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13

DANTE

I spent the majority of the night coordinating increased security after the boats were spotted on the lake. By dawn, we had thermal-imaging cameras installed and additional teams patrolling the water. But watching the sun rise over Canada Lake, I knew it wasn’t enough. We needed more than just defensive measures.

Which was why, two hours later, I found myself in the camp’s basement, now converted into a makeshift training room. Exercise mats covered the floor, and morning light streaming through the high windows cast long shadows across the space. Lark had agreed to the self-defense lessons without hesitation when I made the suggestion earlier—something that both impressed and worried me.

I watched her move through the basic positions I’d shown her, noting how quickly she picked up the techniques despite, by her own admission, being new to this.

“Good,” I said as she executed a perfect escape from a wrist grab. “Now faster.”

She repeated the movement, adding the strike we’d practiced a couple of times. Her determination was evident in every line of her body, how she pushed through her fatigue to get each move right. When she’d first agreed to this, I worried she was doing it just to humor me. Now, I saw the same steel in her that I’d glimpsed that first day at Method Tea and Coffee.

“Again,” I instructed, moving to demonstrate the next sequence. My knee twinged—an old reminder that even the best-laid plans could go sideways. I tried to hide the slight limp, but Lark’s observant gaze caught it anyway.

“You’re in pain,” she said, lowering her hands. “We should take a break.”

“I’m fine.” But I didn’t resist when she led me to one of the folding chairs we’d brought down earlier. Truth was, the old injury had been acting up more lately, probably from stress, lack of rest, and constant vigilance.

“What happened?” she asked softly, pulling another chair close. “To your knee?”

I hesitated. Most of what occurred in my past was more gruesome than Lark could even imagine, but something in her expression made me want to share this piece of my history. “Meetup gone wrong,” I finally said.

“What does that mean?”

I leaned back, remembering that night. “I was caught in the crossfire when DOJ agents were escorting a witness—someone who had evidence about judicial corruption. I never should’ve been there that night, and it was the closest I came to blowing my cover.” I could still smell the rain on the pavement and hear the screech of tires.

Her hand found mine, warm and steady. “What happened?”

“Ambush. Three cars, professional hit team.” I squeezed her fingers gently. “A bullet hit me while I was trying to make it look like I was there to take out the witness the same way they were. Shattered my kneecap.”

“Oh my God.”

“The witness lived, and in the end, the evidence he’d collected helped expose a network of corrupt judges in Vincent’s pocket.” I didn’t tell her that it was me who’d come close to dying that night. How I had to drag myself into a back alley, leaving a trail of blood until someone from the DOJ finally found me.

“Is that when you decided?” she asked. “To work against your family?”

“No.” The memory of my actual turning point rose unbidden. “That was years earlier. After Jessica.”

“Jessica?”

“McNamara. She was a paralegal at one of the firms that handled Vincent’s legitimate business interests.” I closed my eyes, seeing her face—young, idealistic, determined to do the right thing. “She found evidence of judicial bribes. Tried to report it.”

“What happened to her?”

“Three days later, they found her body in the East River.” The rage I’d felt that day still burned. “Vincent made the call right in front of me, like he was ordering takeout. Said it would ‘send a message’ to anyone else thinking of talking.” A silence fell between us, heavy with the weight of the lives lost and the choices made. “I’d only worked for the family for two years at that point.”

“What did you do before that?”

“College.”

“So, I mean, how does one go about doing what you did? I mean, deciding to work against your brother rather than for him.”

I stood, needing to move. “That night—when they found Jessica’s body—I decided I couldn’t be a part of the family anymore. I just…” I shook my head, unable to explain how I’d felt, yet somehow, I knew Lark understood anyway. “I had a friend from college who I knew had gone to work for the FBI. He was pretty low on the totem pole at that point, of course, but someone in his family worked for the Justice Department. I arranged to meet him, and when I arrived, he wasn’t alone. As it turned out, he was well aware of the Castellano family and the extent of their criminal activity.”

Her eyes were wide. “What happened during your meeting?” she asked.

“A woman, Rachel McKinney—she’s the federal prosecutor handling Vincent’s case now—was with him. When I told her I wanted to testify against my brother, turn state’s evidence against the family, she convinced me to wait. She said if we moved too soon, we’d only get the foot soldiers, not the head of the snake.”

