Dante
He hadn't allowed himself to feel it in three years because hope got people killed. It made them careless, and he couldn’t allow that to happen.
But he'd seen her, just for a second. She was thinner, and her hair was longer.
There were shadows beneath her eyes that hadn't existed the last time he'd held her after she'd cried over a nightmare. But she'd been alive.
"Lark." He didn't realize he'd spoken until she touched his arm.
She looked up at him. "We'll get her,” she promised. He wanted to believe that. God, he wanted to. But he'd led enough missions for her father to know better than to promise success before the first shot was fired.
Instead, he nodded. "We're bringing her home."
Rocco spread a weathered map across a large boulder. “It looks like they are running two perimeter patrols." He marked their routes with a pencil. “There are four towers. I’m betting that they have cameras, motion sensors—the whole nine yards.”
Lark frowned. "This isn't just a prison,” she said.
"No." Rocco circled the largest building. "It's a processing site."
The words made Dante's stomach turn. "How many guards total?"
Rocco looked toward the compound again. "I counted at least eighteen guards." He paused. "But that's not what worries me."
"What does?" Dante asked.
"They're guarding the outside of the building,” Rocco said.
Lark looked confused. "Shouldn't they?"
"Not if they're worried about someone breaking in." He tapped the map. "They're worried about someone getting out."
Dante couldn't stop staring at the second-floor window. Every instinct screamed at him to charge the front gate. He wanted to kick in doors and find his little sister. He'd dreamed about this moment for years, and now, it was less than two hundred yards away. And for some reason, he couldn't move.
Rocco quietly stepped beside him. "I know how you’re feeling."
"You don't,” Dante insisted. Rocco didn't argue. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a worn photograph of his parents.
"I was twelve when my mother died, and I lost my father six years later. Dante looked down at the photo. "I wanted revenge." He smiled sadly. "My uncle told me something that changed my mind, though.
"What did he tell you?” Dante asked.
"'Dead heroes don't save anyone.'" Rocco folded the picture and tucked it away again. "If you run through that front gate, your sister loses you all over again.”
Dante looked toward the mission and closed his eyes.
He hated how right Rocco was. He looked over to where Lark was quietly wandering toward the tree line.
She'd taken Isabella's journal with her.
She'd been reading it every chance she got as though searching for clues.
He was sure that a part of her was trying to know the woman she'd barely had time to know.
A few minutes later, she called softly. "I found something." Both men joined her, and she pointed toward a sketch inside the journal. "It isn't just the church."
Rocco leaned closer. “Right, it’s the mission”
She nodded. "My mother drew both."
Dante frowned. "Why?" Lark slowly turned another page and found a faded note that had been tucked into the binding. She carefully unfolded it. It was no bigger than a postcard with Isabella's elegant handwriting on the back.
"Michael watches over the innocent."
Below the sentence was a drawing, not of the mission, but of a statue of Saint Michael with his sword raised and shield lifted.
Rocco's eyes widened. "The statue."
Lark looked up at him and smiled. "Yes, the statue.”
"If your mother left clues, I’m betting that she hid something there,” Rocco said.
“Now what?” Lark asked.
“Now, we wait for the right moment to go in there. We sit tight and watch for our opening,” Dante said.
Darkness settled over the valley. The guards changed shifts, and floodlights now illuminated the fence. Rocco watched through the scope of his rifle. "There,” he said. A maintenance worker walked through the front gate, pushing a food cart, and no one searched it. No one even questioned him.
Dante noticed it too. "They feed them every night, and no one bothers to check the food or the person delivering it."
Lark looked between them. "I've got an idea."
Both men turned. "I’m Rafael Santos's daughter."
Rocco immediately frowned. "No."
"They'll recognize me,” she insisted.
"Exactly why I’m telling you no,” Rocco said.
She pointed toward the food cart. "Keller thinks I'm running. He'd never expect me to walk through the front gate."
