Chapter 2 - THE SILVER LOCKET
Jack didn’t pull out a wallet.
He didn’t pull out a phone.
His hand emerged from his tailored jacket holding a matte-black Sig Sauer 9mm.
He didn’t check the safety.
He didn’t hesitate.
He simply lowered the weapon to his side, his face completely devoid of the polite charm he had used in the lobby.
I stopped breathing.
The air in the conference room seemed to freeze.
“Get up,” Jack said.
His voice wasn’t loud.
It didn’t need to be.
The quiet, absolute authority in his tone was far more terrifying than a shout.
I grabbed my purse, my hands shaking so violently I nearly dropped it.
“What is happening?” I whispered, my voice cracking.
“Move away from the door,” he ordered, his eyes fixed on the frosted glass panels separating us from the hallway.
I backed up against the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Thirty stories down, Boston traffic crawled like oblivious ants.
Up here, my life was unraveling in real time.
“Jack,” I pleaded. “Who is out there?”
He didn’t look at me.
“Someone who has been tracking you for three days. Someone who realized you were walking into a building I own, and decided they couldn’t wait anymore.”
“Tracking me? Why? I don’t have anything!”
“That’s what I intend to find out.”
Suddenly, a shadow appeared behind the frosted glass of the conference room door.
Someone was standing right outside.
Jack raised the gun.
He stood perfectly still.
His broad shoulders blocked me from the door.
I realized, with a sickening jolt, that he was positioning himself as a human shield.
For me.
A girl who had insulted his tie twenty minutes ago.
The door handle turned.
Slowly.
It clicked against the lock Jack had engaged.
Silence stretched for three agonizing seconds.
Then, a heavy, metallic thud hit the door.
They were trying to force it open.
Jack didn’t flinch.
He reached backward with his free hand and grabbed my wrist.
His grip was warm, firm, and surprisingly gentle.
“There’s a private elevator through the executive lounge,” Jack said, not breaking eye contact with the door. “When I say run, you do not look back. You do not stop. You get in the elevator.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
The door shuddered under a second, violent impact.
The frosted glass cracked.
“Run,” Jack commanded.
He shoved me toward the side door connecting to the executive lounge.
I ran.
My heels slipped on the polished hardwood, but I caught myself against the doorframe.
I burst into the lounge.
Leather sofas. Espresso machines. Empty.
Behind me, the conference room door finally gave way with a deafening crash.
I heard a man shout.
Then, the terrifying, sharp crack of a gunshot.
I screamed, covering my ears, and scrambled toward the steel doors of the private elevator at the end of the room.
The button was already glowing.
The doors slid open.
I threw myself inside, pressing myself into the back corner, hyperventilating.
I waited for Jack.
One second.
Two seconds.
Nothing.
“Jack!” I screamed, my panic overriding my survival instinct.
I reached out to stop the doors from closing.
Before I could, a heavy hand grabbed the edge of the steel door.
Jack slipped inside.
His suit jacket was torn at the shoulder, but he was holding his gun steady.
He punched the button for the underground garage.
The doors slid shut.
We began to descend.
I collapsed against the handrail, gasping for air.
“Are you hurt?” Jack asked, turning to me instantly.
“No,” I choked out. “Are you?”
He glanced at his torn sleeve.
“No.”
He looked at me, truly looked at me, his dark eyes scanning my face for signs of shock.
“I’m sorry, Emily,” he said quietly.
“Sorry?” I let out a hysterical, breathless laugh. “I came here for dental insurance! Who are these people?”
Jack’s jaw tightened.
“They aren’t my enemies,” he said.
I stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
“The man who just tried to kill us was wearing a Northbridge security badge,” Jack said, his voice turning to ice. “Which means someone on my own board of directors gave him access.”
My stomach dropped.
“Why would your board want to kill you?”
Jack looked at me.
“They don’t want to kill me, Emily.”
A pause.
“They want to kill you.”
I shook my head, stepping back.
“That makes no sense. I’m nobody. I’m a broke marketing coordinator.”
“You aren’t nobody.”
Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper.
He had taken it from the background file in the conference room.
He handed it to me.
“My security team pulled the surveillance footage from outside your apartment last night,” Jack said. “Look at the stalker’s hands.”
I took the paper with trembling fingers.
It was a grainy, zoomed-in photo of the man who had been outside my building.
He was holding a long-lens camera.
But that wasn’t what Jack wanted me to see.
The man’s other hand was holding a piece of paper.
A photograph.
Of my mother.
My blood turned cold.
“Why does he have a picture of my mom?” I whispered.
“Look closer,” Jack said.
I squinted at the grainy image.
My mother was younger in the photo. Smiling.
And around her neck was a piece of jewelry.
A heavy, antique silver locket with a distinct crescent moon engraved on the front.
My hand instinctively flew to my own chest.
To the exact same silver locket resting against my collarbone.
The locket my mother had given me on my eighteenth birthday.
She told me it was cheap costume jewelry.
She told me never to take it off.
I looked up at Jack, terrified.
May you like
“They aren’t tracking you, Emily,” Jack said, his eyes dropping to the silver necklace.
“They’re tracking what your mother gave you.”
