Lark
Dante moved in front of her without hesitation, and Rocco stepped to her other side. Neither man looked at the other, and neither spoke. They simply took their places—protecting her.
Rafael chuckled softly from somewhere beyond the darkness. "You always were predictable, Dante."
Dante's jaw tightened. "I'm not here for you."
Every instinct she had screamed at her not to do as her father ordered. She looked past Dante into the darkness. "No." The word surprised even her because it came out stronger than she'd expected.
"You've always been stubborn,” her father said.
"I got that from my mother,” she breathed. The silence that followed was deafening.
Her father laughed. "You certainly did." That wasn't the response she'd expected from him.
"You lied to me." Her voice echoed through the passage. "My entire life."
"I know,” he said.
"You told me my mother abandoned me,” she shouted.
"I did,” he admitted.
"You let me believe she didn't love me,” Lark croaked. God, she hated the way that her voice betrayed her. The last thing she wanted right now was to sound weak.
"I was wrong,” her father said. Lark frowned. Her father had never admitted he was wrong—not once.
"You expect me to believe that?" she questioned.
"No." His answer came immediately. "I expect you to hate me."
She laughed bitterly. "That part's easy."
"I imagine it is,” her father shot back.
Dante glanced back at her, and she could tell that something about this conversation bothered him.
It bothered her too. Her father wasn't trying to control her.
He wasn't threatening anyone. He sounded tired—old and even broken.
She hated herself for noticing because it made him seem almost human.
A burst of gunfire exploded somewhere above the church, and dust drifted from the ceiling. Rafael spoke again. "Keller found us faster than I hoped."
Rocco finally stepped forward. "You're running from him."
"No." Rafael corrected calmly. "I'm slowing him down."
"Why?" Rocco asked.
"So the three of you can leave."
Lark blinked. "The three of us?"
"You." He paused. "Dante, and the STARR agent."
Rocco frowned. "You know who I am."
"I know exactly who you are, Rocco Bertoni,” her father said. "I also know your father died because he refused Keller."
Rocco went perfectly still beside her. "You knew my father?"
"I respected him,” her father admitted. Lark looked at Rocco. His expression had become unreadable.
"I don't understand." Her voice cracked. "What was I to you?” she asked.
Rafael answered so quietly she almost missed it. "My greatest mistake." The words punched the air from her lungs. "I wanted one thing that belonged only to me." His voice echoed through the stone corridor. "Your mother." Lark's heart hammered in her chest. "I loved Isabella."
She almost laughed. "You don't know what love is."
"No." His voice was full of regret. "I didn't. I thought loving someone meant protecting them.
" Lark felt tears sting her eyes. "So I built walls and locked doors.
" He sounded exhausted. "And by the time I realized I was destroying the very people I wanted to keep safe, it was too late.” His voice broke for the first time.
She wanted to hate him—God, she wanted to. Instead, she heard a man who had confused possession with love until he had nothing left. It didn't excuse what he'd done because nothing could, but it explained things better, and somehow, that hurt even more.
A loud explosion shook the crypt, and the hidden passage filled with smoke. Someone shouted above them. "Keller's inside!"
Rafael cursed. "There isn't much time."
Dante raised his rifle. "What do you want?"
"I want my daughter to live,” her father said.
"You had twenty-six years to make that happen,” Dante spat.
"I know,” her father breathed. “Lark."
She looked into the darkness. "I'm listening."
"There are names in Isabella's journal."
"I know,” she said.
"They're incomplete,” he said.
Her breath caught. "What?"
"The real ledger—” Another explosion interrupted him. "Isn't on paper."
Rocco frowned. "What does that mean?"
"You'll understand when you find it,” her father said. Lark took a cautious step toward the darkness, and Dante immediately caught her wrist.
She looked at him. "It's okay."
"No." His voice was firm. "I'm not losing sight of you." Something warm bloomed inside her chest—not because he was protecting her, but because he was afraid of losing her.
Rocco quietly moved closer, too. "If she goes—” He looked at Dante. “Then we all go." The words settled over her. He wasn’t leaving any of this open for debate. They were in this together, whether she liked it or not.
Her father seemed to notice it too. A long silence echoed from the darkness before he finally spoke. "I wondered what kind of men you'd choose."
Lark's cheeks warmed. "I didn't choose anybody."
"Not yet,” her father said. She could hear the faintest hint of a smile in his voice.
"But you're already standing between them.
" She looked at Dante and then at Rocco.
Without realizing it, she'd reached for them both.
One hand rested in Dante's grasp, and the other had found Rocco's forearm when the explosions started.
Neither man had moved away nor seemed uncomfortable.
Instead, they both looked at her, as though they were allowing her to decide.
It struck her then. Her entire life had been built around men making choices for her—her father, his guards, Keller—everyone.
These two were different. They weren't trying to own her.
They were giving her something she'd never had before—the freedom to choose.
And for the first time in her life, Lark realized that maybe freedom wasn't about escaping a prison.
Maybe it was about finding people who would never build one around her again.
Another explosion rocked the church, and stone cracked overhead. Rafael's voice echoed one last time. "Go." The unmistakable sound of a pistol being cocked echoed through the tunnel. "They're here,” her father said.
Dante's expression hardened. "What are you doing?"
"What I should have done twenty-five years ago." Gunfire erupted deeper in the passage. Rafael Santos fired first. The echoes rolled through the crypt like thunder.
Lark's heart stopped. "Dad."