Dante shook his head. "Absolutely not."
She crossed her arms. "You said you wouldn't make decisions for me anymore."
"This isn't about control,” Dante said.
"It's about keeping you alive,” Rocco added.
"It's about getting Sofia out,” Lark said. She stepped closer to them. "I'm the one Keller wants." She looked at Rocco. "I'm the only one who can distract them." She turned to Dante. "And while they're looking at me, you go get your sister.”
Dante hated the plan because it could work. He could tell that Rocco hated it too. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck before finally speaking. "We change one thing,” Rocco said.
Lark waited. "You don't go in alone." She looked from one man to the other as Rocco continued. "If one of us walks through that gate, all three of us walk through it.” He smiled faintly.
Dante nodded without hesitation. "We're done leaving each other behind.
" Lark felt tears sting her eyes. She'd spent her whole life being someone's bargaining chip.
She was always someone's possession, but now, she had two men standing beside her. They weren’t trying to protect her from her own decisions.
They were trying to make sure she never had to face them alone.
She smiled. "Together?"
Dante took her hand. "Together."
Rocco covered both of their hands with his own. "Always." A twig snapped somewhere behind them, and the three of them spun in unison, with their weapons raised.
A young woman stumbled from the trees, barefoot and terrified. Her clothes were torn, and fresh bruises covered her arms. The moment she saw Dante, she burst into tears. "Dante."
His heart stopped. "Sofia." She threw herself into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably as he held her for the first time in three years.
"I knew you'd come," she whispered against his shoulder. "I never stopped waiting."
Dante closed his eyes as emotions threatened to overwhelm him. "I've got you." He held her tighter. "I've got you."
Sofia pulled back just enough to look at him, her face streaked with tears.
"They're moving the others." Every trace of relief vanished from her face. “They loaded me into the truck already, but when the guard turned his back, I slipped out and headed for the woods. I overheard Keller’s men talking earlier about you escaping with Santos’s daughter and another man. It gave me hope that I could do the same, and well, here I am.”
“I guess you’re the reason why the guards are stationed outside of the mission then,” Rocco said. “You’re just like your brother.”
"Are there others back there?” Lark asked.
Sophia looked toward the mission. "There are twenty-three prisoners left." Her voice trembled. "Keller is loading them onto trucks." She grabbed Dante's jacket with desperate hands. "If we don't stop him tonight, they’ll disappear forever.”
Sofia wouldn't let go of his hand. Dante held her just as tightly, afraid that if he loosened his grip for even a second, she'd disappear all over again. She was shaking but had stopped crying. "I'm here," he whispered. "You don't have to be afraid anymore."
She laughed weakly against his chest. "I don't even remember what it feels like not to be afraid." His heart ached for his sister. She'd been twenty when Keller took her, and now she was twenty-three. Three birthdays, three Christmases, and three years he'd never get back.
He pulled away just enough to look at her.
Dark circles shadowed her hazel eyes. Her cheeks were thinner than he remembered, and an ugly scar disappeared beneath the collar of her oversized sweatshirt.
Someone had hurt his little sister. Rage settled deep in his chest—the kind that made men dangerous.
"They didn't break you," he said quietly.
Sofia managed the smallest smile. "They tried."
Lark knelt beside her. "Hi." Sofia looked at her for the first time, and recognition flickered almost immediately.
"You're Santos’s daughter—Lark."
"You know me?" Lark asked.
"Keller talked about you,” Sophia said.
Every muscle in Dante's body tensed. "What did he say?"
Sofia looked down at the ground. "That everything depended on finding Rafael Santos's daughter."
Lark's expression hardened. "Shit."
Sofia reached for her hand. “None of that matters now because we both survived. We both escaped Keller, and now, he won’t ever have cause to talk about either of us again.”
Tears filled Lark's eyes, and she squeezed her hand. "We both made it."
"For now." The words came from Rocco. All three turned toward him. He was studying the mission through his scope. “We’re not free yet, though. I think that they figured out that Sophia is gone because they're moving now."
