Chapter 30
AMELIA
Byron’s words hung in the air.
“I know who she is,” he’d said quietly. “And yes. This has become very personal.”
You could feel the room tilt around that. The Dane men, all of them built for impact, suddenly recalibrating around whatever history had just walked in the door under the name Victoria.
A dozen questions rose in my throat.
None of them were mine to ask.
My part—the call to the colonel, the name on the table—was done.
“I think that’s my cue,” I said softly.
Every head turned. Levi’s eyes found mine first, steady and dark, lines of tension still etched around them from the day he’d had.
“I’ve given you what I’ve got,” I said, forcing my voice to stay even. “You don’t need me for this next part.”
Not for old ghosts with my boyfriend’s father. Not for whatever came next when a man like Byron Dane said a war was personal.
“You’re welcome to stay,” Atlas said, not unkindly. “You’re in this now, whether you like it or not.”
“I know,” I said. “And I’m not running. I just … there’s something else I need to do.”
Levi’s gaze sharpened. “What?”
I hesitated, the idea that had been unspooling in the back of my brain since the lobby finally taking shape.
“I want to talk to Derek,” I said. “Alone, if I can.”
The temperature around the table seemed to drop a degree.
“Absolutely not,” Levi said.
The words snapped out of him fast, instinctive. The same instinct that had dragged him down that hotel hallway and into my doorway.
I turned toward him. “I’ll be fine.”
“He put his hands on you,” Levi said. His voice was too calm, the way it got right before he did something drastic. “The only thing you need to say to him is that you never want to see him again.”
“I thought that, too,” I said. “But he’s not the only one at stake here. His staff. The work. The platform. I think there’s a way to turn this into something that actually helps.”
“By giving him a second chance?” Ryker asked, skepticism clear.
“No,” I said. “By replacing him.”
That got their attention.
Fourteen sets of eyes on me, some wary, some intrigued. Levi’s most of all.
I centered myself with a breath, like stepping up to a lectern before a difficult speech.
“Derek shouldn’t be in charge of that newsroom anymore,” I said. “Not after what he did tonight. Not after the deals he made behind my back. That line stays a line. But the company doesn’t have to die with him.”
“You’re talking about a hostile takeover,” Silas said slowly. “Journalism edition.”
“I’m talking about redirecting it,” I said.
“You said yourselves—The Vanguard has been using people like him as levers. Buying influence through donors, through ‘lifelines.’ If his outlet collapses, they’ll just move on to another one.
Another desperate editor. Another struggling operation. Same playbook, different logo.”
Elias’s fingers were already moving on his keyboard, probably pulling up financials, donor lists, a corporate structure I’d only glimpsed.
“What’s your play?” Noah asked quietly.
I swallowed. Once I said it out loud, it became real.
“I take over the company,” I said. “With your backing. Financial, legal, whatever structure makes sense so I’m not just a sacrificial figurehead.
Derek steps down. Publicly, it’s an internal succession—new leadership, new direction.
Privately, it’s us cutting off a Vanguard conduit at the knees and building something better in its place. ”
Silence again. Not hostile. Measuring.
Levi’s jaw flexed. “You want to run a newsroom.”
“I already run half of it,” I said, a little sharper than I meant to. “Every big story, every ethics fight, every time I’ve refused to soften a line because some donor or politician got nervous? That’s been me. This is just … owning it.”
I looked at Byron.
“You said you wanted the truth out,” I added. “But on your terms. In ways that don’t get the wrong people killed. I know how to walk that line. You don’t need a pet journalist. You need someone at the helm who understands both sides of this.”
Our eyes held.
For a second, something like respect flickered there, under the older grief. “And Derek?”
“I talk to him,” I said. “I make it clear this is the only path where he doesn’t lose everything. His job, his staff, his life.”
Levi’s chair scraped back.
“You’re not going in there alone,” he said. “Not with him. Not after—”
Marcus spoke up, leaning forward, elbows on his knees.
“He’s restrained,” he said. “We’ve got him in one of the downstairs rooms. Hands zip-tied, ankles, too. Two of our guys on him. Doctor patched him up. He’s not going anywhere, and he’s not putting hands on anyone again.”
Levi shot him a look. “And you think that makes this okay?”
“I think it makes it controlled,” Marcus said calmly. “If Amelia wants to talk to him, it’s better she does it before we decide what to do with him. She’s right—he’s a vector. Information. Influence. We’d be stupid not to use that.”
