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11

DANTE

T he flight from Manhattan to Albany gave me too much time to think. Vincent’s words in court kept repeating in my head: “Give my regards to Barbara.” The deliberate way he’d said her name, watching for my reaction. My brother never said anything without purpose, each word was chosen for maximum impact. I’d seen him destroy people with nothing more than well-placed phrases, watching them unravel as they tried to decipher his meaning.

The setting sun painted the colorful clouds outside my window, but I barely noticed the view. My mind kept circling back to the way Vincent had smirked when he mentioned Barbara Gregory’s name, like a cat toying with its prey. There was something there, some connection I wasn’t seeing, and that blind spot could get someone killed.

“Can I get you anything, sir?” The flight attendant’s voice pulled me from my dark thoughts. Her practiced smile faltered slightly when she met my eyes, and I wondered what she saw there.

I shook my head, checking my phone again. Another update from Tank about the brick through the coffee shop window. The message included a photo of the note that was eerily similar to ones I’d seen our family send in the past. Which meant my theory about Vincent finding ways to threaten those who stood in his way, even while in custody, was on point. But something about this felt different from his usual intimidation tactics. More personal. Like he was enjoying a private joke at my expense.

The man next to me cleared his throat, obviously annoyed by my constant phone checking. His Wall Street Journal rustled pointedly as he shifted away from me. I couldn’t bring myself to care. Not when every moment I spent in this metal tube flying over New York State was another moment I couldn’t protect Lark and her grandmother. The thought of them alone at the lake house, even with K19’s security team in place, made my jaw clench.

“We’re beginning our descent into Albany International,” the flight attendant announced. I gripped the armrest, my knuckles white. Not from fear of flying, but from the growing certainty that I was missing something crucial. Some connection that would explain why my brother seemed so focused on the Gregory family.

The moment we landed, I was out of my seat and moving, shouldering past slower passengers with muttered apologies. The drive to Canada Lake stretched ahead of me, each mile marked by mounting tension. McKinney called just as I retrieved my car from long-term parking.

“Vincent’s been moved to solitary,” she reported. “No contact with anyone except his lawyer.”

“How’s he taking it?” I asked, throwing my bag into the passenger seat and starting the engine.

“Too well.” Her voice held a note of concern that made my stomach tighten. “He actually smiled when they told him.”

That detail sent a chill down my spine. Vincent only smiled like that when things were going according to plan. I’d seen that expression too many times, usually right before someone’s life fell apart. “Has he made any other comments about Gloversville that you’re aware of?”

“Not Vincent, but according to one of the guards, his lawyer’s been making a lot of calls, then seemingly reporting the details to Vincent, then making another call shortly thereafter.”

“Can we?—”

“Already tried,” she said, cutting me off. “All conversations are protected by attorney-client privilege.” The frustration in her voice matched my own. “Whatever he’s planning, he’s making sure to keep it all technically legal.”

I swore under my breath, pulling onto the highway with more speed than necessary. “Keep me posted if anything changes.”

“Alessandro?” She paused, and I could picture her expression—the same look she’d worn when we first started building the case against my brother. “Be careful.”

Heading north once the call ended, I continued pushing the speed limit as dusk turned to darkness. The image of the brick crashing through the coffee shop window, carrying Vincent’s message, haunted me. Reaching anyone, anywhere had always been his self-professed specialty—making sure people knew they weren’t safe, no matter where they tried to hide.

I thought about the last conversation I’d had with my brother about our mother. We’d been in his office, discussing family business over drinks that cost more than most people made in a day. “You know what your problem is, little brother?” he’d said, swirling expensive scotch in a crystal glass that had belonged to our grandfather. “You think too much about the wrong things.” At the time, I’d thought he was referring to my questioning of certain business practices. Now, I wondered if he’d known even then that I was working with the DOJ. He couldn’t have, though. If he had, I wouldn’t be alive to testify.

The familiar landmarks along Route 30 passed in a blur. Sacandaga River. Wells. Algonquin Lake. Each one bringing me closer to Canada Lake and to Lark. The headlights of passing cars created strange shadows in the trees, making me think of surveillance teams and hidden threats. A deer bounded across the road, forcing me to slam on the brakes. The near miss sent adrenaline coursing through my system, but it was nothing compared to the fear that had gripped me when I’d heard about the brick.

The woods pressed close to the road, dark and endless. These same forests had sheltered generations of secrets, I realized. How many other families in this region had histories like ours, filled with convenient disappearances and unspoken truths? The thought made me press the accelerator harder, eating up the miles between me and the lake house.

