The apartment belonged to Gloria’s cousin.
That was why nobody at Valenti International knew about it.
Or so we thought.
I woke to glass cracking.
Not breaking completely.
Just a sharp little pop from the kitchen.
I sat up.
For one second, my mind refused to understand.
Then I heard metal scrape against the fire escape window.
I grabbed my phone.
Called 911.
Then Marcus.
He answered immediately.
“Maya?”
“Someone’s trying to come through the kitchen.”
“Lock the bedroom door.”
“Already moving.”
“Police?”
“Called.”
“Good. Stay there.”
I pushed the dresser against the bedroom door.
My hands were shaking.
I hated that they were shaking.
“Security is three minutes away,” Marcus said.
“You were watching the building?”
“From the street.”
“Then how—”
“Rear alley.”
The kitchen window broke.
This time completely.
I heard somebody climbing inside.
I backed toward the bathroom.
Marcus kept talking.
“Maya, stay with me.”
Footsteps.
Slow.
Careful.
The intruder did not call out.
Did not rush.
That scared me more.
A floorboard creaked in the hallway.
Then came a knock at the bedroom door.
Three gentle taps.
I stopped breathing.
“Maya?”
A man’s voice.
Not Colin.
I didn’t recognize it.
“I only want the drive.”
Devon’s flash drive.
I said nothing.
“The drive, Maya.”
My phone buzzed.
Marcus texted:
TEAM ENTERING.
The man outside tried the bedroom handle.
Locked.
“You don’t want people getting hurt.”
Then the front door crashed open.
Voices.
“Security!”
The intruder ran.
I heard shouting.
Footsteps.
Something slammed.
Then silence.
Marcus spoke through my phone.
“Stay inside.”
Thirty seconds later, he knocked using a pattern he had told me earlier.
I moved the dresser.
When I opened the door, Marcus stood there with two guards and a police officer behind him.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
My voice cracked.
I hated that too.
“Did they catch him?”
“No. Fire escape.”
I walked into the kitchen.
Broken glass covered the floor.
Cold air came through the window.
On the counter was an envelope.
My name was written across it.
The police officer opened it with gloves.
Inside was a copy of the photograph taken outside my apartment.
Across my face, somebody had drawn a red X.
I stared at it.
Then I threw up.
Adrian arrived twenty-two minutes later.
No jacket.
No tie.
Black sweater, dark pants, hair messy like he had dressed while running.
I had never seen him look anything except controlled.
That night, he looked human.
He crossed the kitchen.
“Maya.”
“I’m fine.”
He looked at the shattered window.
“No, you’re not.”
That irritated me.
“I said I’m fine.”
“And I said—”
“Don’t.”
His mouth closed.
I sat at the table.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Police moved around us.
Marcus coordinated statements.
Eventually Adrian pulled out the chair across from me.
“I was wrong.”
I looked at him.
“About what?”
“I treated your security like a problem I could solve by issuing instructions.”
I said nothing.
“You kept telling me you needed choices.”
He rubbed one hand over his face.
“And I kept hearing resistance instead of fear.”
My throat tightened.
“I wasn’t afraid before.”
“You are now.”
I looked toward the broken window.
“Yes.”
The word hurt.
Adrian didn’t tell me not to be afraid.
Didn’t say he would make everything disappear.
He just nodded.
“What do you want to do?”
That question mattered more than he probably knew.
“I want somewhere secure tonight.”
“Hotel?”
“No.”
“One of my properties?”
I hesitated.
“Will I be able to leave when I want?”
“Yes.”
“Will your guards follow me into the bathroom?”
“Only if Marcus becomes extremely ambitious.”
From across the room, Marcus said, “Declining that assignment.”
I laughed despite myself.
Adrian smiled.
“Then yes,” I said. “One of your properties.”
His Manhattan townhouse looked less like a home and more like a museum designed by somebody afraid of fingerprints.
I stood in the entryway.
“This is where you live?”
“Yes.”
“Voluntarily?”
He stared at me.
“What is wrong with it?”
“Have you ever owned anything with color?”
He looked around at gray stone, black furniture, cream walls.
“My sister chose the rug.”
“The gray rug?”
“It’s charcoal.”
“That is gray with a publicist.”
For the first time since the break-in, my body relaxed.
Just a little.
Adrian showed me a guest suite on the third floor.
The room was enormous.
I put my overnight bag down.