“So you kept playing your part.”

“For another eight years.” The amount of time I’d risked my life made my jaw clench. “Gathering evidence, building the case against Vincent as well as those who worked for him.”

Lark put her hand on mine. “You must’ve been terrified.”

“I was. Every day I wondered if my brother would figure out what I was doing, if that would be the day he had me killed like he had so many others.”

Lark’s face turned almost as white as her hair.

“Look, I—” Before I could backpedal on what I’d just told her and make her think it wasn’t as dangerous as I’d made it out to be, even though it was, my phone buzzed with a message from Alice, saying she had something urgent to show me and to come to her office alone.

“There’s something I, err, need to take care of.”

“Go ahead. I think I’ll take a shower and check on Gram.”

My feet felt heavier with each step I took up the stairs. When I reached the landing, Alice motioned for me to join her in a room off the main living area that she’d set up as her workspace.

After all I’d lived through in the last nine years, it took a lot to rattle me. However, her expression did.

“What did you want to show me?”

“Where’s Lark?”

“Still downstairs, err, showering, I think.”

She shut the door and motioned for me to take a seat near one of her computer monitors.

“A guy I work with, Tex, found these.”

Several images appeared on the screen, followed by many more as she scrolled. All were of Lark, taken at various times in her life, from when she was a young kid to as recently as yesterday at the coffee shop.

“Where…I mean…Who?”

“Your brother.”

I felt bile rise in my throat. If Lark wasn’t his daughter, why would he have these photos? No other explanation made sense.

God, the woman I was falling in love with, the woman who’d come to mean so much to me in such a short period of time… “Excuse me,” I said, racing from the room and into the nearest bathroom. After losing what little was in my stomach, I splashed my face with cold water and stared into the mirror.

My reaction was based on how I was feeling. The profound anger and frustration I was experiencing believing that Lark, the beautiful and amazing woman I wanted to spend every minute with, was more than likely my niece . I bent over the toilet again as dry heaves racked my body.

“This isn’t about you. It’s about Lark,” I stood and said to my reflection. How would she feel, knowing someone had been following her, photographing her all her life? How violated, how horrified? I had to get a grip and think about her.

I returned to Alice’s office and closed the door behind me.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No, but how I am doesn’t matter. Lark—” I had no idea what to say. How would we tell her?

“I know what you’re thinking,” Alice said in a soft tone of voice.

“You do? I have to admit, I don’t.”

“We need to tell her. Show her.”

“I know, but…” I shook my head again. “I don’t know how or what to say.”

“I don’t either, but she needs to know.”

“I agree,” I said, finally catching a breath.

“One other thing.”

“What?” I asked.

“Lark should decide what she tells her grandmother.”

I nodded again. “I agree.”

“I don’t want to do this in here, but I don’t know where else we’d have the same privacy.”

The longer we waited, the harder this would be. “I’ll go get her.”

“I’ll have Pershing distract Barbara.”

The steps I took back downstairs were harder than the ones up a few minutes ago. I still had no idea what I’d say or how I’d tell her. The only thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t want anyone other than her to hear what I had to say.

“Hey,” I said when she came out of the bathroom, her hair wet and skin flushed.

“Hey. Um, is everything okay?”

I walked closer and held out my hand. “Can you come with me?”

“What’s going on? Is Gram?—”

“She’s talking to Admiral,” I said, hoping Alice had made that happen after I left.

Her hand gripped mine as we walked up the stairs I’d just come down. And, like she had with me, Alice motioned for Lark to join her.

“You too,” Alice said when I hesitated, not knowing what to say but also knowing I couldn’t let Lark see the photos without me by her side.

“You’re both scaring me,” Lark said under her breath.

“Have a seat, sweetie,” Alice said, pulling out a chair. When Lark sat down, I took the chair beside her, relieved to see the monitor where the images were before was now dark.

“Do you remember my friend Tex? I told you that he and I sometimes work together?” Alice began.

Lark nodded.

“He’s been helping me find whatever we can on the Castellano family.”

“Okay,” Lark said, looking from Alice to me, then back again.

“He found photos that were kept on Vincent’s personal server. Many photos,” said Alice.

