I woke up to the sound of curtains being drawn open.
Sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, making me squint as I tried to figure out where I was. The silk sheets, the marble nightstand, the view of perfectly manicured gardens—it all came flooding back.
Marco's estate. My comfortable prison.
"Good morning, Ms. Carter."
I shot upright in bed, clutching the sheets to my chest. A woman I'd never seen before stood by the windows, holding a silver tray. She was maybe fifty, with graying brown hair pulled back in a neat bun and wearing what looked like a housekeeper's uniform.
"Who are you?"
"Elena. I work for Mr. De Santis." Her English carried a slight accent—Italian, probably. "He asked me to bring you breakfast and some fresh clothes."
She set the tray on the bedside table. The smell hit me immediately—fresh coffee, warm pastries, something that might have been eggs Benedict. My stomach growled, reminding me I hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday.
"Mr. De Santis would like to see you when you're ready," Elena continued. "But please, take your time."
"Where is he?"
"In the breakfast room. It has a lovely view of the rose garden."
Elena left without another word, closing the door behind her with a soft click.
I stared at the tray for a long moment. The coffee was exactly how I liked it—black with two sugars. The pastries were still warm from the oven. There was even fresh fruit arranged artfully on bone china plates.
How did he know I preferred my coffee with two sugars? That detail hadn't come up in any of our conversations.
The clothes Elena had brought were casual but expensive—designer jeans that fit perfectly, a cashmere sweater in my favorite shade of blue, even underwear in my exact size. Everything was tasteful, elegant, and completely my style.
It was like Marco had been shopping for me for years.
I dressed quickly and tried the door. Still locked from the outside, just as I'd expected. But within moments of my testing the handle, it clicked open.
They were watching me. Of course they were.
The breakfast room was exactly what Elena had promised—a sun-filled space with windows overlooking gardens that belonged in a magazine. Marco sat at a round table reading what looked like financial reports, a cup of espresso at his elbow.
He'd changed from the silk robe into jeans and a white button-down shirt that probably cost more than my monthly rent. Without the formal suits, he looked younger, more approachable. But his gray eyes were just as sharp, just as calculating.
"Ava. I hope you slept well."
"Like a baby." I sat down across from him, noting that my place was already set with more coffee and a plate of food that matched what Elena had brought upstairs. "Though I'm curious how you knew I was awake."
"The door sensors. They alert us when you're moving around." Marco folded his newspaper and set it aside. "Security, as I mentioned."
"Right. Security."
The food was as good as it smelled. Perfect eggs, crispy bacon, pastries that practically melted in my mouth. I ate in silence for a few minutes, acutely aware that Marco was watching every bite.
"You have questions," he said finally.
"A few."
"Ask away."
I set down my fork and met his gaze. "Last night, you said you've been watching me since I was fifteen. How is that possible?"
"Your father asked me to keep an eye on you after your mother died. He was worried about you—said you blamed yourself for the accident."
The bite of pastry turned to ash in my mouth. "I never told him that."
"You didn't have to. He could see it in how you acted around him. The way you flinched when he raised his voice. How you'd disappear into your room for hours when you thought you'd disappointed him."
Those details were too specific, too personal. No one could know those things unless—
"You had people watching me. In my house."
"Not in your house. But your neighbors, your teachers, your friends' parents—people talk, Ava. And sometimes they talk to the right person for the right price."
"You bought information about a teenage girl."
"I protected a teenage girl whose father was involved in very dangerous work."
Marco leaned forward, his expression serious. "Do you remember the summer before your senior year? You went to that party at Kelly Morrison's house—Tommy's older sister."
I remembered. It was the night I'd caught Tommy cheating with Sarah Chen.
"You left the party upset, walking home alone at midnight through neighborhoods that weren't particularly safe. But you made it home without incident. Do you remember why?"
"I... no one bothered me."
"Because two of my people followed you home. Made sure you got there safely. Your father never knew how close you came to being mugged that night, or worse."
My hands started shaking. I set down my coffee cup before I dropped it.
"That's impossible. This was before you knew my father."
"Was it?" Marco pulled out his phone and showed me a photo. "This was taken six months before your mother's accident."
The image was grainy, clearly shot from a distance, but I could make out two figures sitting on a park bench. One was unmistakably my father—younger, with more hair, but definitely him. The other...
"You," I whispered.
"Your father approached me through intermediaries. Said he had information about police corruption that might interest me. We started small—he'd tip me off about planned raids, I'd make sure certain evidence disappeared before it could be used against innocent people."
"Innocent people like criminals."
"Innocent people like immigrants whose only crime was wanting a better life for their children. Like small business owners being shaken down by corrupt cops. Like families caught in the crossfire of a war they didn't start."
Marco's voice carried a passion I hadn't heard before. Whatever his other faults, he genuinely believed he was doing the right thing.
"Your father wasn't a dirty cop, Ava. He was a good man trying to fight a corrupt system from the inside. And when your mother died..."
"What does my mother have to do with any of this?"
"Her accident wasn't an accident."
The words hit me like a physical blow. I gripped the edge of the table to keep from falling over.
"What?"
"Your mother discovered something she shouldn't have. Your father was investigating financial irregularities in evidence storage—money that was disappearing from drug busts, valuable items that never made it to the evidence locker. Your mother helped him with the accounting."
No. This couldn't be true. My mother was a kindergarten teacher. She didn't know anything about police corruption or evidence storage.
"She was also an accountant before you were born," Marco continued, reading my expression. "Very good with numbers. Very good at spotting patterns in financial data."
"You're lying."
