Page 47 of Lock Up the Darkness

“Lance Carlyle,” I uttered. “Known as Revenant for his penchant of evading death. Fitting in this situation we’re discussing, wouldn’t you agree? That initiation was supposed to be closed-door. And it probably would’ve stayed that way if you hadn’t changed the rules of the game. But you did, didn’t you? You did what you do best, employing smoke and mirrors. You actually managed to fool your father. You recognized how much of an asset Revenant could be to your own cause, to bringing down Carson Monroe. You spared him.”

“There’s no way you can know this. Who the hell are you?”

I walked to my jacket and took out my phone.

Accessing one of my encrypted folders, I returned to him and held it up for him.

His eyes went wide as he took in the photo there.

A hulk of a man with a strict crew cut of dark hair, the tattoo on his left shoulder of a skull wearing a green beret prominent as it wrapped around a toddler with dark brown hair—my natural hair color—hugging her tightly. “Look familiar?”

“Lance,” he breathed, and I watched him ease a black beaded bracelet from beneath his shirt cuff and start rubbing the beads.

He clasped his fingers over mine holding the phone and angled it this way and that, his eyes darting from me to the photo. I saw the moment the realization hit him, his grip going slack, before he dropped his hand entirely. “You’re Revenant’s daughter.”

“Yes.”

“His daughter who my father knew about but failed to track. Carlyle is just an alias?”

“No, Blackthorn is.”

He nodded along, putting the pieces together aloud, “Lance didn’t want you connected to him, so he created you a false identity. Along with anybody else in his family who’s still alive.”

“It’s just me,” I lied. A precaution that needed to remain in place for now to protect my uncle. He didn’t exist under the name Blackthorn, his identity was separate as an extra measure should one of us be compromised, so there was no link. Even our texts and calls were encrypted and communicated over a secure line.

We’d lived separately too and when we’d come together in the same place we’d had to follow strict protocols so we weren’t ever connected as family or familiars of any kind. It was a big reason why I didn’t have any friends. Anybody connected to me—because of my father and his line of work since leaving the military—would be put in jeopardy.

“So, you see now? Carson Monroe is a stain on my life as well.”

He nodded solemnly. “I’m getting that.”

“I’d been searching through many avenues, using many different sources since my dad’s apparent death. A few months ago, I was made aware of his connection to Hexwood. I finally found out the last place he’d been before his death. That was when I verified this anonymous tip and came across the Infidels faction here, and you. I needed to be here in person to try to retrace his footsteps and get a lock on a trail, I needed human intel on the ground. There wasn’t much else left that I could continue doing from a distance.”

“A risky fucking move, Aurora.”

“No doubt, but it’s one I was willing to take.”

He shook his head to himself, then asked, “How did you discover he was still alive?”

I took my phone back and opened another sealed file, as I told him, “I never stopped looking. He’d amassed a slew of sources, contacts, and assets from his time as an operator, and through his private security work. I infiltrated their networks, one by one, until I finally found this.” I showed him the file with all the source data redacted.

It was surveillance footage of my father caught inside a bar.

“Where was this taken? You’ve edited out any relevant clues.”

“It doesn’t matter. It was right after his death. He wouldn’t be there now, or go to the same place twice while he’s clearly on the run. He would’ve been in this particular area for temporary sanctuary. Was he hurt that night of your initiation?”

That haunted look returned, and he frantically rubbed his bracelet again. “My father wanted him to suffer, he wanted to humiliate him and make him bend to him, make him break for him.”

I swallowed hard. “And? What did he do?”

I didn’t want to know in my heart of hearts.

But I needed to.

“He kept him locked in one of his warehouses, what we term his slaughterhouses, for days, starving him, the only fluids he was offered being my father’s own piss when he came by each day to taunt him and resume torturing him.”

“Oh my God,” I choked, my stomach roiling.

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