Chapter 13
AMELIA
The words on the card refused to stay still.
Ask him about his father. Ask them all.
The restaurant around us kept moving—glasses clinking, cutlery chiming, the murmur of conversation rising and falling like waves—but the little rectangle of cream cardstock had turned our table into the eye of a storm.
“Levi,” I said again, even softer this time. “What does this mean?”
Across from me, he looked like someone had dropped a live grenade in his lap.
Color had drained from his face, leaving his tan skin a shade too pale.
His jaw worked, muscles ticking, eyes locked on the sentence like he could force it to rearrange itself if he stared hard enough.
For a man who could stay calm under incoming fire, this was the closest I’d ever seen him to rattled.
“My father’s dead,” he said finally. The words came out flat and wrong, like he didn’t quite believe them himself. “Has been for years.”
“Then why would someone …” I swallowed, glancing toward the hostess stand where the blonde girl had already gone back to stacking menus. “Why tonight? Why here?”
He didn’t answer.
He was somewhere else—back in Montana, I suspected—standing in a kitchen he’d once described to me. Wood stove. Peeling linoleum. A coffee cup with a chipped rim his dad never let anyone throw away.
“It could be a coincidence,” he muttered, more to himself than to me.
My reporter brain rejected the thought on instinct. “Nothing about today has been a coincidence.”
His eyes met mine, dark and raw. “You think this is about Dominion Hall.”
“I think everything is about Dominion Hall right now,” I said. “The note says ‘ask them all.’ That’s plural. As in: the men in that house. The Danes.”
For a heartbeat, we just stared at each other. It was the same locked stare we’d had across briefing tables and cots and, earlier, hotel sheets. A thousand arguments condensed into one look.
“Okay,” he said finally.
“Okay what?”
“Okay, we ask,” he said, pushing back his chair. The legs scraped quietly against the wood, the sound sharp against the soft restaurant noise. “We’re not going to get answers sitting here.”
He stood and held out his hand.
I looked at it. Big, callused, still faintly marked from where I’d dug my nails into his skin earlier. Then I slid my fingers into his and let him pull me up.
“Will they even see us?” I asked as we walked toward the exit, the card tucked between my fingers like a fuse.
“They will,” he said, jaw set. “They wanted me here. They don’t get to pick the timing.”
Outside, the night had settled thick over Charleston, humid and humming. Streetlights painted everything in a soft gold haze. Verandelle’s veranda glowed behind us as we stepped onto the sidewalk, Levi already reaching into his pocket for his phone.
“Calling the driver?” I guessed.
“Yeah.” He put the phone to his ear. “It’s Levi Dane. We need a ride back to Dominion Hall.”
Of course, they had a driver on standby like some kind of billionaire bat signal.
While he arranged it, I scanned the street.
A couple strolled past, hands intertwined, laughing at something private. The horse-drawn carriage we’d seen earlier rolled by again in the distance, the horse’s hooves ringing dully against the cobblestones. No mysterious woman lurking in doorways. No cameras obvious enough to spot.
But the back of my neck prickled, anyway.
A few minutes later, the Bentley slid up to the curb as if it had been waiting around the corner the entire time. The driver hopped out and opened the door with the same smooth efficiency.
“Ms. Emerson. Mr. Dane,” he said. “Back to Dominion Hall?”
“Yeah,” Levi said. “And step on it, please.”
The driver’s expression didn’t change, but the car definitely moved faster this time.
We sank into the leather seats, the door clicking shut with that expensive thump. The city lights streaked past the windows, reflected faintly in Levi’s profile.
He looked straight ahead, fists braced on his knees. I could almost see the ghosts crowding the car: a father’s face half-remembered, a surname that suddenly meant more than any of us knew, a mansion full of men who shared it.
“You okay?” I asked.
He huffed out a humorless breath. “Define okay.”
“Not hyperventilating. Minimal urge to throw up.”
“Then sure,” he said. “I’m fine.”
The lie was so naked it almost made me smile. Almost.
“You told me once your dad could make a fire with wet wood,” I said quietly.
He blinked, glancing over at me. “I did?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We were in the tent, night before an op that got canceled twice. You were trying to explain why you thought the cold in Afghanistan was worse than the cold in Montana, and you said—” I slipped into the cadence of his voice without really meaning to.
“‘Back home, my old man used to get a fire going even when everything was soaked. Said real Danes don’t wait for things to dry out before they act.’”
The memory rolled back over me—canvas walls glowing under a single bulb, his hand tracing circles on my wrist as he’d talked, the half-smile that had come out only when he forgot to be careful.
