I read the message twice.
LEAVE THE GALA.
YOU KNOW TOO MUCH ABOUT MERCER.
The ballroom continued moving around me.
Music.
Champagne.
Laughter.
Crystal.
Everything looked normal.
That was the frightening part.
Daniel studied my face.
“Chastity?”
I locked my phone.
“I need to go.”
“What happened?”
“Family problem.”
It was the first lie that came to me.
Daniel did not argue.
“I’ll take you.”
“No.”
His eyebrows rose.
“I’m sorry. That sounded rude.”
“It sounded terrified.”
“I’m not terrified.”
Another lie.
I spotted Eddie walking toward us.
He was no longer pretending to be a guest.
“Ms. Morales.”
Daniel looked between us.
“Friend?”
“Coworker.”
Eddie leaned close enough that only I could hear him.
“We need to leave.”
“Did Gabriel send you?”
His jaw tightened.
“Not exactly.”
“Eddie.”
“He told us to watch the hotel.”
“Because?”
“You’re really asking me that?”
I gave him a look.
Eddie sighed.
“Yes. Because of your dress.”
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
“Unbelievable.”
“Can we discuss the boss’s emotional development after we get you out of here?”
That wiped away my amusement.
“You know about the message?”
He nodded.
“One of our guys saw the man who bumped your date slip something into your clutch.”
My blood chilled.
I opened the clutch.
Lipstick.
Phone.
Keys.
Small wallet.
And a black plastic flash drive I had never seen before.
Eddie swore quietly.
“Don’t touch it.”
Too late.
Daniel leaned closer.
“What is going on?”
I looked at him.
A decent man.
A normal man.
He had no business standing near any of this.
“Daniel, you need to leave.”
“I’m not leaving you alone.”
“I’m not alone.”
Eddie gave him a humorless smile.
“You definitely do not want to be involved, Doctor.”
Daniel glanced at Eddie’s jacket.
He apparently understood exactly what was underneath it.
Then his attention returned to me.
“Call me when you’re safe.”
“I will.”
He squeezed my hand once.
Eddie watched.
His expression shifted.
“Oh, this is going to be a very long night.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
We took the service elevator.
Two Mercer security men met us downstairs.
The SUV was waiting.
I climbed into the back seat and froze.
Gabriel sat inside.
No jacket.
White shirt.
Dark trousers.
Cigarette unlit between his fingers.
His gaze traveled from my face to the flash drive Eddie was carrying in a plastic evidence bag.
Then to the ballroom doors behind me.
“Where is he?”
I stared.
“Seriously?”
“Where is Hart?”
“Inside.”
“Did he give you that?”
“No.”
Gabriel’s eyes sharpened.
“Someone threatened me.”
That changed everything.
Jealousy vanished.
His entire face became still.
“What did they say?”
I handed him my phone.
He read the messages.
Once.
Twice.
His jaw flexed.
“When?”
“Five minutes ago.”
“Who touched you?”
“The man who bumped Daniel.”
Gabriel looked at Eddie.
“Description.”
Eddie gave it.
Gabriel immediately made two calls.
Roads.
Cameras.
Hotel staff.
Within sixty seconds, half a dozen people were moving because he had spoken.
I hated how comforting that felt.
The SUV pulled away.
“Where are we going?”
“My house.”
“No.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“That wasn’t a question.”
“It should have been.”
“You were threatened because you work for me.”
“Yes.”
“That makes it my problem.”
“It makes it exactly why I should not be going home with you.”
His voice lowered.
“Chastity.”
“Gabriel.”
Eddie looked out the window with intense interest.
Three years of employment had taught everyone around us that when Gabriel used that tone, people usually stopped arguing.
I never had.
“Take me home.”
“No.”
“My apartment has security.”
“Your apartment has a doorman named Henry who sleeps after midnight and one camera over the lobby door that hasn’t worked properly since January.”
I blinked.
“How do you know that?”
Silence.
Eddie suddenly coughed.
I stared at Gabriel.
“You have been monitoring my building?”
“For security.”
“For how long?”
His gaze shifted to the window.
“Gabriel.”
“A while.”
I laughed in disbelief.
“You are unbelievable.”
“You work with information that could put powerful people in prison.”
