Page 56 of The Captain
“Dane?” I echoed, my voice hollow. “What …”
Caleb cut in, his voice steady but heavy. “It’s true, Jake. Marcus, Ryker, Atlas—seven of them, total. They’re our half-brothers. Dad left them billions. That’s why I’m here. That’s why they pulled you from your unit.”
The world spun, my vision blurring at the edges. Half-brothers? Billions? My father, Byron Dane, a man who’d left us with nothing but debt and a rusted truck, hadbillions?
Memories came unbidden, sharp and jagged. Dad in Montana, teaching me to cast a fly rod in the Bitterroot River, his hands steady but his eyes always somewhere else, like he was looking for a way out.
The time he came home late, smelling of whiskey and gunpowder, promising me a fishing trip that never happened because he was gone again by dawn.
His funeral, a cold day in Missoula, the casket closed, Mom’s face gray as she clutched my hand. I’d been twelve, Caleb ten, and all we’d had was each other.
I stumbled back, my shoulder hitting the doorframe, the wood solid against my back. My chest heaved, my mind a blur of anger and disbelief.
Half-brothers. Dane. Billions.
The words didn’t fit, didn’t make sense.
I looked at Caleb, his easy stance, his clothes matching Marcus’s, and felt a betrayal I couldn’t name.
“You knew?” I said, my voice raw. “You knew and didn’t tell me?”
Caleb’s grin faded, his eyes softening. “I found out a few months ago, Jake. Part of the deal was not telling you, yet.”
Marcus stood, his hands up, like he was calming a spooked horse. “We’re not the enemy, Jacob. Dad was … complicated. He left us something bigger than you know. We’re trying to make it right.”
“Make it right?” I snapped, my voice breaking. “You drag me here, keep me in the dark, and now you’re saying my dad was some billionaire with a secret family? What the fuck is this?”
Caleb stepped forward, his voice low. “It’s not a game, Jake. It’s family. Our family. And it’s messy as hell, but it’s real.”
I shook my head, my hands shaking, the room too small, the walls closing in. That familiar light—the one I’d felt walking in, like I’d seen this place before—was brighter now, sharper, like a memory I couldn’t grab.
Dominion Hall, the Danes, Caleb—it was all connected, and I’d been too blind to see it. My father’s ghost loomed, not just a man who’d left us but a puzzle I’d never solved.
I turned, shoving the door open, my steps heavy on the hardwood. I needed air, needed out.
The last thing I heard as I rushed for the exit was Caleb’s voice, wry and quiet. “I told you he wouldn’t take it well.”
24
“The Danes told him,” the man said.
“So, your anonymous phone call worked.”
“I told you, he needed to live.”
“Fine. You were right. And now Jacob Dane gets a front row seat to his family’s destruction.”
“Exactly,” the man sitting at the small table outside a nondescript cafe said.
“Very well. Proceed.”
The call ended, and the point man for The Vanguard finished his coffee before leaving a tip and disappearing into Charleston traffic.
25
CAMILLE
Idressed for work like armor—clean tank, cutoffs that still smelled faintly of bleach and sun, hair braided wet down my back because I didn’t have patience for the mirror.