By the time I pulled up to the camp, the security lights illuminated the grounds in pools of harsh white that created more shadows than they banished. Two team members I didn’t recognize nodded as I passed their position, their hands never far from their weapons. Tank met me at the door, his expression grim.

“They used the confusion after the brick to get closer surveillance points,” he reported, falling into step beside me.

“Details?”

“Three teams rotating positions. High-end equipment. Electronic surveillance, too—we’ve picked up attempts to hack the security system. They know all the tricks to avoid detection by someone other than Alice.” He grinned. “If she hadn’t been specifically looking for them, who knows what they might’ve found.”

“Vincent’s people?”

Tank shrugged, but his expression was troubled. “Hard to say. Could be unrelated hackers, like she is. But whoever they are, they’ve got serious backing. The kind of resources that usually come with family connections, if you know what I mean.”

I did. The old families, the ones that had been operating in New York for generations, had networks that went deeper than most people realized. As the head of the most powerful family of all, Vincent had always been proud of those connections, of the power they represented. “Where’s Lark?”

“Great room with Alice. Mrs. Gregory retired early. Said she had a headache.”

“Or she’s avoiding questions,” I muttered, remembering how Lark had said her grandmother shut down when pressed about certain topics. The older generation’s silence felt less like trauma and more like self-preservation.

I found them exactly where Tank had said. Lark curled in one of the oversized chairs while Alice worked on her laptop. When Lark looked up, the relief in her eyes made my chest tight. She wore one of Alice’s sweaters, the pale blue making her look younger, more vulnerable. A teacup sat untouched on the table beside her.

“You didn’t have to rush back,” she said, but her voice wavered slightly.

“Yes, I did.” I moved closer, fighting the urge to pull her into my arms. The need to protect her was becoming dangerously close to overwhelming. “Tell me everything.”

She did, starting with the thugs—my word, not hers—in leather jackets bearing old factory insignias, through to the brick and the aftermath. But it was what she said next that unsettled me more.

“I found something in the basement before the flooding. An invoice for custom gloves.” She hesitated, and I saw her fingers twist in the stitches of her borrowed sweater. “The customer was Maria Castellano.”

“My grandmother,” I stated rather than ask.

“According to Gram, she ordered new gloves every year. She and my great-grandmother were…friends, I guess. Until the fire.”

“Until my grandfather had the factory burned.”

She nodded, then stood and walked over to the window. The glass reflected her image, overlaid against the darkness beyond. Even then, her ethereal beauty took my breath away.

“That’s not the only connection,” Alice said to Lark.

She nodded again. “My grandmother is particularly proud of her homemade marinara sauce. When I asked her where the recipe came from, she initially lied and said from one of her great-grandmothers. Earlier, shortly after the brick incident, she said it was Maria’s.”

I paced, trying to process this new information. “When?” The connection between our families went deeper—differently—than I’d realized, roots tangling together beneath the surface of Gloversville’s history.

“If you mean when were they friends, I don’t know. If you’re referring to when she was given the recipe, it was after Maria died. Gram thinks it might have been from your mother.”

My head snapped up. “I don’t understand.”

“She said it was delivered after someone overheard her saying she missed her mother’s sauce and wished she’d had her write down the recipe.” Lark twisted her hands in her lap in a way that reminded me of my mom. “Alessandro, I think there’s more going on here than Vincent trying to scare us. That he mentioned Gram in court, these connections between our families…”

“You think he knows something we don’t?”

“Not just him. Gram too.” When she looked at me, the firelight caught the tears in her eyes. “About our mothers, maybe. Both of them disappeared. Both families have holes in their histories that no one talks about. It can’t be a coincidence.”

“Maybe I can help,” Alice said, fingers flying over her keyboard. The clicking sound filled the silence. “There has to be a trail somewhere.”

“Gram said your family once owned a compound on Great Sacandaga Lake,” Lark said, moving away from the window to stand near the fire.

“That’s right.” The memory of summer afternoons spent there before everything fell apart rose unbidden. “We used to spend time there when I was a kid.”

“Let’s start there for now. You don’t happen to remember the address, do you? I can find it, but if you know it…” said Alice.

“3 Lake Drive.”

“Got it. Property records show it changed hands in the late nineties, but the buyer’s information is hidden behind shell companies. Twice, actually. Then again in 2011.” She frowned at her screen, the monitor’s light harsh against her face.

“My grandfather died in 1997.”

“That was the first. Then the second time was in 1998.”

That was the year I last saw my mother.

