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Dawson put that fancy federal agent status of his to good use and secured a visit with my father on the drive over to Logan Hill. The second I stepped out of the car, he rushed me into the building like I was the president and he was my Secret Service detail. My billowy dress raised some eyebrows during the standard security check, but we made it through quickly and headed for the visitation booths. By the time we arrived, my father was already seated in the furthest cubby from the door with the phone in his hand. He smiled warmly at the sight of me in my gown, but the closer I got, the clearer my disheveled state became, and his brows pinched together with concern.

And the second Dawson came into view, his expression turned murderous.

I’d barely lifted the phone up to my ear when he started in. “What the fuck is he doing here?” Whether he’d recognized the young fed from the Bureau or just put two and two together, I didn’t know, but either way, he was pissed by his presence.

“Dad, we don’t have time for this—”

“What happened?” he asked, taking in my smeared makeup and roughed-up hair.

I took a deep breath and dropped the bomb. “Some hillbilly got paid by the AD to take a shot at me during the Winter Festival parade. Dawson shielded me while Tyson hightailed it out of there, so keep that in mind before you start in on him.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Dad. I’ve had worse.”

“That’s not a comforting statement, Kylene.”

“Listen—we don’t have a lot of time. I strong-armed Dawson into bringing me here because Agent Wilson is putting me into protective custody tonight, and I needed to see you before I’m whisked away to some unknown destination for an indefinite length of time.”

My two-by-four of truth landed about as well as I’d expected it to. Dad sat there for a moment, wide-eyed and mute, before his brain fully registered what I’d said.

“The AD has taken down every mob connection we’ve arrested who was willing and able to inform on him,” Dawson added, pausing for a beat. “This asshole is killing anyone who gets too close to him, and if we don’t shut him down, he’ll keep coming for your daughter. We need whatever information we can get to stop him.”

My dad’s gaze turned to steel as he glared at Dawson through the plexi. “Maybe if you had let this sleeping dog lie, my daughter wouldn’t be in danger—”

“ Dad !” I snapped, drawing his ire away from his former colleague on the right side of the glass. “This isn’t on Dawson and you know it. You can be pissed off all you want later, but right now you need to realize that you’re not keeping me safe by staying silent.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? I. Can’t. ”

“Tell her,” Dawson snapped as he leaned forward over the counter, “because whatever deal you made in exchange for your silence appears to be null and void if it concerned your daughter’s safety. And you can blame me all you want to assuage your guilt, but you and I both know that won’t help you sleep at night if something happens. So if you love her the way I imagine you do, you’ll drop this bullshit and tell her whatever you can to help us, because he’s coming for her either way.”

The rage in my father’s eyes made me grateful for the thick plexiglass separating him from Dawson. “You have no idea what you’re messing with.”

“I think we both know far better than you want to admit.”

“Dad,” I shouted, grabbing his attention away from Dawson, “listen to me! We are so far past the point of finger-pointing and blame, I can’t even begin to tell you. I’m about to be put into protective custody —do you get that? I’m leaving Jasperville, and I won’t see you again until the AD is stopped, which means if he isn’t…this is it. This is the last time you’ll see me—all because you won’t tell us what really happened in that warehouse.”

Maybe it was the truth I’d slapped him with, the pain in my voice, or the fat tears rolling down my cheeks, but something like realization dawned in my father’s expression, and whatever fight was coursing through his veins dissipated in an instant. All that was left in its wake was indecision—and fear.

Though our tactics had been rough, we were getting through to him.

“Tell us what you know, Daddy… please .”

“Why did you want to meet with Reider that night?”

My father hesitated for a moment before exhaling long and hard. With that single act, it was as if he’d flipped a switch. He leaned forward on his elbows, cop face fully engaged as he stared us down through the glass. “Reider set that meeting, not me,” he said as quietly as he could. “He came to me about information he’d found while investigating something I’d asked him to look up about the Vollero family. He’d stumbled across something about the infamous boss that nobody could ever track down— something serious enough that he didn’t want to risk a paper trail. He pulled me aside in the bathroom and told me to meet him that night, alone.”

“But weren’t you investigating him?” I asked, trying to sort through what we knew and what we thought we did. “I mean, you had pictures of him with mobsters…info on gambling debts…why would you trust him? Especially since he was investigating you, too.”

