“Your brother is amazing,” Patel said, apparently unable to stop himself. “He broke the case.”
Wu directed a glare at him, and Patel’s mouth snapped shut.
Dani turned with deliberate slowness from the cybercrime analyst back to Wu. “Why is my brother involved in this case?”
“He’s not involved,” Wu began. “Well, he is, but not in the way you think.” He lifted his hands in a calming gesture. “Let me explain.”
Dani barely managed to control herself as her supervisor spent the next fifteen minutes describing how Nemesis had tried to send a Trojan horse cyberattack into her brother’s computer. When he told her about the stealth virus Axel had implanted to backtrack to the game, she finally understood.
“My brother was watching the whole time,” she said. “And he knew I was Athena.”
Wu nodded. “We told him we would take it from there and that he should not risk his computer by accessing this game on the dark web.” He shrugged. “He monitored anyway. There was no way to stop him. I think he also spent money upvoting you.”
“He must have been worried sick,” she said.
“I talked to him last night,” Wu said. “The family knows you’re safe now. They’ve agreed to keep the entire investigation confidential.”
“My sister knows too?”
“They were all there when Detective Flint and I visited,” Wu said. “But again, they know you’re okay and—”
“That doesn’t mean they’re good with any of it,” she said.
Erica and Axel had also been devastated by the death of their father and the loss of their mother, as she had. Dani had always refused to talk about her work, protecting them from further exposure to brutality and violence. And now they had watched grisly scenes play out on their computer, all the while knowing their big sister was in a battle to the death. She imagined the two of them, terrified, frantically sending money through cyberspace, hoping to keep her alive. The space closed in on her, and she realized there was only one place she wanted to be.
“I have to go see my family,” she said to Wu, her throat constricting around the words.
CHAPTER 71
Forty minutes later, Dani stood on the fifth-floor landing of her tía Manuela’s Bronx apartment. She walked to the door, then hesitated. Her sweet sister and shy brother had witnessed her in battle mode. They had watched her take human lives. When they looked at her, would they see Dani or Athena?
She knocked and waited for an eternity until Erica flung the door wide. Dani had spent the drive over rehearsing what she would say, but words failed her when she gazed into her sister’s doe-brown eyes.
Erica reached out to tug her inside. “It’s really you,” she said, closing the door before wrapping slender arms around Dani’s waist. “We were all so scared.”
“Not me,” Axel said from behind Erica. “In fact, I was kind of sorry for those assholes in the game with you.”
Dark circles under his eyes put the lie to his words. He had been up at all hours, watching, and probably upvoting her avatar as Wu suspected.
She stretched out a hand to pull him in close. “I did what I had to do,” she whispered. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
How could she explain what it had been like in the game, the sound of Toro’s last shuddering breaths, the acrid scent of Megan’s charred body, the sight of Chopper’s blood spurting from the gash in his neck, the feel of the heat burning her skin as she forced herself up the suffocating shaft.
He squirmed out from between his sisters and raised the remote in his hand. “You’ve got to see this.”
Dani wedged herself between her siblings on the sofa. Axel pressed a button, unpausing the breaking news story on the television.
“Federal agents raided Independent US Senator Thomas Sledge’s five offices around the state and in Capitol Hill in a simultaneous warrant service today,” a handsome silver-haired news anchor said into the camera. “His office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.” The screen switched to footage of agents wearing blue FBI raid jackets, carrying boxes to waiting vans.
Erica turned curious eyes toward Dani. “What’s really going on?” she asked. “Are we going to see Sledge doing a perp walk?”
Dani grinned. “I can neither confirm nor deny—”
“Oh please,” Axel said. “That dude is going down.” He paused the story again. “And we know you had something to do with it.”
Now they were getting to the awkward part. She glanced around. “Is Manuela here?”
Axel waved a dismissive hand. “She went to the bodega to buy lottery tickets before tonight’s drawing.”
“How much does everyone know?”
“It’s just us,” Erica said, sweeping an arm out to indicate the apartment. “We haven’t told the rest of the family.”
Gracias for small favors. She turned to Axel. “My boss told me you called him. I can’t thank you enough, but you shouldn’t have watched what happened in the game.”
“Were we supposed to pretend like we didn’t know you were fighting for your life?” he said. “What did you expect?”
Tears gathered in Erica’s eyes. “We had to help you.”
This was so much worse than she’d thought it would be. Now she understood why her father had never shared stories about his deployments.
She took one of each of their hands in hers. “Soldiers and law enforcement officers take on the enemy to keep their loved ones safe at home. The less you two know about what I do, the better.”
Her heart was not pure like Erica’s or kind like Axel’s. Dani had the heart of a warrior, cast in hues of shadow and light. In her case, perhaps mostly shadow. As Manuela had reminded her many times, she was her mother’s daughter. Her mother the killer.
Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. She let go of Erica’s and Axel’s hands to slide it out. Her spine stiffened when she saw the caller ID.
She tapped the screen. “Special Agent Vega.”
An efficient female voice greeted her. “Stand by for Lieutenant Colonel Harmon.”
Dani reflexively shot to her feet and stood at attention, every part of her body forming a rigid line except the arm holding the cell phone to her ear.
Moments later, a man’s Texas drawl addressed her. “Corporal Vega?”
“Yes, sir.”
She had heard the regimental executive officer speak on several occasions at Fort Benning, where he would address the troops before key assignments. As XO, he was second-in-command of the regiment. She was well beneath his notice, and they had never had a direct conversation. She could think of no reason he would call her months after she had transitioned out of the armed forces.
“I wanted to contact you personally regarding your actions during the bombing incident,” Colonel Harmon said.
A wave of dread surged through her. He didn’t need to spell it out. The Army had conducted an official investigation after multiple devices had exploded in the compound, killing and wounding some of her fellow Rangers. Her conduct was deemed to fall within mission parameters, exonerating her of responsibility. In her heart, she had felt responsible anyway. Had the Army changed its conclusions?
Erica and Axel stared at her, and she realized they could overhear most of the conversation thanks to the colonel’s commanding voice.
“You are to report to Fort Benning to receive a Purple Heart,” Colonel Harmon said.
“Sir?”
“You sustained an injury in a combat situation,” he said. “Your lieutenant submitted everyone involved in the mission for medals.”
“Sir, I don’t deserve—”
“The ceremony will be conducted at thirteen hundred hours next Tuesday,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “You may bring family if you wish.”
“Family?”
His tone softened a fraction. “There’s a reason I’m the one who’s calling you, Corporal Vega. There’s also a reason for you to come to Georgia to receive your medal.”
She waited.
“I served with your father.”
She sucked in a breath.
“He told everyone about his little Dani.” The Texas accent grew thicker as the colonel continued. “Other little girls played with Barbies, but you were GI Joe all the way. He showed everyone pictures of you in his Ranger T-shirt, snapping a salute when you were five years old.”
Tears stung the back of her eyes as she remembered rummaging through her dad’s closet to dig out a shirt. She had passed up her mother’s high-heeled shoes to slide her small feet into her dad’s combat boots, which reached her thighs.
“I wish he could see you now,” the colonel said. “He’d be proud.”
Erica gave her a watery smile, and Axel’s cheeks flushed as they listened to the exchange.
“It would be my honor to present you with the Purple Heart at the ceremony,” Colonel Harmon said quietly.
Dani found her voice. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “I’ll be there.”
She tapped the screen with a nerveless finger, disconnecting the call.
“Can we go with you, Dani?” Erica said, gesturing to her brother.
Her gaze drifted to the wall, where a shadow box with their father’s Purple Heart hung.
“He’s a hero,” she whispered. “I’m just a . . . a . . .”