Chapter 6 - The Uncle at the Door
The attack lasted ninety seconds.
It felt like an hour.
Marco's men breached the eastern entrance while another team cut electricity.
But Dante had prepared for Hale.
He hadn't prepared for family.
Maeve remained behind the reinforced pantry wall with Kathleen while gunfire echoed through the mansion.
Then silence.
Dante appeared.
Blood stained his sleeve.
Maeve rushed forward.
"Are you hit?"
"Graze."
"Sit."
"Maeve—"
"Sit."
Perhaps shock made her fearless.
Perhaps she'd simply become accustomed to ordering dangerous men around.
Dante sat.
She cleaned the wound.
His eyes remained on her.
"You should leave."
"You've suggested that before."
"This time I'm serious."
"So am I."
"You could die here."
Maeve tied the bandage.
"I could die crossing a street."
"That's different."
"Only because you can't control traffic."
For the first time, Dante smiled.
Small.
Tired.
Real.
Maeve's heart betrayed her with one heavy beat.
Then Luca entered carrying a captured attacker.
The man revealed Marco's objective.
The locket.
Kathleen wanted the evidence released immediately.
Dante agreed.
But when they accessed the chip, they discovered encryption.
Kathleen knew only half the password.
Salvatore had known the other half.
"He's dead," Luca said.
Kathleen looked at him strangely.
"I never said that."
Another silence.
Maeve groaned.
"Of course he's alive."
Kathleen explained Salvatore survived the warehouse fire and entered federal protection after agreeing to testify against Hale.
But the case collapsed when witnesses disappeared.
Salvatore vanished again.
Only Kathleen knew how to contact him.
Dante looked furious.
"My father has been alive fifteen years?"
"He believed Marco would kill you if he returned."
"He let us believe he was dead."
Kathleen's eyes moved toward Maeve.
The two women shared an uncomfortable understanding.
Parents who vanished in the name of protection left the same wound behind.
Kathleen sent an encoded message.
Hours passed.
Then a reply arrived.
One location.
One time.
Dante insisted on going.
Maeve insisted too.
"No."
"The locket is mine."
"Exactly."
"Then stop saying no."
Luca muttered, "You know she's coming."
Dante glared.
Nico nodded.
"She's definitely coming."
The meeting point was an abandoned church outside the city.
Dante entered first.
Maeve followed.
An elderly man stood before the altar.
Salvatore Falcone.
Dante stopped.
Neither moved.
Fifteen years existed between them.
Finally Salvatore whispered, "Son."
Dante punched him.
Maeve winced.
Salvatore staggered but didn't retaliate.
"Fair."
Dante grabbed his collar.
"You were alive."
"I was trying to keep you alive."
"You don't get to call that protection."
Maeve watched Dante say the words she had wanted to scream at Kathleen.
Salvatore eventually provided the second password.
The chip opened.
Files filled the screen.
Bank transfers.
Recorded conversations.
Photographs.
Enough evidence to destroy Hale and Marco.
Then one final folder appeared.
MAEVE.
Maeve clicked it.
Inside was her birth certificate.
The father's name had been hidden.
Now it was visible.
Maeve read it.
Her body went cold.
Because the name wasn't O'Connell.
It wasn't Hale.
May you like
It was Falcone.
And Dante was staring at the same screen.
