THE LAST MEAL ON ALASKAN WAY

Dante did not explain Gabriel Kane immediately.

That was the first thing I learned about powerful men: they could make silence feel like a locked door.

I stood at the kitchen island waiting.

“Well?”

Sofia looked at Dante. “She deserves context.”

“I know.”

“Then start talking.”

He exhaled through his nose.

“Gabriel’s father, Silas Kane, was my father’s closest friend. Silas handled port operations for our companies for twenty-five years. Gabriel and I grew up together.”

“Like brothers?”

“Close enough to make betrayal expensive.”

“Do you know Gabriel betrayed you?”

“No.”

“That did not sound like no.”

“It sounded like I am trying not to convict a man from one photograph.”

That answer surprised me.

Dante walked to the windows. Rain traced the glass behind him.

“The ambush happened after I left a dinner with Silas. Only six people knew my route. Gabriel was one.”

Sofia slid another image onto the tablet. “And Gabriel signed into Halcyon Tower four days before the ambush.”

“Why would he be there?” I asked.

“He claims he was meeting a Rainer Logistics consultant.”

“Claims?”

“He is not answering his phone now.”

I looked down at the visitor log.

The name below Gabriel’s caught my attention.

M. REYES.

My throat tightened.

“Wait.”

Sofia leaned closer.

“That’s my last name.”

Dante turned.

“Your family name is Reyes?”

“You know that. You found me.”

“I knew your full name. I did not connect it to this.”

“To what?”

He stepped toward the tablet.

The visitor entry was twelve years old, archived from an old security migration. MIGUEL REYES.

My father.

“No,” I said.

Sofia looked at me. “Your father worked at Halcyon?”

“He was an electrician at the port. Contract work. He died when I was sixteen.”

“How?” Dante asked.

“Industrial accident.”

Neither of them spoke.

I hated them for that silence.

“What?”

Dante’s eyes were fixed on the name.

“What?” I repeated.

“My father knew a Miguel Reyes.”

The room seemed to tilt.

“That is not possible.”

“It may be a different man.”

“Seattle port electrician? Same name? Twelve years ago?”

Dante did not answer.

I pressed both palms to the counter.

“My father worked double shifts. He hated men in suits. He brought home bad coffee in a thermos and fixed appliances for neighbors who paid him in tamales. He did not know people like you.”

“My father was not always a man in a suit.”

“Stop.”

“I am not trying to change who your father was.”

“You just told me his name is buried in your family’s records.”

Dante glanced at Sofia.

“Find the old files.”

She nodded and left.

I laughed once, without humor. “Convenient.”

“What is?”

“You. The mystery. The safe apartment. Three hundred men. Now my dead father is somehow connected to yours.”

“You think I planned this?”

“I think I don’t know you.”

“That is true.”

“And you know everything about me.”

“Not everything.”

“Enough to drag me out of my apartment.”

His voice hardened. “I did not drag you.”

“You showed me a threat and surrounded my building with an army. Forgive me if the distinction feels academic.”

He went quiet.

Then he nodded.

“That is fair.”

I had been ready for anger. The concession took some of mine away.

He reached inside his coat slowly and removed a leather wallet. From behind a card he pulled a worn photograph.

Two young men stood beside a rusted truck near Pier 46. One was Dante’s father, younger but unmistakable from newspaper photos I had seen online. The other man had his back half turned.

I took the picture.

My breath stopped.

The second man was my father.

He was younger, maybe thirty-five, wearing his old green work jacket. The jacket I had kept in a storage box after he died.

On the back, in faded ink, were four words.

Miguel kept his word.

I looked up.

“What word?”

“I do not know,” Dante said.

“You carry this around and never asked?”

“It belonged to my father. I found it after he died. There were dozens of photographs. I kept this one because…”

“Because what?”