The first gunshot stole her breath, but the second shattered her heart. "Dad!" The word escaped before she could stop it, and she hated that it had. She hated that after everything he'd done, some small, broken part of her still recognized him as her father.
More gunfire exploded through the hidden passage, and stone dust rained from the ceiling as bullets ricocheted somewhere beyond the bend. Dante wrapped an arm around her waist. "We have to move."
"No!" She twisted toward the tunnel. "He's alone."
"So are we," Rocco said, his voice calm despite the chaos surrounding them. Another explosion rocked the church overhead, and the crypt groaned as old stone cracked somewhere in the darkness.
Lark couldn't move. Her feet refused to obey her mind. Every instinct pulled her toward the gunfire and toward the man who had spent her entire life imprisoning her. He was the only parent she had left, even if she had spent years wishing he would disappear.
"I can't leave him." The confession came out in a whisper. She expected Dante to argue with her, and for Rocco to tell her she was making a mistake. Instead, Dante stepped in front of her and gently cupped her face.
"Lark." His voice was steady. "If you go back, you're walking into a fight you can't win."
"He could die,” she sobbed.
"I know,” Dante said.
Tears blurred her vision. "I don't know how to hate him, even if I should."
Dante's expression softened. "You don't have to."
She frowned at him. "What?"
"You don't have to hate him or forgive him right now.
" His thumb brushed a tear from her cheek. “You’ll have time to figure all that out later.” The words settled somewhere deep inside her.
She'd spent years believing there were only two choices—love or hate.
Maybe there was a third choice, though—grief.
Another burst of automatic fire erupted through the passage, and a man's scream echoed off the stone walls.
No one moved in the crypt. Even the rain outside seemed to stop.
Rocco slowly raised one hand. "Listen." Footsteps were coming toward them, and if she was right, the person was injured.
Lark could tell from the uneven steps echoing down the hallway.
Dante raised his rifle. The operators covered every angle, and Lark's pulse thundered in her ears.
The figure emerged slowly from the smoke—her father.
Blood soaked the left side of his shirt, and his expensive suit hung in tatters.
His face was pale, and he looked older somehow—as though twenty years had settled onto his shoulders in the last five minutes.
He stopped the moment he saw Lark, and neither of them spoke. He smiled a small, sad smile. It looked almost peaceful. "You look like your mother."
Lark's throat tightened painfully. "You've never said that before."
"I know." Blood dripped from his fingertips onto the stone floor.
He looked at Dante. "You got her out."
"I did,” Dante breathed.
"Thank you." The gratitude seemed genuine, and Lark wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Rafael turned toward Rocco. "You were right."
Rocco frowned. "About what?"
"My daughter deserved a choice."
Lark stared. "When did you talk to him?"
Rocco looked just as confused. “I never have."
Rafael chuckled weakly. "No.” He coughed. "But your father did."
Rocco went completely still. "My father?"
"Anthony.” The name echoed through the crypt.
"He punched me the first day we met." Despite everything, the corner of Rafael's mouth lifted.
"He said any man who tried to own another person wasn't worth following.
" Rocco didn't speak. "He quit,” Rafael continued, “and Keller had him killed.
" Silence swallowed the room again. "I should've stopped it, but I didn't."
Rocco's jaw clenched. "You expect that to matter now?"
"No." Her father coughed up blood. "I expect you to know who really murdered your father." Lark watched Rocco struggle with emotions she recognized all too well. The ground beneath his life had shifted, just like hers had.
Rafael reached inside his jacket, and every weapon in the crypt immediately tracked the movement. Slowly, he removed a tarnished silver key and held it out. "Lark." She didn't move.
Dante looked at the key. "What is it?"
"It’s to the safe-deposit box." Rafael's breathing had become labored. "Your mother rented it two weeks before she disappeared."
Lark looked at him in disbelief. "You knew?"
"I found out—” He closed his eyes briefly. "The day after she was gone."
"Then why didn't you open it?" Lark asked.
His smile held no humor. "She made sure I couldn't." He looked at the key. "It only opens if you're with it."
Lark slowly stepped forward, and Dante reached for her instinctively. She looked back at him. "It's okay." He hesitated and then nodded because it was her decision, not his.
She crossed the distance until she stood only a few feet from her father.
It was closer than she'd willingly been to him in years.
He looked smaller somehow—not physically, but emotionally.
The monster she'd built in her mind had become a broken old man bleeding onto a church floor, but that didn't erase what he'd done to her, and it never would.
Monsters weren't supposed to regret their actions. "I'm sorry." His voice barely carried to her.
"I know." Those two words surprised both of them. She wasn't forgiving him, but she was acknowledging him—nothing more.
With shaking fingers, she accepted the key. "I don't know if I can ever forgive you."
"I hope one day that you won’t have to carry my memory around with you anymore.” He smiled sadly.
"What?" she asked.
"Don’t let the anger you feel towards me weigh you down too much.
" His eyes glistened. “It will turn you into me, and I don’t want that for you, Lark. You deserve happiness.” Tears slipped down her cheeks.
Not because she'd forgiven him, but because she'd spent twenty-six years carrying a burden that had never been hers to bear.
Gunfire erupted around them again. Keller’s men were much closer now.
A bullet tore through the stone wall behind Rafael, and he stumbled.
Dante lunged forward, dragging Lark backward as Rocco shouted, "Move!
" The crypt exploded into chaos once more, and this time, the three of them moved as one.
Not because anyone ordered them to, but because somewhere between escaping the mansion and finding the truth beneath an abandoned church, they had become each other's family.