Rocco
He lowered the scope. "They've changed their pattern."
Dante crawled beside him. "How?"
Lark settled beside them, keeping low in the tall grass. "What does that mean?"
Dante looked surprised. "Scared?"
"He lost Rafael.” Rocco ticked points off on his fingers.
"He lost the journal, and most importantly, he’s lost Sofia.
Plus, he knows we have names." He looked back through the scope.
"Men like Keller don't reinforce security because they're confident.
They reinforce it because they're running out of options. "
“So our odds just got better?” Dante asked.
“Yep,” Rocco said, looking back at Dante’s sister. Sofia sat beneath a pine tree wrapped in a blanket, sipping water while she tried to remember everything she could about the compound. “We just need Sophia’s help. Do you think that she’ll be able to remember more about the compound?” he asked.
“I can ask her to try,” Dante said. That was all Rocco could ask, really. She had already been a big help. Sophia sketched the underground layout from memory. It wasn't perfect, but it didn't have to be. It was enough to get them into the compound. He just had no idea where to go from there.
“I have an idea,” Rocco said. “Can I see your mother’s journal?
” Lark handed it to him, and he turned to the page with Isabella’s hand-drawn map.
If he were correct, the two might just match up and give them a full picture of the compound.
Rocco spread Sophia’s drawing beside Isabella's journal and found that the two matched almost perfectly. He smiled despite himself.
"Your mother was incredible,” he breathed.
Lark looked down at the journal. "I wish I'd known her."
"You’re getting to know her,” Rocco said.
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Every page of that journal tells me exactly who she was." He tapped the book carefully. "She wasn't writing for herself." He looked at Lark. "She was writing this for you."
Lark swallowed hard. "So I could finish what she started."
"Exactly,” Rocco agreed. “So, let’s finish this.
” Lark smiled at him and nearly took his damn breath away.
She had no idea what she did to him, every time she glanced his way, but he planned on making sure she knew it once this whole mess was over.
He felt like the luckiest bastard on the planet because Lark chose both him and Dante, and there was no way he’d let her go now.
Dante knelt beside Sofia. "You sure you're up for this?"
She looked at her brother with tired eyes. "I don't think I'll ever be ready."
He smiled sadly. "That’s fair."
"But I'm going to do this anyway,” she insisted, looking around the group. Rocco wasn’t sure how the poor girl was still standing after everything that she had been through.
Being held captive for three years and living to tell the tale was hard enough.
But Sophia was helping them to bring Keller down, and in his eyes, that made her one of the strongest women he’d ever known.
"I know,” Dante said.
"I spent three years waiting for someone to come." She looked toward the mission. "I'm not leaving those people behind."
Rocco watched her and felt pride settle quietly in his chest that he had no business feeling.
Strength ran in Dante’s family—he could see that every time he looked at the two of them together.
They were unbreakable. He glanced toward Lark and saw that she was watching Sofia with tears in her eyes because she saw it too.
A vibration buzzed inside Rocco's pocket, and he pulled his satellite phone from his jacket. Only three people had the number. He answered quietly. "Bertoni." Static filled the line, followed by a familiar voice—Avery. Relief washed through him.
"Hey,” she said.
“You alive?” he asked.
"Barely,” she admitted.
He smiled. "I'll take barely."
Gunfire echoed faintly through the call. "We've been busy."
"Status?" Rocco asked.
"We found something." His expression became serious.
"What did you find?” he asked.
"Keller moved his servers,” she said.
Rocco looked toward the mission. "Where did he move them to?”
"They're already inside."
"Inside where?” he asked.
"The underground bunker isn't just a prison." She paused. "It's the headquarters." Everything clicked into place—the ledger, the names, and the trafficking network. Keller wasn't evacuating. He was protecting the nerve center of his entire operation.
"We're twenty minutes out," Avery continued. "But there's bad news."
Rocco's stomach tightened. "Great—what now?”
"Hale knows you're there." The line went quiet for a beat. "He wants Keller dead, too."
Dante had moved close enough to hear. "He flipped sides?"
"No." Avery sounded grim. "He wants the empire for himself, and the only way to make that happen is to kill Keller himself. We can’t let that happen. We need to bring Keller in.”
“Just get here,” Rocco ordered. “We will need backup if we’re going to get to Keller first.”
“On our way,” Avery said.
