Chapter 4 - The Father Who Was Supposed to Stay Gone
Dante’s plan involved a fake ledger, three vehicles, a freight warehouse, twelve armed men and approximately zero respect for Caroline’s opinion.
She listened for four minutes.
Then she said, “No.”
Marcus looked at the ceiling.
Dante stared.
“No?”
“My father is the hostage.”
“Yes.”
“My grandfather made the ledger.”
“Yes.”
“The shop belongs to me.”
“Yes.”
“And somehow your plan includes everyone except me.”
“That is intentional.”
“Then intentionally change it.”
Dante’s jaw hardened.
“This is not a negotiation.”
Caroline folded her arms.
“You came into my shop because you needed a suit.”
“That was before someone shot at you.”
“You ordered forty-six inches across the chest when you’re clearly a forty-four. Your judgment is questionable.”
Marcus coughed suspiciously.
Dante looked at him.
Marcus stepped out.
Caroline continued.
“Rourke wants me to bring the ledger.”
“He said alone.”
“Exactly.”
“That means you’re not going.”
“That means I’m the only person he expects.”
Dante crossed the room.
When he stopped in front of her, the air changed.
“Caroline, men like Rourke do not make fair trades.”
“Neither do men like you.”
“No.”
“Then stop pretending I don’t understand.”
His voice dropped.
“I understand exactly what happens if this goes wrong.”
“So do I.”
“No, you don’t.”
Something raw entered his eyes.
“You don’t know what it is to watch somebody leave and spend the rest of your life understanding you could have stopped it.”
Caroline’s anger softened.
His mother.
The bombing.
The ten-year-old boy who had waited at home.
She touched his wrist.
“I’m not your mother.”
“I know.”
“I’m not going to disappear because you failed to lock me in a penthouse.”
“That is not as reassuring as you think.”
Caroline almost smiled.
Then she became serious.
“My father spent five years running from whatever Grandpa left behind. I’m done running.”
Dante looked at her hand.
Then covered it with his.
“Stay behind me.”
“You know that defeats the purpose of going alone.”
“I’m compromising.”
“That is not compromise.”
“It is for me.”
The exchange happened at a decommissioned freight depot near the river.
Caroline entered carrying the fake ledger.
Dante’s men waited outside the perimeter.
A tiny transmitter was sewn inside her coat collar.
Her idea.
For once, Dante approved of tailoring.
Vincent Rourke appeared from behind a row of rusting containers.
He was sixty, silver-haired and elegant.
He looked more like a senator than a criminal.
Thomas sat twenty feet away, tied to a metal chair.
His left eye was swollen.
“Dad.”
“Caro, don’t.”
Rourke smiled.
“Family reunions are touching.”
Caroline held up the book.
“Let him go.”
“Book first.”
“My father first.”
“You inherited Arthur’s stubbornness.”
“And his scissors.”
Rourke’s smile thinned.
“Come closer.”
Caroline did.
Ten feet.
Eight.
Six.
Rourke extended his hand.
Caroline opened the ledger.
“This isn’t the original.”
His eyes sharpened.
“No.”
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure my father leaves here alive.”
Rourke laughed.
“Dante told you to do this?”
“No.”
“That I believe.”
He glanced toward the darkness.
“Baker has always been better at threats than subtlety.”
Thomas raised his head.
“Caroline, listen to me.”
Rourke struck him across the face.
Caroline moved instinctively.
“Touch him again and you get nothing.”
Rourke looked at her.
Something in her expression must have convinced him.
He stopped.
Thomas spat blood.
“The boiler room,” he said.
Rourke turned.
Thomas shouted.
“Your grandfather hid Michael Baker’s records under the boiler room!”
Caroline’s pulse thundered.
Rourke drew a gun.
“No more.”
Thomas laughed weakly.
“You’ve been looking in the wrong place for twenty-eight years.”
“Where?”
“The shop was renovated in 2002. Arthur moved them.”
“Where?”
Thomas looked at Caroline.
“I don’t know.”
Rourke aimed the gun at him.
Caroline threw the fake ledger.
It struck Rourke’s arm.
The gun fired.
Dante came out of the darkness like violence given human shape.
The next seconds blurred.
Marcus’s men surrounded the depot.
Rourke’s guards opened fire.
Caroline dropped behind a concrete barrier.
Dante reached Thomas.
A bullet struck steel above them.
Marcus shot out a light.
Darkness swallowed half the warehouse.
Someone grabbed Caroline from behind.
She drove her heel backward.
The man cursed.
Caroline pulled the long steel seam ripper from her sleeve and stabbed it through his hand.
He screamed.
She ran.
Dante saw her.
“Caroline!”
“I’m fine!”
“You stabbed him?”
“With tailoring equipment.”
