Chapter 20 – Lance
Twenty
Patience? Don't Know Her.
Lance
Three days of this shit, and I was ready to throw my laptop out the floor-to-ceiling windows of Atticus's great room.
The penthouse had been transformed into something that looked like a cross between a tech startup and a conspiracy theorist's wet dream.
Four monitors mounted on rolling stands.
Three laptops were scattered across the dining table that normally hosted elegant dinner parties.
Two massive whiteboards that Gwen had commandeered from God knows where, now covered in timelines, financial flows, and enough red string to make the FBI jealous.
And one very cranky baby who'd apparently decided that 2 PM was the perfect time to remind everyone that she was the real boss around here.
"Jesus Christ, Ava," Rowan muttered from his position at one of the laptops, where he'd been cross-referencing shell companies for the past hour. "Could you keep it down? Some of us are trying to take down international crime syndicates."
"She's almost five months old," Gavin pointed out, not looking up from the financial records he was parsing. "Cut her some slack."
"She's got excellent timing, though," Micah added with a grin. "Every time we hit a dead end, she starts fussing. It's like she knows."
From Atticus's position near the windows, our fearless leader was doing that thing where he bounced Ava while simultaneously trying to read financial records over Gwen's shoulder. Multi-tasking had taken on a whole new meaning since his daughter arrived.
"Give her here," I said, abandoning my screen. "You're going to drop her."
"I'm not going to drop my daughter," Atticus shot back, but he looked relieved when I held out my arms. "Though I will say, her taste in people is highly suspect."
The moment Ava settled against my chest, her fussing stopped. Little traitor went completely quiet, making those content baby noises that somehow made every person in the room go soft.
"See?" I murmured to her. "Your dad's just jealous because you have good instincts."
"She stops crying for a known criminal," Atticus pointed out. "That's not good instincts."
"Reformed criminal," Morgan corrected as she walked into the great room carrying coffee that smelled like salvation.
She'd been training with Pierce for the past two hours.
Something about learning to "read" people in social situations, and the flush in her cheeks made it clear he hadn't gone easy on her. We’d made it a point to have her train with different people so she didn’t get used to anyone person’s movements or tells.
Focus, asshole. Your wife learning to protect herself is not the time to get distracted by how fucking gorgeous she looks when she's sweaty.
But damn if she didn't look incredible. Strong. Capable. Less like someone who needed protecting and more like someone who could handle whatever came next.
"How'd training go?" I asked, accepting the coffee she handed me while carefully keeping Ava secure.
"I can now identify when someone's lying through micro-expressions," she said with satisfaction. "Which means I would have spotted your bullshit months ago if I'd known what to look for."
Ouch.
"Fair point," I admitted.
"Tell me you found something," she continued, settling into the chair beside me. "Because watching you all stare at screens for three days is making me twitchy."
"Define 'something,'" I muttered, rubbing my eyes with my free hand.
The numbers on my screen had started blurring together about an hour ago.
"Because if you mean 'proof that my grandfather is a sociopathic criminal mastermind,' then yeah.
Tons of something. If you mean 'actual usable evidence that won't get us all killed,' then we're still working on that. "
Gwen looked up from her station, where she'd constructed what appeared to be a small fort out of energy drink cans and crumpled protein bar wrappers. "We're getting close. I can feel it."
Close doesn't keep Morgan safe. Close doesn't put Charles in the ground where he belongs.
"Here, let me try," Hector said, reaching for Ava. "Maybe she just needs a different approach."
I should have warned him. Should have mentioned that Ava had a sixth sense about people who were nervous around babies. But honestly, watching my brother, who could take down armed men without breaking a sweat, look terrified of a five month old was too entertaining to interrupt.
The moment Ava was in Hector's arms, she went rigid. For about three seconds. Then she let out a wail that could have shattered glass.
"Shit," Hector said, holding her at arm's length like she might explode. "What did I do?"
"You're holding her like she's a bomb," Rowan pointed out, grinning. "Relax."
