"She's with me,” Dante said. “Safe and sound.”
"You okay?" Rocco asked.
There was a pause, and then Dante laughed. "I’m better than okay. Just get your ass out of there safely and meet us back outside,” Dante ordered.
“Will do,” Rocco promised. “I just have one more thing to take care of.” He closed his coms and sprinted toward Keller's office. He wasn't leaving without making sure the bastard couldn't rebuild.
He found the server room exactly where Avery said it would be. Rows of humming racks filled the climate-controlled chamber. It was the heart of Keller's empire. Rocco removed three small charges from his pack. They weren’t enough to level the bunker, but they could more than enough to destroy every server inside it. The timer began counting down. He had five minutes to leave when a voice stopped him cold.
"I expected better from Anthony Bertoni's son." Rocco slowly turned to find Adrian Keller standing in the doorway alone. His suit jacket was gone, and blood stained one sleeve, yet somehow, he still managed to look composed.
"You've lost." Rocco kept his pistol trained on the older man.
Keller smiled. "No."
"You have,” Rocco insisted. "You destroyed your own organization."
"I’ll build another,” Keller said.
"You murdered children,” Rocco spat.
"They were assets." Rocco's finger tightened on the trigger. "You'll never understand vision."
"That’s where you are wrong,” Rocco said. “Because I understand monsters."
Keller sighed. "Your father said the same thing." The words snapped the last thread holding Rocco's restraint together. He fired, and Keller dove behind a server rack as bullets shattered glass and steel. The older man returned fire, and the server room became a maze of ricochets and sparks.
Rocco advanced steadily, not angry anymore, because anger would serve no purpose for him. Instead, he was focused as he rounded the final row. Keller aimed his gun at him and pulled the trigger. Rocco closed his eyes and waited for the deafening sound of the bullet being fired from the gun, but it never came. He was out of bullets. Keller looked down at the useless pistol, and Rocco saw the exact moment the man knew that he had been defeated. He could see the fear in Keller’s eyes.
"You lose." Rocco's voice was calm. "And my father wins." He fired once and watched Keller collapse against the servers before sliding to the floor. The room was deadly quiet. Years of death, human trafficking, and pain were ended with a single shot. Rocco stared at the man for one long moment and then turned and walked away because he refused to give Keller another second of his life.
"Thirty seconds!" Avery's voice echoed through his earpiece.
“I’m clear!" Rocco burst from the underground entrance just as the first explosion rocked the mission. One by one, the buried servers detonated, power failed, the lights died, and the entire bunker disappeared beneath its own weight. Keller's empire collapsed into the mountain that had hidden it for decades.
The emergency vehicles arrived less than ten minutes later—state police, federal agents, the FBI, and Agents of STARR. News helicopters circled overhead, and this time, there would be no cover-up. There were too many witnesses, too much evidence, and thankfully, many survivors. But it was finally over, and for that, Rocco was grateful.
Three Months Later
Rocco stood outside a small lakeside house as laughter drifted through the open windows. Inside, Sofia was arguing with Dante over who made the better pancakes. She looked healthy again—on the outside. But he knew that scars on the inside might never heal, no matter how happy she pretended to be.
Lark stood at the kitchen island, laughing as she tried to keep pancake batter from ending up on the ceiling. She looked up the moment she saw him. "There you are."
He smiled. "Sorry, I got distracted." She crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him. Not because she needed saving, but because she wanted to welcome him home. Dante joined them a second later, slipping an arm around Lark's waist before meeting Rocco's eyes.
"No more missions this week,” Dante ordered, causing Rocco to laugh.
"You're ordering me around now?” Rocco asked.
"Nope, Lark is,” Dante said.
She grinned unapologetically. "You both need to learn how to relax, and some time off might do you both good.”
"We're trying,” Dante said.
"I know." She reached for Dante's hand, then for Rocco's. "I spent my whole life trapped in a cage someone else built." She looked from one man to the other. "You didn't rescue me; you showed me the door."
Emotion tightened Rocco's throat. "And you walked through it."