Gideon nodded slowly. “She’s also right about the staff,” he said. “I’ve seen what happens when you decapitate an outfit like that without planning for the vacuum. The bad guys move in faster than the good ones.”
Levi looked between them, then back at me. I could see the war in his eyes—the part that wanted me nowhere near Derek again, and the part that respected my judgment even when he hated it.
“This isn’t just a … bruised feelings situation,” he said. “He crossed a line with you. That matters.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “And I’m not minimizing it. But I also know he’s not a monster. He’s scared. He let himself be used. That’s on him. So is putting his hands on me. I won’t forgive that. But I also won’t pretend he’s the same as the people who are pulling his strings.”
Around the table, a shift. Small, but palpable. The Dane men, all of them, listening hard now—not just to the logistics, but to the lines I was drawing.
“This family doesn’t kill good men by mistake,” Atlas said, speaking for the Charleston side. “We’re not executioners. Not unless someone really earns it.”
“No one’s shooting your editor in the back of the head, Amelia,” Charlie added, gentle but firm. “Not if he’s willing to cooperate. But he doesn’t get to walk away like nothing happened, either.”
“That’s all I needed to know,” I said.
I looked at Levi again. “Let me do this. If it goes sideways, your guys are right there. Worst case, you get to burst in and rescue me. Again.”
That got me half a huff of reluctant amusement from him. The room felt it, too. The tension eased a notch.
He stood, rounding the table to me, his hand coming to rest at the small of my back like he couldn’t not touch me while he weighed this.
“You sure?” he asked quietly.
“No,” I said honestly. “But this is my mess, too. My industry. My old life being used as a weapon against you. I’m going to clean up the part I can.”
His eyes searched mine. Whatever he saw there tipped the balance.
“One of our guys goes with you,” he said. “Door stays open. If he so much as raises his voice, you walk out. If you don’t, I come down and drag you out myself.”
Warmth flared under my ribs.
Possessive. Protective. Maddening. Irresistible.
“Deal,” I said.
I could feel the brothers watching us, but it didn’t feel intrusive. If anything, there was a quiet recognition there—a shared understanding. They knew what it meant for a Dane to set conditions like that. To be willing to hand control over, but not concern.
Marcus pushed his chair back. “Come on, Canada,” he said, jerking his chin toward the door. “I’ll walk you down. Let’s go talk to your ex-boss.”
I nodded, and we went.
The hallways below Dominion Hall felt different than the ones upstairs.
Less polished. More functional. The kind of spaces you built when you expected to need them and hoped you never would.
Marcus walked beside me, hands loose at his sides, but I could feel the readiness in him. A coiled thing, similar to Levi’s but flavored differently. Less intimate, more professional: the readiness of a man whose job was to anticipate trouble and be bored if it never came.
“So, you want to run his company,” he said as we turned a corner.
“I do,” I said. Saying it again made it settle deeper, like a stone finding its place in a riverbed. “Or at least, steer it. Shape which stories get oxygen. Protect reporters who are doing good work from being used as pawns.”
“You know that makes you dangerous,” he said. Not a warning. A fact.
I thought of my mother at the kitchen table, walking me through fact-checking a campaign ad. My father insisting we correct ourselves out loud if we misstated something, even in private. The bone-deep training that truth was a moral absolute.
“It already made me dangerous,” I said. “I just didn’t have the infrastructure to do anything big with it.”
He grinned sideways. “Levi’s right. You can handle him.”
“Don’t tell him that,” I said. “He likes thinking he’s in charge.”
Marcus laughed, low and brief, then sobered as we reached a closed door. Two Dominion Hall men flanked it—both big, both coiled in that same quiet readiness that seemed to be a house standard.
“How is he?” Marcus asked them.
One of them shrugged. “Quiet. Sore. Breathing.”
“Still tied up?” Marcus checked.
“Yeah.”
He looked at me. “You’re sure?”
“No,” I said again. “But I need to talk to him while he’s still scared enough to listen and lucid enough to understand.”
Marcus considered that, then nodded. “Door stays open,” he reminded me. “We’re right here.”
I nodded back and stepped inside.
The room was … strange.
Not a cell, exactly. There was a bed, a small dresser, a chair. Guest quarters, maybe, repurposed for temporary confinement. The lighting was softer than I’d expected. This was containment, not torture.