“Anything significant in 2011?” she asked before I could comment, thankfully. I wasn’t ready to think about what the property changing hands then meant, let alone talk about it.

“My father passed away in 2010.”

“That all makes sense, but I’ll keep digging,” Alice said, her expression determined. “There might be a connection we haven’t found yet. Old families are good at hiding things, but data doesn’t lie if you know how to read it.”

I watched Lark pace near the windows, her reflection ghostly against the glass. The lake beyond wasn’t visible anymore except by moonlight, but I could hear the waves lapping at the shore. The peaceful sound felt wrong, given the tension in the room.

“What else is on your mind?” I asked.

“Gram knows more than she’s saying. When I asked certain questions today, she shut down completely.”

“What kind of questions?”

“About the Castellanos. About my mother.” She hugged her waist. “About why your brother seems so focused on destroying what’s left of my family.”

A log shifted in the fireplace, sending sparks up the chimney. The sound made her jump, and I realized how on edge she was. We all were.

“There’s something else,” she added hesitantly. “The guys who came into the shop today? They weren’t just wearing the factory insignias. One of them had a visible tattoo.” She pulled an image up on the screen.

“Interesting,” I muttered, studying it. The design was familiar—a stylized eagle with spread wings, clutching a dagger in its talons. I wasn’t certain, but it looked like the symbol used by the Mazzeos. At one time, they were a rival crime family, but from what I’d heard, the only two sons from Vincent’s and my generation died young. Their father still ran the organization, but there was no one to take over once he was gone.

I remembered Vincent’s satisfied smile in court, how he’d dropped Gram’s name so casually. Like he was waiting for me to put the pieces together. Pieces I couldn’t see yet. If another family was involved, things were more complicated than even Vincent’s usual schemes. Maybe he didn’t have everything in place as well as he thought he did.

“We’ll figure it out,” I promised, though the words felt hollow. How could I protect her from threats I didn’t understand? From secrets I had no idea how to uncover or decipher?

“This might be something—” Alice’s phone buzzed, interrupting whatever she’d been about to say. “Damn. The system locked me out.”

“What was it?” I asked.

“Information about the shell companies, but it was gone before I could get a good look.”

“Can you get back in?” Lark moved to look over her shoulder.

“Not tonight. They’re using some serious security protocols. I’ll need to call in reinforcements. There’s a guy I work with, Tex, who has the ability to get beyond brick walls no one else can.” She started typing again.

“But there’s something else. The timing of when your mother left and when Alessandro’s mom disappeared?—”

“Wait,” Lark interrupted sharply. When we both looked at her, she shook her head. “I mean, I need to talk to Gram first.”

Something in her tone made me straighten. “Lark? What is it?”

“Just…trust me. Please.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I don’t want her to have time to invent a story that isn’t the truth. I know that sounds terrible.”

I studied her face, seeing the same fear I’d felt on the flight from Manhattan. Whatever connected our families, whatever secrets lay buried in Gloversville’s past, there was a good chance uncovering them would change everything. The thought of causing Lark more pain made my chest ache, but I knew from experience that secrets like these only grew more poisonous with time.

Tank appeared in the doorway, his massive frame blocking most of the light from the hall. “Perimeter check’s done. All clear for now. But…” He hesitated, which wasn’t like him.

“What is it?”

“Found fresh cigarette butts on the shore, not far beyond camp property. Same brand we found outside the coffee shop right after the four guys left.”

I nodded, filing away that detail. “Increase patrols on the waterside. And get someone on the roof—I want eyes on all approaches.”

“Already done.” He withdrew, leaving us with the weight of this new information.

My attention stayed on Lark as she paced from the windows back to the fireplace, staring into the dying embers. “Everyone in that town has secrets,” she said quietly. “But why do I feel like the ones my own grandmother is keeping from me are the worst of them?”

I didn’t have an answer, but watching her silhouetted against the fading fire, I made a silent vow. Whatever game Vincent was playing, whatever secrets lay buried in our families’ shared past, I wouldn’t let him hurt her. Even if it meant facing truths I wasn’t ready to uncover.

The night stretched ahead, full of questions without answers. But one thing was certain—until we figured out why the Gregory family was so important to him, why he seemed to take such pleasure in tormenting them specifically, none of us were safe. Lark especially. As I watched her blank stare, I couldn’t shake another feeling—that we were running out of time to uncover the truth before Vincent’s meticulously laid plans came to fruition.

In the distance, the now-familiar loon’s cry echoed across the water, its mournful sound a fitting end to a night filled with dark possibilities.