Chapter 5: The Devil's Reward (1)

The text arrived at 7:43 AM.

Julian Thorne's messages were always cryptic—occupational paranoia in a business where phones could be subpoenaed—but this one was just a single word followed by a time.

Found. 8:00.

Dante Costello read it twice in the elevator ascending to his private floor at Costello Global Logistics headquarters. The building was a monument to controlled power: forty stories of steel and glass overlooking Manhattan, every surface reflecting the dawn like a blade.

Found.

He'd had Julian searching for five years. The first year had been obsessive—every security feed from that night analyzed, every guest list cross-referenced, every woman who'd left the Metropolitan Concordat Ball early tracked down and investigated. The second year had been methodical. The third, periodic. By year four, it had become a standing order: background noise in Julian's endless surveillance operations.

And now: Found.

The elevator opened directly into Dante's executive suite. His assistant wasn't in yet—he preferred the empty hours before the performance of legitimacy began. He poured scotch despite the early hour, a tumbler of Macallan that caught the light like amber, and walked to the private conference room where Julian waited.

Julian Thorne looked like death dressed in Tom Ford. Pale, precise, his ice-blonde hair severe enough to suggest military discipline he'd never quite shed. He stood when Dante entered, and that told Dante everything about the weight of what came next. Julian never stood unless the news demanded it.

"Show me," Dante said.

Julian slid a thin dossier across the glass table.

Dante set down his scotch and opened it.

The first page was a surveillance photograph, high-resolution, time-stamped three days prior. A woman in professional attire—charcoal blazer, cream blouse—standing in a conference room presenting something on a screen. Dark hair pulled into a practical twist. Profile view, three-quarter angle.

He studied her face. Strong jaw. Elegant neck. The kind of posture that came from either training or survival.

He didn't recognize her.

Then Julian turned the page, and Dante's hand froze.

A second photograph. Same conference room, different angle. The woman had turned, and in the background—partially visible through a doorway—a small boy. Four years old, maybe five. Dark hair. Carrying a tablet too large for his hands.

The boy's face was angled toward the camera.

Dante stopped breathing.

The child's eyes were dark. Not just brown—dark. The specific shade of near-black that Dante saw in the mirror every morning. The intensity in that small face, the way the boy's gaze fixed on something beyond the frame with complete focus—

It was like looking at a photograph of himself at that age.

"His name is Leo Vance," Julian said quietly. "Born April seventh, five years ago. Birth certificate lists mother as Anna Vance, father as unknown. No custody claims, no legal complications. The woman is the sole guardian."

Dante's fingers moved to the edge of the photograph, touching the boy's face. His son. His son.

"Anna Vance," Julian continued, "is the owner of VanceTech Securities, a small cybersecurity firm in Beacon. No digital footprint before five years ago. Social security number was issued to a deceased infant in Ohio—professional identity construction. She's been invisible by design."

"And?" Dante's voice came out rougher than intended.

Julian laid out additional documents: financial records, business registrations, a timeline marked with red flags. "Six weeks ago, her firm blocked a data intrusion attempt. The source was a shell company I traced back to Grimaldi fronts. That's what flagged her in my audit. When I pulled surveillance from her client meetings, I found"—he gestured to the photograph—"this."

Dante turned to the next page. A facial recognition analysis. Anna Vance's features compared against archived photographs of known criminal families. Partial matches to historical Grimaldi records. A note in Julian's efficient handwriting: Possible identity: Aria Grimaldi, daughter, reported missing five years ago, presumed dead.