Chapter 9 - The Price of the DeadEmily did not remember sitting down.
One moment she was standing inside Oakridge’s conference room.
The next, she was in a chair across from Adrian Keller with Dante standing behind her.
Her father was alive.
Sixteen years of grief cracked open.
Funeral.
Closed casket.
Leo crying.
Emily handling paperwork because their mother had already died and someone needed to be functional.
Nineteen-year-old Emily signing death certificates.
Selling the house.
Moving Leo.
Starting work.
Building an entire life on the assumption that Thomas Davies was gone.
“He’s alive,” she repeated.
Keller nodded.
“Last confirmation was three months ago.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Dante spoke.
“Then you’re useless.”
Keller looked at him.
“You haven’t changed as much as Thomas hoped.”
Dante stepped forward.
Emily caught his hand without turning.
He stopped.
Keller noticed.
“Interesting.”
Emily’s voice was cold.
“Do not analyze us. Explain.”
Keller leaned back.
“Thomas discovered Argent had become autonomous. Originally, the division reported through classified channels. Eventually, money changed that.”
“Who runs it?”
“A board.”
“Names?”
“Some are dead. Some don’t know they’re members. Some are active.”
Emily’s patience thinned.
“My father.”
Keller nodded.
“Thomas tried to dismantle the financial system. He created the ledger. Argent discovered him.”
“He died.”
“They made it look that way.”
“Why?”
“To protect you and Leo.”
Emily laughed once.
It sounded broken.
“He let me bury him to protect me?”
“Yes.”
Dante’s hand tightened beneath hers.
Emily continued.
“And then?”
“He entered deep cover with me.”
“Clara?”
Keller looked at Dante.
The room changed.
“She was part of the same extraction.”
Dante’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“Where is my wife?”
Keller held his gaze.
“I don’t know.”
Dante moved.
Emily stood between them.
“Dante.”
“Move.”
“No.”
“He knows.”
“He said he doesn’t.”
“He lies professionally.”
“So do you.”
That stopped him.
Emily turned back to Keller.
“Tell him everything.”
Keller exhaled.
“Clara agreed to disappear because Argent convinced her Dante was going to be assassinated. Thomas and I discovered the assassination threat was manufactured.”
Dante’s eyes burned.
“We attempted to extract Clara. During the transfer, Argent intercepted us.”
“What happened?”
“Thomas got Clara out.”
Dante’s face changed.
“He saw her?”
“Yes.”
“Spoke to her?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“They separated.”
“Why?”
“Because Argent was chasing all three of them.”
Dante’s fists clenched.
Keller continued.
“Clara went north. Thomas went east. I stayed behind.”
“Then?”
“Clara contacted Thomas twice.”
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
Dante closed his eyes.
One year after the bombing.
“She was alive.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she contact me?”
Keller’s expression tightened.
“She tried.”
Dante looked at him.
“What?”
“Argent intercepted the messages.”
Dante turned away.
Emily could see the devastation in his shoulders.
The idea that Clara abandoned him had been painful.
The knowledge that she tried to return was somehow worse.
Emily approached him slowly.
Dante did not turn.
She touched his back.
His breathing was controlled.
Too controlled.
Machine control.
Emily hated it.
“Stay here,” she whispered.
He looked at her.
“Don’t go back inside yourself.”
His expression broke for half a second.
Emily squeezed his hand.
Then returned to Keller.
“Why were you watching me?”
“Thomas asked me to.”
“Four months ago?”
“Sixteen years.”
Emily froze.
Keller continued.
“Not constantly. But I kept track of you.”
“You watched me grow up?”
“From a distance.”
“That is deeply disturbing.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you contact me?”
“Thomas’s orders.”
Emily’s anger rose.
“My father doesn’t get to issue orders about my life after staging his funeral.”
Keller nodded.
“I agree.”
“Then why now?”
“Because Argent found Thomas’s backup.”
Emily understood.
“Me.”
“Yes.”
“They knew he trained me.”
“They suspected.”
“And the photograph?”
“I sent it.”
Dante stepped forward.
Emily stared.
“You sent the photograph calling me Dante’s queen?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To force the commission together.”
Emily’s anger sharpened.
“You contacted Oakridge?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“Argent.”
“So you used me as bait.”
“I accelerated a confrontation that was already coming.”
Dante’s hand went toward his gun.
Emily raised one finger without looking.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Keller almost smiled.
Emily glared.
“You have approximately thirty seconds before I reconsider protecting you.”
“Fair.”
“Why frame Rinaldi?”
“To make the manipulation obvious.”
Emily slowly understood.
“You wanted me to find the frame.”
“Yes.”
“You knew I would.”
“Thomas said you would.”
Something inside Emily twisted.
Pride.
Anger.
Grief.
Her father knew her.
Even after sixteen years.
Keller continued.
“Argent’s financial system was designed to survive ordinary attacks. But you are not ordinary.”
Emily hated the dramatic phrasing.
“I work in payroll.”
“You memorized half their architecture before puberty.”
Dante looked at her.
Emily sighed.
“When you phrase it that way, my childhood sounds concerning.”
“It was.”
Keller reached slowly into his jacket.
Three Marino guns appeared immediately.
He stopped.
“USB drive.”
Emily nodded.
He removed it.
Placed it on the table.
“This contains the location of a communications relay Argent used three months ago.”
“Does it lead to Thomas?”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
“The relay received biometric confirmation from a prisoner designated T-DAVIES.”
Emily went pale.
Prisoner.
Not guest.