He shook his head. “It’s not what you think. I did have information on him that I found when I was looking into the Vollero family, but he was never the target. As for me, something I was investigating got flagged, and he was checking into me to make sure it was on the up and up. In the process of following through, he found the information he was desperate to show me.”

“So he came to you out of the blue and asked you to meet him?” Dawson asked.

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t think that was odd?”

“No, I didn’t. What I did think was that whatever information he’d found had him twitchy as hell and must be highly sensitive and likely to have internal implications, given his paranoid behavior.”

“Did Striker know about this?” I asked, trying to compare Dad’s version against the one his partner had disclosed weeks earlier.

My father shook his head. “He didn’t know anything about the case that led to this mess—I was working it on the side. I wanted to keep him out of it just in case it went sideways. But as I left for the meeting, he called me, concerned about how I'd been acting. He was worried about me and wouldn’t accept the excuses I gave him. Once I realized he’d never let it drop, I told him what I’d been investigating and where I was headed. He insisted on coming too.”

“ Shit ,” I said in a whisper. Striker had unwittingly walked into an absolute shitshow—one he could have avoided altogether if he hadn’t cared so much for my dad.

“If I could do it over again, I would have done anything to keep him away,” my dad admitted, his tone rimmed with guilt. “Thankfully, I got there before he did. Reider was waiting for me with a file of information he’d amassed. In it was everything he’d found on the Vollero mob boss—including images. And Reider was freaked out by what he’d learned. He was so spooked when I walked in he nearly shot me.”

“What was in the file?”

My father’s expression soured. “I don’t know…I never got to see it.”

“ Manny ,” I said in a near-growl, thinking of his words on the rooftop about his presence there that fateful night.

“Exactly. He and Jimmy Barratta strolled in with weapons trained on us. Somehow, they knew about the meeting.”

“But how? Striker wouldn’t have tipped them off, and even if he had, the timing doesn’t make any sense.”

“Someone else did,” Dawson said, leaning in closer. “Someone that either overheard your conversation in the bathroom with Reider or was already onto you both and had you followed.”

“The AD has eyes everywhere,” I added. “That’s not a stretch by any means.”

“However it happened, the two of them disarmed us and took the file of evidence before I had a chance to see it,” he explained. “Then Manny used my gun to shoot Reider at point-blank range. There was nothing I could do for him. He was gone before he hit the ground—and I thought I was next.

“Striker came running in, weapon drawn because he’d heard the shot, and nearly died because of it. Barratta took me hostage to keep him at bay, and that’s when the explanation of how everything was going to go down started. I would take the fall for the murder, and Striker would be an inside man for them. They burned the file right there in an old metal barrel without even opening it, then took any evidence of it with them when they left.”

“Taking any evidence you would have had to support your story along with them.”

He nodded. “Evidence didn’t matter by that point. I knew I would go down for the crime because I had no other option.” He looked at me, a desperate plea in his stare. “They threatened you and your mother if I tried to tell the truth about that night.”

“And the accidents you’ve had since you’ve been in here?”

“Not-so-gentle reminders of just how easily they can get to me—and you .”

Dawson warily eyed the guard on the far side of the room. “Do you have any other information that could help us? Files? Notebooks? Anything on a personal laptop?”

My father shook his head. “Everything I had would have been seized when Wilson and the others came to take me that night. There was a whole team there to sweep the house.”

“They didn’t find the file you stashed in the tax box,” I said, “but I did. I think you’re overestimating their thoroughness.”

“Could there be anything else?” Dawson asked.

My father had just opened his mouth to respond when a knock on the door leading back into the prison on his side rang out. The guard crossed the room and buzzed it open. We watched as a slip of paper landed in his palm and the hand that passed it to him pointed at my father. The guard shut the door, then made his way over and dropped the folded note in front of him.

Dad eyed it for a second before he picked it up and read it while Dawson and I looked on, perched on the edges of our chairs. His face paled, and the note fell from his fingertips and floated down to the tiny ledge next to the window. It landed face-up, and I craned my neck to try and read it.

Once I did, I wished I hadn’t.

TIME’S UP…

Before the ominous message could fully register, blaring sirens cut through the silence like a guillotine, and whatever sense of calm I’d mustered since we arrived dropped into my gut. Lights flashed and strobed as I covered my ears in a feeble attempt to shield them from the deafening assault. Dawson was on his feet, rushing to the door we’d entered through, fists pounding against the metal as guards rushed past. We were trapped with no way out.

In the middle of a prison break.