Chapter 27
GIDEON
The Dominion Hall security team arrived within twenty minutes.
Four men in plain clothes—jeans, jackets, the kind of casual that only looked casual until you noticed the way they moved, the way their eyes tracked everything, the bulges under their arms where shoulder holsters sat.
They fanned out around the inn's perimeter without being told, falling into positions that covered every approach.
Professional. Efficient. Invisible unless you knew what to look for.
Ethan had made the call. I'd stood there on the porch with my father—my father—ten feet away, and listened to Ethan's voice go flat and tactical as he requested a security detail and a cleanup crew and didn't explain why because he didn't have to.
Dominion Hall didn't ask questions when one of their own called for help.
Now we were leaving.
Lucas drove. Ethan took shotgun, his massive frame making the passenger seat look child-sized. I sat in back with my father on one side and Hazel on the other, her hand locked in mine like she was afraid I'd disappear if she let go.
Maybe she was right.
Byron Dane sat perfectly still beside me, rifle secured in the back, hands resting on his knees. He didn't try to make conversation. Didn't offer explanations or apologies or any of the things a man who'd been dead for fifteen years might say to the sons he'd left behind.
He just sat there. Present. Solid. Real.
And I wanted to scream.
The broken boy inside me—the one who'd spent years searching, hoping, praying that Dad would come home—was drowning. Flailing in dark water with no surface in sight, lungs burning, hands grasping for something, anything to hold onto.
But there was nothing. Just the weight of fifteen years and the impossible fact of the man sitting six inches away from me.
I'd imagined this moment a thousand times.
A thousand different ways it could go. Dad walking through the door with a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Dad showing up at my doorstep asking for forgiveness.
Dad appearing out of nowhere like he'd never left, like time was just a thing that happened to other people.
None of my imaginings had included him stepping out of a marsh with a rifle after shooting a man dead in front of his own daughter.
Hazel's thumb traced small circles on the back of my hand. Grounding. Steady. I squeezed back, maybe harder than I meant to.
"You okay?" she whispered, voice still rough from crying.
I nodded because I couldn't make my throat work properly.
She didn't believe me. I saw it in her eyes—that sharp, seeing look that cut through every defense I had. But she didn't push. Just held my hand and pressed her shoulder against mine and breathed with me.
Next to us, Byron's gaze flicked to our joined hands, then to my face. Something moved behind his eyes—approval, maybe, or relief—but it was gone before I could name it.
The drive to Dominion Hall took thirty minutes that felt like three hours.
Nobody spoke. The truck's engine hummed. Tires crunched over gravel, then smoothed out on asphalt. The marsh gave way to trees, then to the manicured grounds of the estate that housed Dominion Hall's operations.
Security waved us through without stopping. Lucas navigated the winding drive like he'd done it a hundred times, which he probably had by now. The main building rose ahead—columns, stone facade. A fortress welcoming us home.
We pulled into the circular drive. Other vehicles were already there—high-end SUVs and sedans that probably cost more than most houses. The Charleston Danes had gathered.
My stomach tightened.
Lucas killed the engine. For a moment, nobody moved.
Then Ethan opened his door, and the spell broke.
We filed out into the humid night air. Security personnel materialized from shadows, checking credentials, scanning faces, doing that careful dance of protection that looked casual but wasn't.
The front doors opened before we reached them.
Women poured out first—a small army of them, moving with purpose and concern and that particular kind of feminine energy that said someone needs taking care of and we're handling it.
They descended on Hazel like a wave.
"Oh, honey," one of them said—tall, dark-haired, moving with the kind of confidence that came from running things. Portia, maybe. The wedding planner Lucas had mentioned. "We heard what happened. Come with us."
"I—" Hazel looked at me, confused, still gripping my hand.
"It's okay," I said, though I wasn't sure it was. Wasn't sure of anything anymore except that I needed her close and safe and mine. "Go. I'll find you after."
Another woman—blonde, striking, with eyes that assessed and decided in seconds—linked her arm through Hazel's. "We've got her. Don't worry."
They swept her away like she was a bride being whisked off before a wedding, their voices overlapping in reassurance and introduction and the kind of rapid-fire conversation that left no room for protest.