Dante crawled beside him, trying to lie low.
The compound had come alive, and the floodlights swept across the yard while black SUVs and two transport trucks rolled into position.
Mercenaries loaded crates into one vehicle and people into the other.
He raised the binoculars and saw women—most of them looked like teenagers.
They had their hands zip-tied behind their backs, and their heads were lowered.
"They're evacuating." Rocco nodded. "They know the church insurgence failed, and that Rafael's dead.”
"They know we have the journal." Lark's voice grew quiet. "So they're destroying evidence."
Sofia shook her head. "No." Everyone looked at her. "They always move us before Keller visits."
Dante frowned. "What do you mean?"
"He never stays in one place." She pointed toward the largest building. "There's another bunker underneath."
"How do you know?" Rocco asked.
"I cleaned it,” she said.
Rocco's eyebrows shot up. "You've been inside?"
She nodded. "Once." Her breathing became uneven. "They blindfolded us every time they moved us, but one day, my blindfold slipped."
Hope surged through Dante. “Can you get us inside?"
"I think so,” Sophia breathed.
Rocco unfolded the mission sketch from Isabella's journal and placed it beside the dirt, using a stick to redraw the layout. "Show me."
Sofia studied it for a long moment, and then she pointed. "This isn't a storage room." She tapped the lower level. "That's an elevator."
Rocco looked up. “Is it hidden?"
She nodded. "They unload trucks underground and use the elevator to transport everything to the surface."
Dante stared at the drawing. "Keller has another escape route."
"And another prison," Lark said, looking toward the mission. "My mother must have known."
"She was documenting everything," Rocco replied.
"Every location, route, and secret,” Dante said. He looked at the journal resting in Lark's lap. "She spent years starting to build the case against Keller.”
"So someone else could finish it,” Rocco said. The realization settled over all of them. Rafael hadn't sent Lark to the church simply to find answers. He'd sent her to finish Isabella's work.
Lark looked down at the worn leather cover. "My mother trusted me to finish this." She smiled faintly.
Dante wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "She believed in you."
Lark leaned into him for a brief moment before looking at Sofia. "How many guards stay underground?"
"Usually eight,” Sophia said.
"Usually?" Rocco asked.
Sofia nodded. "But Keller's here tonight."
Dante's pulse quickened. "You're sure?"
She looked directly at him. "I saw him."
"When?" Rocco asked.
"Before I escaped.” Her voice shook. "He was yelling at Hale."
Rocco's expression darkened. "About what?"
Sofia hesitated, and then she whispered the words that changed everything. "They were turning on each other."
No one spoke until Rocco finally broke the silence. "Keller doesn't trust Hale anymore."
"Or Hale doesn't trust Keller,” Dante said.
"They're fractured,” Rocco said.
Dante smiled for the first time since arriving. "Good."
Rocco looked at him. "A divided enemy makes mistakes."
Lark looked between the two men. "So we use their mistrust against them."
Rocco nodded. "We make them think one betrayed the other."
Sofia frowned. "How?"
Dante reached into his jacket and unfolded Rafael's bloodstained list and held it up. "We already have everything we need."
Lark caught on immediately. "The names."
Rocco smiled. "If Hale thinks Keller gave us the list, and Keller thinks Hale leaked it?—”
Sofia's eyes widened. "They'll destroy each other."
Dante looked back toward the mission. For three years, he'd dreamed of storming through the front gate with guns blazing.
Now he realized that wasn't how Keller would fall.
Men like Keller didn't fear bullets. They feared losing control.
He looked at the three people standing beside him—his sister, the woman he loved, and the man he'd come to trust with both their lives.
He looked back at the compound. "Tonight," he said quietly, "we end this." No one argued because every road that had brought them together had been leading to this moment. Keller had spent decades building an empire from fear. Before the sun rose again, they intended to tear it down.