Not operative.
Prisoner.
Dante moved beside her.
“Where?”
“An abandoned medical research campus near Lake Geneva.”
Dante looked at Tommy.
“Mobilize.”
Keller shook his head.
“No.”
Dante stared.
“No?”
“If you send Marino soldiers, Thomas dies.”
“Explain quickly.”
“The facility monitors regional law-enforcement frequencies, known Marino vehicles, phones, aircraft.”
Emily looked at Keller.
“So how do we enter?”
“Quietly.”
Dante laughed without humor.
“I don’t do quietly.”
Emily turned.
“Yes, you do.”
He stared.
“You ran a multinational criminal enterprise for twenty years without federal conviction. You can do quietly.”
Tommy covered a smile.
Dante glared.
Emily continued.
“We do surveillance first.”
“Emily—”
“Evidence.”
“This is not evidence. Your father is being held.”
“And charging into an unknown facility might kill him.”
Dante’s anger faltered.
She was right.
He hated it.
Emily looked at Keller.
“How many people?”
“Unknown.”
“Weapons?”
“Unknown.”
“Security architecture?”
“I know some.”
“Then you’re coming.”
Dante immediately objected.
“No.”
Emily looked at him.
“Keller knows the building.”
“He also manipulated us.”
“Correct.”
“He could lead you into a trap.”
“Also correct.”
“You’re not going.”
Emily folded her arms.
“Dante.”
“No.”
“My father is there.”
“No.”
She stepped closer.
“Your wife may be connected to the same network.”
His face tightened.
“This isn’t about Clara.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No. This is about keeping you alive.”
“And if Thomas is alive because he protected me for sixteen years, I’m not sitting in Chicago while other people rescue him.”
Dante looked into her eyes.
He knew he had lost.
“Fine.”
Emily blinked.
“Fine?”
“You stay beside me.”
“That was surprisingly easy.”
“I’m learning.”
Keller chuckled.
Dante turned.
“You.”
Keller stopped.
“If she gets hurt because of your information, I will make death seem like an administrative inconvenience.”
Emily looked at Dante.
“That was almost poetic.”
“I’m emotional.”
“Clearly.”
They left Oakridge at 2:00 a.m.
Leo never knew anything happened.
Before Emily left, she went to his room.
He was awake, reading.
“You’re leaving?”
“For work.”
“At two?”
“My employer has boundary issues.”
Leo smiled faintly.
“Coffee man?”
Emily sat on the edge of his bed.
“Yes.”
Leo studied her.
“You like him.”
Emily sighed.
“You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“You didn’t answer.”
“No.”
“That means yes.”
Emily brushed his hair back.
“Leo.”
He looked at her.
“If Dad was alive, would you want to know?”
Leo frowned.
Their father.
A dangerous topic.
Emily immediately regretted asking.
Leo remained quiet for a long time.
Then:
“Dad used to tell me monsters aren’t always bad.”
Emily’s chest tightened.
“What?”
“When I was scared.”
Leo looked toward the window.
“He said monsters could stand outside your door too.”
Emily swallowed.
Apparently Thomas Davies had prepared both children in different ways.
Emily with numbers.
Leo with metaphors.
“Would you want him back?”
Leo looked at her.
“Yes.”
Simple.
No anger.
No questions.
Emily kissed his forehead.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
As she left, Leo called after her.
“Emmy?”
She turned.
“Tell the coffee man not to let the monsters get you.”
Emily smiled painfully.
“I think that’s his specialty.”
Three hours later, she stood in a dark command room at Dante’s estate.
Satellite photographs covered the monitors.
Lake Geneva.
The facility consisted of four buildings surrounded by forest.
Keller pointed.
“Primary structure.”
Vinnie zoomed in.
Emily studied roads.
Power.
Drainage.
“Medical campus?”
“Originally pharmaceutical research.”
“Underground levels?”
“Two.”
Dante looked at Keller.
“Where would Thomas be?”
“Lowest level.”
Emily noticed something.
A delivery record.
“Wait.”
She enlarged the manifest.
Medical supplies.
Insulin.
Cardiac drugs.
Antipsychotics.
Sedatives.
Then one medication.
Emily knew it.
Leo had taken it years earlier.
“What?”
Dante looked at her.
“This drug.”
She pointed.
“It’s used for schizophrenia.”
Keller frowned.
“Thomas doesn’t have schizophrenia.”
Emily went cold.
No.
But someone else in the story did.
Someone whose medical vulnerability could be exploited.
Clara?
No known diagnosis.
Then another possibility.
Emily searched the ledger.
ARGENT behavioral programs.
She found an acronym.
Project ORPHEUS.
Chemical destabilization.
Induced paranoia.
Psychological conditioning.
Her stomach turned.
Argent had experimented with manipulating perception.
She thought of Leo.
Her father’s fear for him.
Had Leo’s illness been natural?
Emily shoved the thought away.
Not now.
Then Vinnie spoke.
“We’ve got movement.”
A vehicle exited the facility.
Satellite feed caught it.
Black SUV.
Dante leaned closer.
“Can you track it?”
“Working.”
Emily watched.
The vehicle moved east.
Then stopped briefly beneath a traffic camera.
Vinnie accessed the feed.
One frame.
A woman in the rear seat.
Dark hair streaked with gray.
Thin face.
Dante stopped breathing.
Emily looked at the screen.
She had seen the woman in photographs.
Younger.
Smiling.
May you like
Standing beside Dante on their wedding day.
Clara Marino was alive.
