Lark stared. "He did what?"
The operator handed Rocco a tablet. "He also left a message." Rocco read it once and then looked at Lark. His expression had gone unreadable.
"What is it?" she asked. He hesitated, but finally he handed her the screen. The message contained only one sentence.
Tell my daughter the ledger isn't where Keller thinks it is.
Beneath the message was a set of GPS coordinates. Lark's pulse thundered in her ears. Her father had just contacted STARR—not to surrender or to negotiate, but to warn her. Everything she'd believed about Rafael Santos, and everything she'd learned about her mother, had just become even more complicated.
Dante
The room went silent as Dante stared at the GPS coordinates glowing on the tablet in Lark's trembling hands. Nothing about Rafael Santos made sense anymore. His entire life, the man had operated by one rule—control. Now, he'd willingly contacted STARR not to bargain or threaten, but to warn them. Dante didn't trust it for a second, and Rocco didn’t seem to either.
"You think it's a trap," Rocco said quietly.
"It has to be,” Dante insisted.
"There are easier ways to kill us,” Rocco said.
"There are,” Dante agreed as he folded his arms over his chest. "Which is exactly why I don't like this."
Lark looked up from the tablet. "What if he's telling the truth?" Both men turned toward her. "He has never protected me." Her voice was thoughtful rather than emotional. "Not once." She swallowed. "So why start now?"
Dante wished he had an answer. Instead, he kept coming back to the same thought. Rafael Santos had looked genuinely angry when Adrian Keller claimed ownership of Lark. At the time, Dante had assumed it was possessiveness, but now, he wasn't so sure.
The operations room buzzed as Avery enlarged the coordinates on the main monitor. A satellite image filled the screen of an old church with weathered stone and a collapsed bell tower. Overgrown trees swallowed most of the property.
Rocco leaned closer. "I know that place."
Avery looked over. "You've been there?"
"Once,” Rocco admitted. He frowned. "It was abandoned."
The technician typed rapidly. "Property records show it hasn't had an owner in almost thirty years. There are no tax records, and utilities haven’t been run to the building in all that time.
Dante studied the image. "Which makes it perfect." Everyone looked at him, and he shrugged. "For hiding something."
Rocco nodded slowly. "Or someone."
The room grew quiet again as Lark stared at the photograph. "My mother—” No one interrupted her. "If she hid the ledger—" She traced the outline of the church on the screen. "She would've picked somewhere meaningful."
Avery looked at her. "Did she attend church?"
"I don't know,” Lark admitted. The answer hurt more than Lark probably realized. She knew so little about the woman who had given birth to her, and that had everything to do with Rafael—he was sure of it.
Dante stepped away from the group. He needed space to think. His phone vibrated, and he pulled it from his pocket to find an unknown number on the screen. He almost ignored it, but something told him not to.
He answered without speaking. "Dante." His blood froze when he heard Sofia’s voice on the other end of the call. He hadn't heard it in over three years.
"Sofia?"
She was crying. "I don't have much time."
His knees nearly gave out. "Where are you?"
"I don't know,” she cried.
"Damn it, Sofia,” Dante growled.