Even in the middle of a gunfight, his expression suggested disbelief.
Rourke escaped through a side door.
Thomas did not.
Dante cut him free.
Caroline fell to her knees beside her father.
Thomas touched her cheek.
“You look like your mother.”
“Do not try sentimental manipulation while bleeding.”
He smiled faintly.
“You sound like Arthur.”
Then he looked at Dante.
The warmth vanished.
“You shouldn’t have brought her into this.”
Dante’s expression hardened.
“I didn’t.”
“She was born into it.”
Caroline stared at her father.
“What does that mean?”
Thomas looked away.
Back at the penthouse, a doctor treated his injuries.
Nothing life-threatening.
When they were finally alone, Caroline placed the black ledger on the table.
“Talk.”
Thomas sat across from her.
Dante remained near the window.
Thomas stared at the book.
“Your grandfather started keeping records in the eighties.”
“Why?”
“Insurance.”
“Against whom?”
“Everyone.”
Thomas laughed without humor.
“Arthur made suits for men who carried guns. He knew exactly who he worked for.”
Caroline thought of her grandfather teaching her buttonholes.
It felt impossible.
“He never committed crimes.”
“No. But he heard them discussed.”
“And stayed silent.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Fear. Money. Loyalty. Pick one.”
Thomas rubbed his face.
“Then Michael Baker came along.”
Dante turned.
Thomas looked at him.
“Your father liked Arthur.”
“My father liked very few people.”
“Arthur was one.”
“What changed?”
“The bombing.”
Thomas explained.
After Dante’s mother died, Michael Baker wanted revenge.
Arthur’s ledger proved Adrian had opened the service gate and Rourke arranged the bomb.
But instead of exposing Adrian, Michael blackmailed him.
For fourteen years, Adrian secretly fed information about Rourke’s organization to the Bakers.
“What proof did Michael leave?” Dante asked.
“Copies of Adrian’s payment records. Audio recordings. Names.”
“Where?”
“Arthur hid them.”
“Why?”
“Because Michael became worse.”
Dante went still.
Thomas continued carefully.
“He didn’t just use the information to protect himself. He used it to destroy anyone connected to Rourke. Innocent people got hurt.”
Dante looked away.
Caroline watched him absorb the sins of a dead father.
“My grandfather took the evidence.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew?”
“Some.”
“Why did you borrow against the shop?”
Thomas’s shoulders dropped.
Here was the shame she knew.
“Rourke approached me after Arthur died. He offered money for the building.”
“You said no.”
“I gambled.”
Caroline’s face went cold.
“I know.”
“I lost.”
“You borrowed against Grandpa’s life’s work.”
“Yes.”
“Because you were gambling.”
“At first.”
“At first?”
“Then I realized Rourke controlled the lender.”
Caroline stared.
“He wanted the shop.”
“Yes.”
“You knew why.”
“I suspected.”
“And you ran.”
“I thought leaving would draw them away from you.”
“That worked beautifully.”
“I know.”
The pain in his voice was real.
It did not erase anything.
But it mattered.
Dante’s phone rang.
Adrian Vale.
Everyone stared at the screen.
Dante answered.
“Where are you?”
Adrian’s voice sounded calm.
“At home.”
“Stay there.”
“Is that an order?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“Then I suppose we’ve reached the part where pretending becomes insulting.”
Dante’s face hardened.
“You opened the gate.”
Silence.
Caroline held her breath.
Finally Adrian said, “Your father knew.”
“I know.”
“And still kept me beside him.”
“I know that too.”
“You think that makes him noble?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Dante’s hand tightened around the phone.
“Where is Rourke?”
Adrian laughed softly.
“You still think I work for Vincent.”
“Don’t you?”
“I work for survival.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means your father taught me a lesson you never learned.”
“What lesson?”
“Nobody gets out clean.”
The call ended.
Marcus entered seconds later.
“Boss.”
Dante turned.
“We have a problem.”
“What?”
“The security feed went down at your Lake Forest house.”
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
Only six people knew that property was being used as a secondary safe location.
Marcus continued.
“One guard is dead.”
Caroline’s stomach dropped.
“A leak,” she said.
Dante looked at her.
“Inside your organization.”
“Yes.”
Thomas leaned forward.
“Adrian?”
Dante shook his head.
“He doesn’t know about that house.”
“Then who?”
Nobody answered.
A photograph came through Dante’s phone.
The Lake Forest living room.
Blood on the carpet.
And a handwritten message.
YOU KEEP LOOKING AT THE PAST.
I’M ALREADY INSIDE YOUR FUTURE.
Caroline looked at Dante.
For the first time since she’d met him, she saw something more dangerous than anger.
Doubt.
May you like
Dante Baker trusted very few people.
Now he had no idea which one of them was preparing to kill him.
