Page 31 of Code Name: Dante

“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.

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