"Your father wasn't betrayed by one family."
I turned toward Marco, who set the document from the night before onto the table, three names catching the morning light. I recognized my own family's crest immediately. The second name belonged to Dante, though I hadn't fully registered it the night before. The third meant nothing to me at all.
"Years ago," Marco said, "these three families were connected. Not through open alliance. Through something buried far deeper."
"Why would my father work with them?"
"He wasn't working with them," Marco said. "He was investigating them."
The distinction landed hard, rearranging everything I thought I understood about my father's final months.
"They cooperated beneath legitimate business," Marco explained. "Money laundering. Weapons distribution. Po
