My mind spun.
My brothers. Here. All of them except Micah.
That brought up so many questions.Why was I one of the last? Was that on purpose? What did they know that I didn't?
But I didn't ask any of that.
Instead, I asked, "How can I help?"
Byron leaned forward. "I need you to talk to Amelia. Get her to tell you everything—about her sources, her employer, everything."
I shook my head. "I don't think that's going to happen."
For the first time, my father got deadly serious. His voice dropped, and the easy warmth disappeared.
"Amelia's contacts," he said, "are the closest thing we've come to a lead linking recent events to The Vanguard. We need that information. All of us. Our lives may depend on it."
I stared at him.
He wasn't exaggerating. I could see it in his eyes—the fear, the calculation, the weight of whatever he'd been carrying all these years.
"I'll try," I said reluctantly. "But I'm not making any promises."
"That's all I'm asking."
I picked up my fork again, appetite gone but not wanting to waste the food.
My father did the same.
We ate in silence, the sunroom filled with nothing but the clink of silverware and the distant sound of the harbor. And the whole time, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being pulled into something I didn't fully understand.
Something that might cost me more than I was willing to pay.
19
AMELIA
My phone felt heavier than it should in my hand.
Levi hadn’t said a word about what I should or shouldn’t do next. He’d just walked back into Dominion Hall—to face a father who wasn’t dead and a world he didn’t recognize anymore—trusting me to handle my side of the fallout.
Which meant this part was on me.
Calling my editor had always been the easy thing. My reflex. My North Star. When something broke open—politically, personally, geopolitically—Derek Price was the one person I reported to without thinking twice.
But this was the first time the truth wasn’t simple.
The first time I wasn’t simple.
The first time I wasn’t sure telling him everything was the right move.
I stared at the screen, thumb hovering over his contact.
For the first time in my career, the fear wasn’t that I didn’t have enough to tell him.
It was that I might say too much.
And for the first time, the thing I was trying to protect … wasn’t the story.
