"We think so,” Rocco said.
"But he doesn't know?" Lark asked.
"No,” Avery said.
She frowned. "Then why keep me alive?"
"Because you were leverage,” Dante said.
She looked at him. "If your mother never came back—" His voice softened. "You would become the only connection to whatever she left behind." Pieces clicked together. Her father had never protected her. He'd protected what she represented—insurance. She was a bargaining chip, and that made her feel sick all over again.
The room emptied slowly as agents returned to preparing the defenses. Within minutes, only four people remained—Lark, Dante, Rocco, and Avery.
Avery quietly closed the laptop. "I'll give you three a minute." She slipped out, shutting the door behind her, and silence settled over the room.
Lark walked toward the warehouse windows overlooking the city. "So—" She wrapped her arms around herself. "My mother died trying to stop Keller."
"No,” Rocco answered immediately. "We don't know that."
"The file doesn't say she died,” Dante said.
"It doesn't say she lived either,” Lark countered.
"No." He walked closer. "But bodies leave evidence, and there wasn't one."
Hope flickered inside her. "You think she's alive?"
"I think we don't have enough facts,” Rocco said.
Dante nodded. "And until we do, we don't assume the worst." Lark wanted to believe them. God, she wanted to. But twenty-four years was a long time. Could someone survive that long? Would her mother still be—she stopped herself because hope was dangerous. Hope hurt when it didn’t work out to be true. That was one lesson that her father had taught her.
"You know what scares me?" Lark asked. Neither man answered. "I'm starting to hope."
Dante smiled gently. "That's not something to fear."
"It is." She laughed quietly. "Every time I've hoped for something—” Her voice cracked. "It was taken away." Neither man rushed to fill the silence. They simply waited.
She whispered, "What if she's really gone?"
Dante stepped beside her. “Then, we mourn her."
Rocco joined her other side. "And we finish what she started." Lark looked between them. They were two completely different men. One who had spent years trapped inside her father's world, and the other who had spent years trying to destroy it. Both were standing beside her, not telling her what to do, and not demanding anything from her. They were simply standing there. She realized something then. For the first time in her life, she wasn't carrying the weight alone.
A sharp knock interrupted the quiet moment, and an operator entered. "We've got something."
Rocco immediately turned. "What?"
"The surveillance team intercepted a transmission." He looked directly at Lark.
"It's from Rafael Santos." Every muscle in her body locked.
"My father?" Lark asked.
The operator nodded. "He isn't with Keller."
Rocco frowned. "What?"
"They're hunting each other,” the man said. Silence fell over the room as the operator continued. "Santos just put a fifty-million-dollar bounty on Adrian Keller."