He remained near the doorway.
“You’re safe here.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
He started to leave.
“Adrian.”
He turned.
“Why did you think I was attacking Lily that first day?”
His face tightened.
“I saw a man on the ground, Lily inside your car, and you standing over him.”
“You grabbed me before asking.”
“Yes.”
“You do that a lot?”
“No.”
“Grab women?”
“Assume control.”
He looked toward the hallway.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
For a long time, he did not answer.
Then he stepped into the room and sat on the chair near the window.
“Our father died when Lily was sixteen.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He had enemies.”
The word could have meant business enemies.
Family enemies.
Something darker.
I didn’t ask.
“After he died, I became responsible for everything. Company. Family. Legal matters. Lily.”
“You were what, twenty-five?”
“Twenty-six.”
“That’s young.”
“I didn’t feel young.”
He looked at his hands.
“When people depended on me, control felt like responsibility.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m beginning to see they aren’t the same.”
I sat on the edge of the bed.
“Protection without choice can start feeling like another cage.”
He met my eyes.
“I know.”
“You’re learning.”
“Apparently from the woman who punched someone twenty seconds after meeting my sister.”
“He shoved me.”
“That defense remains surprisingly important to you.”
“It was a very rude shove.”
He laughed.
Something quiet happened between us.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Recognition.
The next morning, Marcus brought news.
Police had recovered partial fingerprints from the fire escape.
The intruder was a former employee of a private security contractor.
That contractor had recently received payments from a company tied to Northstar Fleet Solutions.
The trail was tightening.
And Colin Mercer knew it.
We returned to Valenti headquarters under increased security.
I hated the escort.
I accepted it anyway.
That was another thing I was learning.
Independence did not mean refusing every hand extended toward you.
Sometimes it meant choosing which hands you trusted.
By noon, forensic accountants had confirmed at least $3.2 million in questionable payments.
By three, the total approached five million.
Richard arrived in Adrian’s office voluntarily.
He carried boxes.
“Everything I have on Colin.”
Adrian stared at him.
“You should have brought this sooner.”
“I should have recognized what he was doing sooner.”
Richard looked at me.
“And I should have listened when someone challenged my department instead of challenging the person.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Is that an apology?”
“A painful one.”
“I’ll treasure it.”
He almost smiled.
The evidence showed Colin had built Northstar using associates and shell companies.
But there was still a problem.
Nobody had found money flowing directly to him.
Until Gloria called.
“Maya.”
“You found something?”
“I found a woman.”
“That is either useful or the beginning of gossip.”
“Her name is Vanessa Mercer.”
“Colin’s wife?”
“Ex-wife.”
I sat straighter.
“And?”
“She owns a consulting firm.”
“Northstar?”
“No. A company Northstar paid.”
“How much?”
“Eight hundred sixty thousand over eighteen months.”
There it was.
The missing connection.
Marcus traced the company.
Adrian’s attorneys prepared documents.
The police and federal investigators were contacted.
But before they could act, Colin disappeared.
His apartment was empty.
Phone disconnected.
Company car abandoned in New Jersey.
And Lily was missing.
She had left the foundation office at 4:20 p.m.
Her driver found her car door open in the garage.
Her phone was lying on the ground.
Adrian went white when Marcus told him.
For one terrifying second, I saw the twenty-six-year-old man who had once lost his father and decided control was the only thing standing between his family and disaster.
Then the billionaire returned.
“Find her.”
Marcus moved.
Adrian reached for his phone.
“Police, airport security, state police—”
I stared at Lily’s phone on the conference table.
Something bothered me.
“What was she working on today?”
Adrian turned.
“What?”
“Lily. What was she doing?”
“I don’t know.”
I opened her laptop.
The last document was a transportation schedule for the foundation.
Coat deliveries.
Shelters.
Donations.
Then I saw an address.
Northstar Fleet Solutions.
Not one of the fake offices.
A warehouse in Red Hook.
I looked at Marcus.
“Did we check all addresses connected to Northstar?”
“Yes.”
“This one?”
He came over.
“That’s not in our files.”
“It’s in Lily’s.”
Adrian looked at the screen.
“Why?”
I opened Lily’s email.
There was a message from an unknown sender sent that morning.
YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO SABOTAGED YOUR FOUNDATION CONTRACT? COME ALONE.
My blood went cold.
“She went there.”
Adrian was already moving.