A Handful of Soil

He flew to Ukraine to collect a dead man's money - and instead found a sealed door that hadn't been opened in a thousand years.The air in the catacombs doesn't move. Candle flames stand perfectly still. Somewhere beneath the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, behind walls older than memory, something has been waiting. Silently. Patiently. For exactly this kind of man.Tony is a Chicago engineer who measures everything in dollars. His estranged grandfather's death should have been simple: fly to Ukraine, collect a handful of earth, place it on the old man's grave, claim a few million dollars. Clean. Efficient. Done. But a crumbling map found in a monastery archive changes everything. It points to the untouched tomb of Saint Antony - sealed for ten centuries. Tony doesn't see a sacred site. He sees a vault.He allies with brutal local businessmen who operate outside every law. His only obstacle is Vera - a monastery guide with ancient eyes and a warning he refuses to hear: the tomb was sealed not to protect the treasure inside, but to contain what guards it.- The Bargain: The mobsters need Tony to breach the catacombs. Tony needs their money and muscle. Neither trusts the other with their life - which means both of them are already expendable.- The Warning: Vera knows what lies inside. She has read the ancient manuscripts. Every person who came before Tony with greed in their hands left the catacombs - but not as themselves.- The Test: Tony believes he is hunting for gold buried in the dark. The monastery has already decided what it is hunting for - and it found him the moment he walked through its gates.A thousand years of silence is about to end. What Tony discovers in that tomb will cost him everything he thought he was - and the only question left is whether any of it was worth the price of his soul.The door is already open. Will you follow him in?Descend the dark.