Page 38 of Code Name: Dante

“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?”

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