The silence in the room was crushing.
Dante stood perfectly still, staring at his phone like it might spontaneously explain everything.
"Your mother," I said softly. "You thought she was dead."
"The Arrow Society told me she died of an overdose. I was sixteen, already in their training program. They showed me photos of her body, a death certificate—" His voice cracked. "I believed them."
Sarah wheeled closer. "They lied. Used her as insurance in case you ever turned against them."
"For twenty years." The words came out broken. "They've been holding her for twenty years, and I never knew."
Torres checked her tablet. "There's no record of a woman matching your mother's description in any known Arrow Society facility."
"Because she's not in a facility," Dante said, his mind clearly racing. "Ashford said 'somewhere you'll never find me.' That means she's with Ashford. Wherever she went, your mother went with her."
