Page 18 of Take Me Darkly

“I have one of his journals,” I told her. “This goes back to the break-in at the motel in New York. Now that more of the pieces are starting to come together, it makes sense. I think whoever broke into your room might have been looking for the journal you had with you. I found it when we went to collect your things.”

She went dead still. “What?”

“I meant to return it, but things got complicated. It’s currently sitting in a safe at my penthouse.”

Her eyes flashed and her voice turned icy. “You’ve had my father’s journal this entire time?”

“Serena, don’t get upset. It’s from when I was trying to understand what I was dealing with. At the time, I didn’t know if you were a threat I had to be concerned about, or if you were the one actually in danger. The important thing is that we have it, and perhaps it can shed more light on what’s going on.”

Zeke cleared his throat. “There’s one more piece of information, although it needs more follow up. Your archaeological dig in Rome—the one where funding was suddenly pulled?”

Serena nodded warily.

“Hale’s people think the area you were excavating near the Roman Forum is somehow related to active smuggling routes. They are still looking into that. It’s possible that you were getting too close to their operations, so someone pulled strings to shut you down.”

Serena stared at us, the sheer, staggering scope of the conspiracy settling over her. Her father murdered. Her career sabotaged. Her mother burned alive. Her own blood spilled.

“They took everything from me,” she whispered. Then she looked up at me, and the sorrow in her eyes burned away, replaced by an inferno of pure, unadulterated vengeance. “I want them dead, Anton. I want every single one of them to pay for what they did to my family.”

My heart hammered against my ribs. I recognized that fire—it was the exact same dark vengeance that had born me out of the gutters of this very building.

“You’ll have their heads, princess,” I promised, my voice dropping into a dark, lethal register. “Every last one of them.”

I locked eyes with her. And at that moment, I felt something shift between us. A new foundation was being laid, one built on honesty instead of the half-truths and omissions that had colored our relationship until now.

“We can’t get ahead of things,” Zeke said, gathering the documents spread across the table. “There’s a lot we still don’t know. I’ll keep digging. Hale has contacts in the FBI and CIA who specialize in international crime rings. If we’re going to take this on, we’re going to need federal resources.”

“I agree. This is bigger than us,” Serena added.

“The Feds?” The words tasted metallic in my mouth. Heat climbed up my neck and settled at the base of my skull. Federal involvement didn’t just bring help. It brought floodlights—and floodlights always found the rot. I didn’t need their scrutiny.

“It’s the only way, boss,” Zeke said quietly, reading my concerns.

Images flashed fast and unwelcomed.

A reeking hallway.

Cheap carpet turned black with old stains.

The heavy door that stuck when you pulled.

A man’s laugh—Jerry’s laugh. The first devil I ever knew by name.

I hated him with a purity that never dulled. I hated the world that made people like him possible. I’d only been a boy, my survival depending on instinct. That inner voice had guided me later as an adult, and when it told me to watch Jerry choke on his own poison, I did. Watching him close his eyes for the last time had been a profound moment of peace.

I told myself it was justice.

I told myself I was letting the past die.

But if the FBI came digging, and if the wrong eyes started picking through paper trails and the past, what was buried would crawl back into the light.

And it would destroy everything I had built.

Silence descended on the room like a physical weight. Serena was watching me, her blue eyes wide with a mix of grief, confusion, and sudden alarm at the sheer hostility radiating from me. I couldn’t explain it to her. I wouldn’t explain it.

I turned my back on the table and faced Zeke, my voice dropping into a low, deadly tone that left zero room for argument.

“No Feds,” I stated.