Page 1 of Code Name: Dante

PROLOGUE

DANTE

“If it isn’t Vincent’s brother, the rat,” the man holding Lark with his arm around her neck and a gun pressed to her side called out. “I wondered how long it would take you to show up.”

“What do you want?” I shouted, keeping my voice steady despite the rage burning through my veins.

“I want to know where my son’s killer is.” His voice echoed off the metal walls.

“He’s sitting in a jail cell.”

“We both know Vincent didn’t kill him.” The arm around Lark’s throat tightened. “I want the woman who did, and you know where she is.”

“Let her go, and I’ll take you to her.”

The man snickered, and his lip curled. “Sure you will.” He stepped forward, pushing Lark with him.

Lark’s scream pierced the air when a shot rang out, and the lights directly above us exploded in a shower of sparks. A split second later, everything went pitch black. When two more gunshots cracked through the void, I dove in Lark’s direction, knowing I had to save her even if it meant losing my own life.

1

DANTE

EARLIER THAT MONTH

Iwatched the blonde, whose hair was almost snow-white, from across the room where Admiral and Alice’s wedding reception was taking place. Not the bride—her friend, the barista. I’d caught her throwing suspicious glances my way throughout the ceremony, though she quickly averted her gaze each time I looked in her direction.

The main room of Kane Mountain Great Camp was transformed for the reception. Strings of soft, white lights were draped along the exposed wooden beams, and Alice’s crystals caught the light, throwing rainbow patterns across the stone walls. The smell of the white sage she’d used to cleanse the space earlier today grew faint as the wildflowers that had adorned the dock where the lakeside ceremony took place were carried in and arranged around the room.

Their sweet scent, mixed with pine from the surrounding forest, wafted through the open French doors that led to a deck overlooking Canada Lake.

Now, as she meticulously placed each arrangement carried into the main room of the camp, I had the chance to study her more closely. Her movements were graceful and efficient, much like when she worked behind the counter at Method Tea and Coffee. I’d been watching her there too, though she didn’t know it. I hadn’t known who she was then, only that the first time I saw her, my heart clenched.

My cover had necessitated I keep my distance, and when I did go inside, I wore a ball cap and dark glasses. Something that seemed to annoy her as much as me intentionally looking down at my phone when I placed my order.

She didn’t work there anymore. Now, she lived in a small town south of where we were today. Where she’d grown up. It was called Gloversville, and between the turn of the previous century and through the fifties, business had boomed in the town known for—as one might guess—glove manufacturing. Some two hundred plants had churned out millions of gloves that were shipped around the world in those days. But what came with industry? Unions and union bosses. Who controlled them? Organized crime. And my family—the Castellanos—was the most powerful in all of New York State at the time.

I shifted my weight, trying to ease the familiar ache in my left knee—a souvenir from a “business meeting” gone wrong five years ago. The pain served as a constant reminder of the life I’d lived and the cover I’d maintained. Every scar, every old injury, marked the time spent pretending to be something I wasn’t.

“You’re staring,” Grit said, coming to stand beside me. There’d been a time I suspected he was dirty, but then the former FBI agent had proved himself when it mattered most—saving Alice’s life.

I forced myself to look away from Lark Gregory. “That obvious?”

“Only to someone trained to notice.” Grit took a sip from his glass of whiskey. The ice clinked against the crystal as he lowered it. “She’s not going to be an easy win.”

“I don’t want an easy win.”

“Good thing.” Grit chuckled. “Because that woman thinks you’re still the same Alessandro Castellano who terrorized New York as Vincent’s enforcer.”

My jaw clenched. My years of maintaining that cover—of being the ruthless brother who could strike fear with just a look—had been necessary. The DOJ needed someone on the inside to bring down not just the Castellano crime family but the corrupt officials they controlled, including men in both Grit’s and Admiral’s chain of command at the FBI. I’d sacrificed everything for that mission. My reputation. Relationships. Any chance at a normal life.

But watching Lark laugh at something Alice said, the sound carrying across the room like music, made me wonder if normal wasn’t overrated anyway.

Seeing her here, in this idyllic setting so far removed from the gritty streets of Manhattan where I’d spent years playing my part, stirred something I thought I’d buried long ago. Hope. Not just for redemption, but for the kind of life I’d convinced myself I didn’t deserve.

“Does she know I’ll be partnering with Admiral and Alice in the new K19 Sentinel Cyber?” I asked.

“She does now.” Grit motioned with his chin to Lark’s fading smile, replaced by a frown as she glanced our way again. “Alice just told her.”

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