her forehead rested lightly against the edge of the coffin.
“I loved you too,” she whispered brokenly.
She pressed her fingers slightly tighter against his.
One last time without fear.
The words echoed softly through the tunnel.
Too late.
Far too late.
But real.
Blaine closed his eyes briefly behind her.
The pain on his face looked almost unbearable.
Then—
the tunnel lights surged violently bright.
Everyone froze.
A low electronic tone pulsed overhead.
ACCESS CONFIRMED.
Avery lifted her head slowly.
The preservation systems around the coffin suddenly flickered alive one by one.
“What—”
Then a hidden scanner beneath the coffin lid illuminated bright green where her bare hand
still touched Vinny’s skin.
Blaine’s expression changed instantly.
Alarm.
“Avery, move.”
Too late.
A compartment hissed open beneath the coffin interior.
A concealed data drive slid upward mechanically from beneath Vinny’s body.
Silence crashed through the tunnel.
Silas stared.
“Well,” he murmured softly. “That’s horrifyingly romantic.”
Avery’s pulse stumbled violently.
Vinny hid something inside his own coffin.
For her.
Blaine carefully pulled Avery backward while keeping himself between her and the House
soldiers regrouping deeper in the corridor.
The assassin grabbed the drive quickly.
Then his face went still.
Not emotionally.
Strategically.
The kind of stillness that meant catastrophe.
“What?” Avery whispered.
Blaine looked up slowly.
Silver eyes sharp now.
Dangerously sharp.
“This isn’t evidence.”
Fear slid cold through her.
“What is it?”
Blaine stared down at the drive once more.
Then quietly:
“It’s a Black Vein subject registry.”
Blaine turned it over once in his gloved hand.
“Vinny built redundancy into everything he found,” Avery said quietly. It landed as she said
it — the realization arriving late, the way realizations about him always did. “He would’ve
assumed they’d try to destroy the original.”
Blaine looked at her.
“How many copies?”
“I don’t know. Enough.”
It was the most Vinny thing she’d ever heard herself say.
Silence.
Then Silas’ smile disappeared completely.
Because suddenly they all understood the same thing at once.
Vinny didn’t just discover corruption.
He discovered every name the city buried.