"I am relaxed."
"No, you're not," Micah added. "You look like someone's pointing a gun at your head."
"Babies are more dangerous than guns," Hector muttered, but he pulled Ava closer to his chest. "Guns don't randomly leak bodily fluids."
The words were barely out of his mouth when the smell hit us.
"Oh, fuck," Gavin said, wrinkling his nose. "That's not just a wet diaper."
Hector's face went pale. "Is she...did she just..."
"Congratulations," Atticus said with barely concealed amusement. "You've experienced your first blowout."
The look of pure horror on Hector's face was priceless. This was a man who'd tortured people for information, who'd killed without hesitation, who'd faced down and stood up to the old man more than once. And he was being defeated by a five-month-old's digestive issues.
"Take her," he said, thrusting Ava toward Atticus with the kind of desperation usually reserved for life-or-death situations.
"She’s part of the gang," Atticus pointed out, but he took Ava anyway. "You're going to have to get used to her eventually."
"No, I'm not. I'm staying far away from exploding babies from now on."
"Too late for that," I said, nodding toward his shirt. "You've been baptized."
Hector looked down at the yellow stain spreading across his formerly pristine button-down and let out a string of French curses that would have made our grandfather proud.
"I'll go change her," Atticus said, already heading toward the nursery. "Someone needs to actually take care of the baby instead of just complaining about her."
"That's what you get for being nervous," Silas said quietly from his position by the windows. "Babies can sense fear."
"I'm not afraid of a baby," Hector mumbled.
"You're terrified," Silas corrected with amusement. "And she knows it."
"Any word on Torrino?" I asked. Pierce shook his head.
"Still in holding. Lawyer'd up immediately. He's not talking."
Watching my family, because that's what they were, these people who'd shown up to help take down a monster, bicker over baby duty while trying to solve an international conspiracy was surreal as hell.
But it was also exactly what I needed. A reminder that this wasn't just about revenge or justice.
It was about protecting the people who mattered.
The people who'd become your family when your real family tried to turn you into a weapon.
"So what exactly are we looking for?" Atticus asked, settling back into his chair after changing the baby.
Ava was sleeping peacefully in Silas's arms now, completely oblivious to the chaos she'd caused. It was funny, I’d never pictured him as a grandfather type.
But it worked. Ava was so at ease with him.
"Because I've been staring at these financial records for hours, and all I see are very expensive ways to hide money. "
"That's exactly what we're looking for," I said, pulling up another batch of files.
"My grandfather isn't just running a crime syndicate, he's running a business empire with tentacles in everything from shipping to real estate to tech.
But somewhere in all this legitimate-looking paperwork, there's proof of the illegal shit. "
"The question is where," Gwen added. "He's been at this for forty years. He's not exactly going to have a folder labeled 'Murder and Mayhem.'"
"Which brings us back to the Monserrat file," I said, frustration bleeding through my carefully maintained calm. "Pernaut swore it contained everything we needed. But we can't find any trace of it in my grandfather's systems."
"Maybe because it's not in his systems," Morgan suggested, settling into the chair beside me. "Maybe your mother found a way to hide it somewhere he'd never think to look."
Always so fucking perceptive.
"That's what we're hoping," I agreed. "But—"
I turned to Pierce and Silas, who had been on legwork duty since I couldn’t join them, as I had to keep playing dead. "Any luck with the prison records?"
Silas shook his head, his expression grim. "Pernaut’s death after your brother’s visit, while curious was due to complications from cancer. However, I did learn something interesting about his daughter."
"Yeah?"
"She's been receiving anonymous payments for the past fifteen years. Substantial ones. Someone's been taking care of her."
I felt my pulse kick up. "My grandfather?"
"That was my first thought. There’s something else. I’ve been thinking about the name Monserrat some more. I might have remembered something."
Silas was quiet for a long moment, that particular silence that meant he was choosing his words carefully. When he spoke, his voice carried fifteen years of buried grief.
"Louis Fanz," he said slowly. "He was a forger.