I watched him now as the words landed.
For a second, his mouth softened in that same shape. Then it flattened again.
“Yeah,” he said. “He did say that.”
“Did you ever see a body?” I asked.
He stiffened. “Jesus, Amelia.”
“It matters,” I said. “If we’re walking into a room where someone’s about to tell you your dead father isn’t as dead as you thought, I need to know how hard that punch is going to land.”
He stared at me, then out the window. The live oaks were starting to appear now, Spanish moss hanging like shadows in the headlights.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t see a body.”
The car turned onto the private road.
“Okay,” I said.
That was all.
The gates loomed ahead, iron in the dark. They swung open like they’d been expecting us.
This time, the mansion looked different at night. Less like a postcard and more like a stage set: windows glowing warm, columns thrown into relief by low landscape lights, shadows pooling in the corners.
Teddy waited at the base of the steps, as crisp as he’d been that morning. Same dark suit, same straight spine. The only difference was the hint of curiosity in his eyes.
“Mr. Dane,” he said, then, with a small nod to me: “Ms. Emerson. You’re back sooner than expected.”
“Something came up,” Levi said.
Teddy’s gaze flicked over us, taking in my black dress, Levi’s rolled sleeves, the faint sheen at my collarbone from the heat and nerves. One corner of his mouth curved—not quite a smile, but close.
“You make quite an entrance,” he said. “And quite a picture. Charleston doesn’t see couples so well turned out every day.”
My pulse did a weird little skip. Couple.
Levi didn’t correct him.
“Is Charlie still awake?” Levi asked.
“Mr. Dane keeps late hours,” Teddy said. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll see if he’s available.”
We stepped into the foyer, the marble floor cool under my heels, the chandelier spilling soft light over paintings that suddenly felt more judgmental than historical.
Teddy spoke quietly into a discreet earpiece I hadn’t noticed earlier, then turned back to us.
“Front parlor again,” he said. “If you’ll wait there, I’ll send Mr. Dane in.”
We walked the corridor past Obsidian’s glass enclosure. The snake was awake now, black coils shifting slow and deliberate on the branch. Its eyes tracked us as we passed.
“Me, too, buddy,” I murmured.
Levi made a low sound that might have been a laugh if he hadn’t sounded like he was bracing for impact.
The parlor was as we’d left it—dark wood, leather, the faint smell of expensive coffee and something citrusy layered over old books. The lamp by the window cast a warm circle of light over the seating area. Outside, beyond the glass, the lawn stretched into darkness.
Levi didn’t sit.
He stood near the fireplace, hands on his hips, shoulders squared like he was taking up a defensive position. I hovered by the arm of one of the chairs, the note card heavy in my fingers.
Charlie walked in less than a minute later, barefoot in jeans and a navy T-shirt, hair a little messier like he’d run a hand through it one too many times. He looked younger out of the curated daytime outfit, but the alertness in his eyes was the same.
“Well,” he said, taking us in. “Either Dominion Hall has developed a dress code for late-night emergencies, or I’ve interrupted something.”
His gaze flicked between my dress and Levi’s button-down, and there it was again—that assessing time-lapse look, measuring us together.
“You look good,” he added, almost offhand. “Together, I mean.”
Heat crawled up my neck.
“We got something at dinner,” I said, stepping forward before Levi could. I held out the card.
Charlie took it between two fingers, turning it under the lamplight. His face didn’t change. Not really. But something in his posture went still.
He read it once. Twice. Then he looked up.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
“At Verandelle,” I said. “A hostess brought it over. Said a woman handed it to her, pointed at our table, and left.”
“No name?” he asked.
“No.”
“Description?”
“Blonde,” I said. “Twenties, maybe. Nervous. But that might’ve just been first-week-on-the-job energy.”
Charlie considered that. Then he handed the card back.
“And you came straight here,” he said.
“Yes.” I slipped the card into my purse before he could change his mind. “Because it mentions ‘them all.’ Which, unless I’ve badly misread the situation, means the men of Dominion Hall.”
His gaze moved to Levi.
“And because of the father part,” he said.
Levi’s jaw clenched. “What does this have to do with you?”
Charlie exhaled slowly, running a hand over his mouth. For the first time since I’d met him, he looked … tired. Not in body—his shoulders were still straight, his stance loose and ready—but somewhere behind the eyes.
“Some conversations,” he said, “are better had without an audience.”
I bristled. “I’m not an audience. I’m—”