Chapter 2 - THE NAME ON THE FILE
I couldn’t breathe.
The air in the presidential suite felt perfectly still, but my lungs refused to work. I stared at Tristan. His dark hair was slightly messy, his jaw locked in a rigid line, and his eyes held a terrifying clarity.
“My mother?” I choked out, the words scraping my throat. “My mother is a retired bookkeeper. She’s been in a coma for three weeks following a hit-and-run. She doesn’t know anyone in your company.”
Tristan stepped closer, abandoning the careful distance he had kept since I woke up. He didn’t touch me, but his presence was a heavy, grounding force in the center of the chaos.
“Three weeks,” he repeated quietly. “The exact amount of time you’ve been my secretary.”
“It’s a coincidence. I applied through an agency.”
“Lily, men like the ones who can compromise my security floor don’t rely on coincidences.” Tristan picked up his tablet, his fingers flying across the screen. “Who interviewed you?”
“HR. A woman named Brenda. And then the VP of Operations, Marcus Vance.”
Tristan’s head snapped up. “Marcus interviewed a junior secretary?”
“Yes. He said he liked to have a hand in all executive-level hires.”
“Marcus hasn’t conducted an interview in five years.” Tristan tossed the tablet onto the bed. “He bypassed the agency. He handpicked you. And he knew exactly how desperate you were for the health insurance.”
My stomach bottomed out. The hospital bills. The sudden, miraculous job offer that paid exactly what I needed to keep my mother on life support. I hadn’t been lucky. I had been targeted.
But why?
“I don’t have anything,” I whispered, gripping my purse so hard my knuckles ached. “We have no money. No property. The only thing of value my mother ever gave me is the silver bracelet she was wearing when the car hit her.”
I pulled up my sleeve, revealing the tarnished chain and its single, heavy charm—a tiny, detailed silver dove.
Tristan stared at it. His expression didn’t change, but his eyes darkened. He reached out, his warm fingers brushing my wrist as he examined the charm. He pressed a small notch on the underside of the bird’s wing.
With a soft click, the dove popped open.
I gasped. I had worn it for almost a month. I never knew it was a locket.
Inside was a tightly folded, microscopic piece of parchment. Tristan used the tip of a pen from the nightstand to gently pry it out and unfold it. It wasn’t a note. It was a string of sixteen numbers.
An offshore account.
“She didn’t just keep books for a small firm, Lily,” Tristan said softly. “She was holding leverage.”
Before I could process the shock, a sharp, electronic hum vibrated through the room. It wasn’t a phone. It came from the television console.
Tristan shoved me behind him. He moved silently across the carpet, reaching behind the massive flat screen. When he pulled his hand back, he was holding a tiny black square with a blinking green light.
A transmitter.
“They weren’t just taking photos,” Tristan said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “They’re listening right now.”
He didn’t crush it. He held it up to his mouth.
“You have ten seconds to run,” Tristan told the microphone.
Then he looked at me, pointing toward the heavy mahogany door connecting our suite to the adjoining room.
The light on the transmitter didn’t just blink. It pulsed in time with a faint, high-pitched receiver feedback.
May you like
The listener wasn’t across the city.
They were in the room right next door.
