I got home at three a.m., soaked through and shaking from the rain and adrenaline. The duffel felt heavier than it should—money and names made things feel like weights—but it was the only thing that mattered. I’d followed the map Dominic left me, and now I had proof that could burn the town clean.
The porch light was on. Dad was at the kitchen table, sleeves rolled, a half-empty mug cooling in his hands like a man who’d been waiting and didn’t know what for. Up close his face was older than it had been last week: thinner, lined, grief-slowed. He looked like someone who’d been awake too long.
“You’re late,” he said without looking up. The sentence carried the calm of a judge who’d already weighed the sentence.
“I had to get it,” I said, sliding off my shoes. “We have them—names, transact