Rocco ended the call and looked at the others. "We've got a problem."
Dante laughed once. "Just one?"
"Hale isn't helping us,” Rocco said.
Lark crossed her arms over her chest. "He's helping himself,” she guessed.
"Exactly,” Rocco said.
She looked back toward the mission. "So it doesn’t matter who wins the fight. The prisoners lose either way.”
Rocco nodded. "Unless we stop both of them."
He studied the compound again. Something nagged at him. He noticed movement that didn't fit the previous patterns set by the guards. "There."
Dante followed his scope. "What am I looking at?"
"The west garage,” Rocco said. A black SUV rolled into the underground entrance with no escort and no fanfare. The rear passenger door opened, and Victor Hale climbed out alone. He disappeared inside without speaking to anyone.
Rocco smiled slowly. "He doesn't trust Keller anymore."
Lark caught the change in his expression. "What?"
"They're meeting,” Rocco said.
"Now?" Dante asked.
Rocco nodded. "And neither man brought an army."
Dante's eyes lit with understanding. "They're negotiating."
"Or threatening each other,” Rocco said. He looked down at the map, then back at the mission, and a plan formed almost instantly. It was complicated, but exactly the kind of plan that might just work.
"I need you both to trust me."
Lark didn’t hesitate. "I do." Dante also nodded his agreement.
"I'm going inside,” Rocco said.
Dante immediately shook his head. "No."
"Listen, I have a plan to bring them both down. They are under the same roof, and this might be our only shot at taking both of them,” Rocco insisted.
"They'll kill you,” Dante said.
"Not before I give them a reason to turn on each other,” Rocco growled.
Lark frowned. "What are you thinking?"
Rocco smiled. "Keller thinks Hale betrayed him, and Hale thinks Keller betrayed him." He pulled Rafael's bloodstained list from his pocket. "What happens if both of them suddenly believe they have proof?"
Dante stared at him for several long seconds, and then a slow grin spread across his face. "You sneaky bastard."
"I’ve been called worse,” Rocco said.
Lark looked between them. "I don't like this plan."
Rocco reached for her hand. "I know."
She squeezed his fingers tightly. "Come back." His chest tightened at those two simple words. They were the same words she'd said to Dante, not because she couldn't choose between them, but because she'd already made her choice. She wanted both of them.
He lifted her hand and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. "I will." Dante stepped forward without a word, and the two men clasped forearms. There was no rivalry, no jealousy, only trust.
"You come home," Dante said quietly.
Rocco nodded once. "Wait for Avery to get here. And while they're busy trying to kill each other, you guys need to get everyone out.” He looked toward the mission one last time.
The three of them shared one last look before separating into the darkness.
If everything went according to plan, Keller's empire would collapse before sunrise.
If it didn't, none of them would be leaving the mountain alive. Everything was riding on his plan, and Rocco just hoped like hell that he wasn’t going to lose the new family he had only just begun to build.
The mountain was quiet—too quiet. Rocco moved through the darkness with practiced ease, sticking to the shadows as he circled the mission.
The bloodstained list Rafael had died to protect rested inside his jacket.
It wasn't just a list anymore—it was bait.
That list was exactly what Keller and Hale would kill each other for.
A pair of mercenaries rounded the corner ahead, and Rocco ducked behind an old stone retaining wall, waited for them to pass, then slipped through the open service entrance Sofia had marked on the map.
That section of the compound had no alarms or cameras.
Keller had been so focused on protecting himself from an outside assault that he'd forgotten the oldest rule in the world—the greatest threat was already inside the walls.
The underground bunker buzzed with controlled panic.
Men hurried through the corridors carrying hard drives, stacks of files, and locked cases.
They were running, and that thought made Rocco smile.
He waited until no one occupied the hallway before slipping into Keller's private office.
The room was immaculate. A mahogany desk sat in the corner of the room.
The walls were adorned with expensive artwork, and there were multiple monitors showing security feeds.
His office showed the arrogance of a man who believed he'd never lose.
Rocco laid Rafael's list in the center of the desk, and then he added something else—a flash drive Avery had managed to recover from Keller's network. It contained every financial record, offshore account, and shipment. It was enough evidence to bury an empire.
Finally, he pulled a pen from the desk and wrote a single sentence across the top page.
Victor, I know everything. —Adrian