Page 69 of Code Name: Dante

I’d had enough. I pushed the chair back and stood, grabbing it before it crashed to the floor. “If you don’t fucking tell me where she is, where our mother is, then I can’t keep any of them safe. Not soon enough.”

“Right under your nose, Sandro.” Vincent motioned to the guard who unshackled the cuff from where it had been attached to the table, then grabbed his arm to pull him up. I watched him being led away, my mind churning with things he’d revealed and his suggestion that he’d orchestrated my path to Lark. That part, I didn’t believe.

I left the jail and was about to hail a cab to take me to the airport. First, I pulled out my phone and called Tank.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

“There are endless ways to hide from thermal imaging. They’re on that compound,” I said. “And if we don’t hurry up and find them, the Mazzeos will beat us to it.”

“Roger that. Do you want us to wait to mobilize?”

“Fuck no. Best-case scenario, I’m two hours out. By the time I get there, it might be too late.” And the reason? I’d led the Mazzeos right to them.

24

LARK

“I’m leaving the city now via helicopter, but I don’t have time to return to Canada Lake. I’m going straight to the compound,” Alessandro said when I answered his call.

“What did Vincent say?”

“He talked in circles, but I now believe that your mother and mine are somewhere on that compound. I also believe they’re in imminent danger.”

I gasped. “Oh my God.”

“Tank is mobilizing the team, and I’m meeting them there. I’ll be back in touch as soon as I can.”

“Alessandro, please be careful.”

“I will.”

The call ended, and my eyes met Alice’s when she walked down the stairs to where I sat in the lower level’s living room.

“I just talked to Pershing,” she said.

“Then, you know there’s a team traveling to the compound. Alessandro is certain both our moms are there. He also said they’re in danger.”

Before she could answer, there was a loud crash in the hallway. I jumped up and raced to Gram, who had fallen to the floor.

“She’s not breathing!” I yelled.

Alice was right behind me. “Get help. I’ll start CPR. Pershing should still be upstairs.”

I ran to the stairs and screamed his name. A split second later, he appeared, racing toward me.

“It’s Gram. She isn’t breathing. Alice is doing CPR.”

He nodded once as he pulled out his phone. “I need Flight For Life at the Kane Mountain compound. Potential heart attack. The victim is unconscious. Is she breathing?” he asked Alice, who shook her head between reps.

“What’s going on?” yelled Blackjack, running in the door that led from the boathouse.

“Emergency services are on the way,” Pershing reported. “Take over from Alice.”

Blackjack knelt beside her and, when she moved aside, began his own rounds of CPR.

“There’s only one place the chopper can land,” Pershing said to Alice.

“Got it. I’ll go wait.”

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