One of the best in Europe." Silas's accent suddenly seemed thicker, weighted down by memories.
"Your mother...she knew him. Used his services a few times for documents when we needed clean identities for people we were helping escape Charles's reach.
He did the paperwork as part of her escape plan, too. "
I frowned, briefly scanning the database of names we’d compiled. “I vaguely remember seeing his name.”
"I went back to my old files and background checks. He didn’t work for the DuLac’s so your mother wanted to make sure he could be trusted and did good work. Turns out, his father's surname was Monserrat, but Louis used his mother's name professionally."
Holy shit.
"You knew him?" My voice came out rougher than I'd intended.
The room erupted in a burst of activity. Gwen immediately started pulling up new search parameters, Atticus began scribbling notes, Pierce moved to the whiteboard to start mapping connections. But I just sat there, staring at Silas like he'd just told me he was actually an alien.
I thought about all those times she'd disappeared for hours, claiming she was shopping or visiting friends. All those mysterious phone calls that stopped the moment I walked into the room. All those nights when she'd seemed distracted, worried about something she couldn't share.
"What kind of forger?" Morgan asked, and I could see her mind working, making connections that the rest of us were still processing.
"The kind who was obsessed with spy technology from the Cold War," Silas replied.
"Microfilm, hidden compartments, ways to conceal information in plain sight.
Louis used to tell stories about his father, claiming he'd been a spy back in the day.
Real or not, Louis was fascinated by the old techniques. "
"Microfilm," Gwen breathed. "That's how she would have hidden evidence. Not in digital files that could be hacked or deleted, but in something physical. Something small enough to hide anywhere."
"But where?" Atticus asked. "We're talking about something the size of a grain of rice. It could be anywhere in the world by now."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Because he was right. If my mother had hidden microfilm evidence fifteen years ago, it could be literally anywhere.
Sewn into clothing, embedded in jewelry, tucked into the spine of a book.
Finding it would be like searching for a specific grain of sand on a beach.
Unless...
"She wouldn't hide it somewhere random," I said slowly, the idea forming as I spoke. "My mother was too smart for that. If she was gathering evidence against the most dangerous man alive, she'd want it close. Somewhere she could access it, but somewhere safe."
"Somewhere personal," Morgan added, and I could see her following my train of thought.
"Her jewelry," Silas whispered.
Everyone went dead quiet.
I looked around the room at the faces of the people who'd become my family.
Gwen with her genius-level intellect and fierce loyalty.
Atticus with his protective instincts and strategic mind.
Morgan with her intuition and stubborn courage.
Pierce with his tactical expertise and unshakeable calm.
And Silas, who'd loved my mother enough to spend fifteen years trying to bring her killer to justice.
We were close. So fucking close I could taste it.
"The jewelry you recovered from the crash," I said to Silas. "Where is it?"
His face was pale but determined. "Storage unit in Queens. I couldn't bring myself to look through it properly, but I kept everything. Every piece. But she didn’t wear a lot. Only time I looked through it was when I recovered her ring so you could give it to Morgan. She usually didn’t wear too much jewelry.
Her ring, a watch her mother had given her.
Diamond studs. A few necklaces. I can go get it. "
"Then that's where we go," Morgan said, standing up with the kind of resolution that made my chest tight with pride and terror. "Right now."
"Morgan—" I started.
"No." She turned to face me, and the fire in her eyes was magnificent. "I'm done sitting on the sidelines while you all try to protect me. If there's evidence that can end this nightmare, I want to find it. We find it together."
Together.
My damn chest tightened. For months, I'd been operating alone or with Hector and Silas, making decisions based on what I thought was best for everyone else. But Morgan was right. This was her fight now too. Charles had made it her fight the moment he'd decided to come after me.
"I love the sound of together, Spitfire. But I don’t think we have to go all the way to Queens," I said.
Everyone except for Silas looked confused. “Why not?” Morgan asked.
“Because I’m willing to bet my life that the microfilm is in your ring.”