Lark reached for my hand. “Of me?”

“Look at me,” I said.

Her eyes were wide and brimmed with tears.

“It appears Vincent has had someone keeping tabs on you through the years.”

“Years?” she mouthed.

I nodded. “Most of your life.”

“Oh my God.” She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.

“The choice is yours, sweetie,” said Alice. “I can show them to you now, or later, or never.”

Her hand gripped mine so hard her knuckles were white. “Not now.” She turned to Alice. “Can you give us a minute?”

“Of course,” she said, leaving the room and shutting the door behind her.

“I have to know. One way or another,” Lark said once we were alone.

I nodded again. “I understand.”

“How soon can I get my DNA tested?”

“I’ll make a couple of calls and see what we can arrange.”

“Okay,” she said, still gripping my hand. “Alessandro?”

My heart ached as tears ran down her cheeks. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. I’ll stay with you as long as you need me, even if it means the prosecutor has to request the trial be delayed.”

She nodded too. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them. “I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

Lark took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I hate him,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I do too.” I’d never meant it more than I did right now.

Not wanting to leave Lark on her own, I sent a message to Tank, asking about the logistics of having her DNA tested. He responded by offering to contact Onyx Yánez, the commander of the K19’s Shadow Operations team, who lived on the other side of the lake and who Tank believed could administer the test.

A few minutes later, he sent a follow-up message, saying Onyx would arrive within the hour.

“I’m going to get mine tested too,” I told her. “That way, if there’s any delay in accessing Vincent’s results, we won’t have to wait.” My gut clenched with the verbal acknowledgment that if she was my brother’s daughter, my DNA alone would confirm it.

“I can’t just sit here and wait,” she said, pushing the chair back and standing. “Can we do something?”

“Sure, um, whatever you want to do.”

“Teach me how to break someone’s nose if they try anything.”

Despite the situation, I found myself smiling. “That’s next week’s lesson. Today, we’re working on evasion and escape.”

We returned to the basement and resumed the self-defense training we’d been doing earlier. I showed her ways to break various holds and how to use an attacker’s weight against them. She was a quick study, adapting techniques to compensate for her smaller size. However, I noticed her gaze kept drifting to the windows, scanning shadows that hadn’t seemed threatening before.

“Stop thinking about the photos,” I said after she missed an obvious countermove. “Stay present. Focus on what’s in front of you.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re just the fucker’s brother. I could be his daughter .” Her shoulders drooped. “I’m sorry, I just… can’t .”

I pulled her into my arms, not caring that we were both sweaty from the workouts, only knowing I had to hold her, feel her next to me. I knew by the way she clung to me that she felt the same way.

“Lark, I—” My phone vibrated, stopping me from admitting feelings that, right now, were so far beyond inappropriate.

Onyx is a minute out, said the message from Tank.

“Come on. Let’s get this over with,” I said, dropping my arms but taking her hand.

“I’m scared,” she whispered.

“So am I.”

When we climbed the stairs from the basement to the next level, Barbara was waiting for us.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Alessandro is teaching me self-defense,” Lark answered without missing a beat.

“That isn’t what I mean.”

“Look, there’s something I have to take care of real quick, then we’ll talk, okay?”

Barbara looked from Lark to me and back. “Okay.”

With our hands still linked, we made our way up to the camp’s main level.

“I’ve always wanted to see inside this place,” a man I assumed was Onyx said to Admiral.

“All you had to do was ask.”

He looked in our direction. “You must be Lark. I’m Onyx.”

After they shook hands, I introduced myself.

“You can come in here,” Alice said, motioning to the master bedroom.

“I’d like to get mine tested too, if possible,” I said on our way into the room.

“Not a problem. All we need is a cheek swab, then we’ll put it in here and wait.” He patted a bag that he set on the table before removing its contents.

“What’s that?” Lark asked when he set up what looked like a printer.

“It’s a rapid DNA machine. Once the sample from the swab is inserted, it’ll take about ninety minutes to process, then it will print the results. Then we’ll do a comparison to the report Admiral is working on obtaining now.”

“Ninety minutes,” Lark mumbled.

Her tone conveyed what I felt. Ninety minutes, and I’d either get the best or the worst news of my life.