Slowly, my father looked up.
There was sadness in his eyes. Deep, old sadness that looked like it had been sitting there for decades, waiting for this moment.
And something else. Resignation.
"I know who she is," he said quietly.
The room held its breath.
No one moved. No one spoke.
"And yes," Byron said, his voice cracking on the last word. "This has become very personal."
He paused, swallowed hard.
"Very."
30
AMELIA
Byron’s words hung in the air.
“I know who she is,” he’d said quietly. “And yes. This has become very personal.”
You could feel the room tilt around that. The Dane men, all of them built for impact, suddenly recalibrating around whatever history had just walked in the door under the name Victoria.
A dozen questions rose in my throat.
None of them were mine to ask.
My part—the call to the colonel, the name on the table—was done.
“I think that’s my cue,” I said softly.
Every head turned. Levi’s eyes found mine first, steady and dark, lines of tension still etched around them from the day he’d had.
“I’ve given you what I’ve got,” I said, forcing my voice to stay even. “You don’t need me for this next part.”
Not for old ghosts with my boyfriend’s father. Not for whatever came next when a man like Byron Dane said a war was personal.
“You’re welcome to stay,” Atlas said, not unkindly. “You’re in this now, whether you like it or not.”
“I know,” I said. “And I’m not running. I just … there’s something else I need to do.”
Levi’s gaze sharpened. “What?”
I hesitated, the idea that had been unspooling in the back of my brain since the lobby finally taking shape.
“I want to talk to Derek,” I said. “Alone, if I can.”
The temperature around the table seemed to drop a degree.
“Absolutely not,” Levi said.
The words snapped out of him fast, instinctive. The same instinct that had dragged him down that hotel hallway and into my doorway.
I turned toward him. “I’ll be fine.”