Hazel glanced back once, eyes finding mine. I nodded. Tried to look steadier than I felt.
Then she was gone, disappearing into the house with a protective circle of women I'd never met but somehow already trusted because my brothers had chosen them.
And I was left standing in the drive with Lucas and Ethan and the man who'd left us.
Byron stood slightly apart, hands loose at his sides, watching the house like it was a puzzle he was trying to solve.
In the light spilling from the windows, he looked older than I remembered.
Grayer. More lined. But still undeniably him—the set of his jaw, the way he held himself, the quiet authority that had always preceded him into every room.
"Come on," Lucas said quietly. "They're waiting."
We moved toward the entrance. Dad fell into step beside me, and every cell in my body screamed.
Part of me wanted to reach out, grab his arm, confirm he was real.
Part of me wanted to run. Part of me wanted to collapse right there on the pristine driveway and demand answers I wasn't sure I was ready to hear.
I did none of those things. Just walked. Put one foot in front of the other. Breathed when I remembered to.
The foyer of Dominion Hall was all polished wood and expensive art and the kind of understated wealth that didn't need to announce itself. A man waited there—mid-forties, sharp-eyed, moving with the controlled energy of someone who'd spent time in uniform.
"Elias is in the war room," he said. "Everyone's assembled."
War room. Of course, they had a war room.
We followed him through corridors that smelled like money and furniture polish, past closed doors and open offices where people worked late despite the hour. The building hummed with quiet efficiency.
The war room was at the end of a long hallway—double doors, heavy wood, the kind that looked like they could stop bullets.
They probably could.
The man pushed them open.
The room beyond was exactly what the name promised—a long table, multiple screens on the walls showing maps and data feeds, tactical lighting that was bright enough to work by but dim enough not to be harsh. And men. So many men.
The Charleston Danes filled one side of the table. I recognized Elias immediately, and beside him—
My breath caught.
Caleb. Jacob.
My brothers. Here. In the flesh.
Caleb saw me first. His face split into a grin that erased years and every mile between Montana and South Carolina. He was up and moving before I could process it, crossing the room in long strides.
"Gideon," he said, and pulled me into a hug that damn near cracked ribs.
I held on. God, I held on. He smelled like salt water and expensive cologne and home in a way I hadn't known I'd been missing.
"Jesus," I managed. "You got taller."
"You got uglier," he shot back, but his voice was rough.
Jacob appeared on my other side—quieter than Caleb, always had been, but no less present. He gripped my shoulder, then pulled me in. Three of us, tangled together like we were kids again, like we hadn't spent years scattered across the globe doing things we couldn't talk about.
"Missed you, brother," Jacob murmured.
"Yeah," I said, because my throat was too tight for more.
We broke apart. Caleb's eyes were wet. Jacob's jaw was locked like he was holding something back. I probably looked the same.
Then they saw Byron.
Everything stopped.
The room—full of dangerous men who'd seen and done terrible things—went completely silent. Every eye turned to the man standing in the doorway, and the weight of their collective attention was almost physical.
For the first time since he'd stepped out of the marsh, Byron Dane looked nervous.
Not scared. Not uncertain. Just ... human. Fallible. A man facing the consequences of fifteen years of absence.
But he didn't duck his head. Didn't apologize with his posture or his eyes. He walked into that room like he had every right to be there, head high, shoulders back, and stopped at the head of the table.
"I know," he said, voice carrying across the silence, "you all want to know what the hell is going on."
Nobody argued.
He took a breath. Let it out slow. "I'll start with why I left. Because that's tied to everything else. To why you're all here. To why men like Sam Jarrow show up with bombs strapped to their chests."
My hands curled into fists under the table.
"There's an organization," Byron continued, "much more powerful than the now-defeated Department 77. It's called The Vanguard."
The name landed like a stone in still water.
"Much like the meaning of the word," Byron went on, "the men and women who run it think they're leading the charge.
Taking the steps that will ensure a humanity of the future of their choosing.
They've been in power for many years. Some think since the First World War, when it looked like everything would end.
I'm not sure. Their history is … carefully guarded. "