"Am I?" Marco pulled out another photo. This one showed my mother sitting at our kitchen table, papers spread out in front of her. She was younger than I remembered, her hair darker, but I recognized the expression on her face—the same look of intense concentration I got when I was working on a difficult case.
"She found the smoking gun, didn't she? Proof that someone high up in the FBI was stealing money and selling evidence."
"She found more than that. She found evidence that the same person was selling information to criminal organizations. Names of undercover agents. Details of ongoing investigations. People died because of those leaks, Ava."
My mother. My sweet, gentle mother who baked cookies for school fundraisers and read me bedtime stories, had been investigating federal corruption.
And it had gotten her killed.
"The car accident—"
"Brake lines cut. Made to look like mechanical failure. Your mother was driving to meet with a Justice Department investigator when it happened."
I stood up so fast my chair fell over. The sound echoed through the breakfast room like a gunshot.
"This is insane. You're telling me my mother was murdered, my father was working with criminals, and I've spent my entire adult life working for the people who killed them both?"
"I'm telling you the truth. The truth your father died trying to expose."
"Prove it."
Marco reached into his jacket and pulled out a manila envelope. "Your mother's real case files. The ones that disappeared from your house after the funeral."
I stared at the envelope like it might explode. "Those were destroyed in a house fire two years later."
"Those were decoys. The real files were hidden in a safety deposit box. Your father gave me the key before he died."
With shaking hands, I opened the envelope. Inside were dozens of documents—financial records, bank statements, photocopied evidence logs. All in my mother's careful handwriting.
At the bottom of the stack was a letter addressed to me.
"Dearest Ava," it began in my mother's familiar script. "If you're reading this, then something has happened to me and your father has had to reveal the truth. I'm sorry we couldn't tell you while we were alive, but we were trying to protect you..."
I couldn't read any further. Tears blurred my vision, making the words swim on the page.
"She knew," I whispered. "She knew they were going to kill her."
"She knew the risks. They both did. But they thought the truth was worth dying for."
"And now you want me to do the same thing. Keep investigating. Keep putting myself in danger."
"I want you to finish what they started."
Marco stood and moved around the table, stopping just close enough that I could smell his cologne.
"Here's what I'm proposing. You help me identify Cardinal—the man who killed your parents. You use your FBI access to find the evidence we need to destroy him. And in return..."
"What?"
"I give you justice. Real justice, not the kind you get from courts and lawyers and bureaucrats who are probably on Cardinal's payroll."
"You mean revenge."
"I mean an eye for an eye. Cardinal took your family. We take his life."
The proposal hung in the air between us like a loaded gun. Part of me—the part that had spent three years grieving and wondering and blaming myself—wanted to say yes immediately. To finally have a chance at real justice for my parents.
But the other part, the part that had sworn an oath to uphold the law, recoiled at the idea of working with criminals to commit murder.
"I need time to think."
"Of course. But Ava?" Marco's hand touched my shoulder, gentle but firm. "Time is something we don't have much of. Cardinal knows you're here. He knows you're getting close to the truth. Every hour we wait is another hour he has to plan your death."
"How long?"
"Twenty-four hours. That's how long I can guarantee your safety here. After that, even my security might not be enough to protect you."
I looked down at my mother's letter, at her careful handwriting and loving words. She'd died trying to expose corruption. My father had died for the same cause.
Was I brave enough to follow in their footsteps? Or was I going to spend the rest of my life—however short it might be—wondering what could have been?
"If I agree to help you," I said slowly, "what exactly would I have to do?"
Marco smiled, and for the first time since I'd met him, it looked genuinely warm.
"Just be yourself, Agent Carter. Use the skills the FBI taught you. Access the databases they trained you to navigate. Find the evidence your parents died trying to collect."
"And then?"
"Then we make Cardinal pay for every life he's destroyed. Starting with your family."
The logical part of my brain was screaming warnings. This was madness. I was an FBI agent contemplating working with organized criminals to commit murder. Everything about this violated my training, my oath, my sense of right and wrong.
But when I thought about my mother's letter, about my father's secret meetings, about three years of lies and half-truths...
"I'll consider it," I said.
"That's all I ask."
Marco moved toward the door, then paused. "Oh, and Ava? If you decide not to help me, I'll arrange safe passage for you out of the country. New identity, new life, enough money to start over somewhere Cardinal can't reach you."
"Why would you do that?"
"Because I promised your father I'd protect you. No matter what you decide, I intend to keep that promise."
He left me alone with my mother's letter and the weight of an impossible choice.
Outside, the roses were blooming in perfect symmetry, their red petals bright against the green lawn. It was beautiful, peaceful, completely at odds with the storm raging in my mind.
I picked up my mother's letter and continued reading:
"The man responsible for this corruption calls himself Cardinal. We don't know his real name, but we know he has access to the highest levels of the FBI. He's been selling information for years, getting good people killed, all for money and power.
"Your father and I hoped we could expose him through official channels. But if you're reading this, then we failed. The system is too corrupt, Cardinal's reach too long.
"But you, my darling girl, you have something we never had. You have Marco De Santis. He's not a good man in the traditional sense, but he's an honorable one. He keeps his word. He protects his family. And as of today, you are his family.
"Trust him, Ava. He may be the only person who can help you get justice for us.
"All my love, "Mom"
I set the letter down with trembling hands.
My mother had known about Marco. Had trusted him with my life before I was even born.
The question was: did I trust him enough to bet my life on that judgment?
Outside, a car door slammed. Through the window, I could see black SUVs pulling up the circular driveway. Men in suits were getting out, moving with the practiced efficiency of federal agents.
The FBI had found me.
And I had about thirty seconds to decide which side I was on.
End of Chapter 5