“Including you.”
“Yes.”
It was the calmness of his answer that disarmed me.
Gabriel never lied about what he was.
That did not make what he was acceptable.
It simply made him predictable.
His home occupied six floors of a converted industrial building overlooking the East River.
I had been there twice for work.
Never overnight.
Never in an emerald dress.
Never with Gabriel watching every movement I made.
The moment we entered, he ordered the security system locked down.
Mick arrived ten minutes later carrying a laptop.
Luca came behind him.
The flash drive sat untouched on the dining table.
“What is it?” I asked.
“We don’t know yet,” Mick said.
“I can open it.”
Gabriel immediately answered.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“I manage your encryption systems.”
“And whoever gave it to you expected that.”
“So we use an isolated machine.”
“No.”
“Gabriel.”
He stepped closer.
“You were threatened tonight.”
“I noticed.”
“You are not touching anything connected to whoever threatened you.”
“That is literally my job.”
“Not tonight.”
I studied him.
Something was different.
He was not controlling a business problem.
He was frightened.
Gabriel Mercer did not know what to do with fear.
So he converted it into orders.
“Where am I sleeping?”
His eyes met mine.
“Guest room.”
“Good.”
Something flashed across his expression.
“Disappointed?” I asked.
His mouth almost moved.
“No.”
“Liar.”
Mick made a choking sound.
Gabriel turned.
“Something funny?”
“Nothing.”
I walked away before I smiled.
At two in the morning, I could not sleep.
The borrowed robe one of Gabriel’s housekeepers had given me felt too soft.
The guest room felt too quiet.
I walked downstairs.
Gabriel stood alone near the windows.
New York glittered beneath us.
He held a glass of whiskey but had barely touched it.
“You should sleep,” he said without turning.
“You should stop giving orders when nobody asked.”
“That is unlikely.”
I stopped beside him.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then he said, “Hart is divorced.”
I turned my head.
“You investigated him.”
“Yes.”
“Before or after someone threatened me?”
A pause.
“Before.”
I stared at him.
“You had your men run a background check on my date?”
“He wasn’t your date.”
“He was literally my date.”
“Sofia arranged it.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
He looked at me.
I closed my eyes.
“Of course.”
“He seems harmless.”
“Thank you for approving him.”
“I didn’t approve him.”
“There it is.”
Gabriel drank his whiskey.
I folded my arms.
“Why do you care?”
He did not answer.
“Three years, Gabriel.”
His eyes moved to me.
“For three years, I sat ten feet from you. I organized your life. I worked until midnight. I canceled vacations because you got arrested in Atlantic City. I stitched your shoulder after someone tried to stab you at Christmas. You barely noticed when I changed my hair.”
“I noticed.”
The answer came too quickly.
I stopped.
“What?”
He looked back toward the city.
“I noticed.”
Something strange happened inside my chest.
“No, you didn’t.”
“You wore it shorter for eight months.”
I said nothing.
“You stopped wearing perfume after your father died because the bottle you used had been a gift from him.”
My throat tightened.
“You started drinking tea instead of coffee last winter because your hands shook when you had too much caffeine.”
I stared at him.
Gabriel continued.
“You wear gray when you want people to leave you alone. Blue when you’re negotiating. Black when you’re angry.”
He finally looked at the emerald dress.
“And apparently green when you want to destroy my concentration.”
My breath caught.
“You noticed all that?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you act like you didn’t?”
His expression hardened.
“Because noticing you was dangerous.”
“For whom?”
He gave a quiet laugh.
“Apparently me.”
The room felt smaller.
I should have walked away.
Instead, I asked the question that had been waiting for three years.
“Why?”
Gabriel stepped closer.
Not touching.
Never quite touching.
“Because you are the only person in my organization who has never asked me for anything.”
“I ask for a raise every January.”
“You deserve twice what I pay you.”
“That is not the point.”
“You tell me no.”
“Frequently.”
“You insult me.”
“Only when necessary.”
“You refuse to be afraid of me.”
I smiled faintly.
“That one is not entirely true.”
His face changed.
“I have frightened you?”
“Sometimes.”
He looked almost disturbed.
I had never expected Gabriel Mercer to care whether I feared him.
“I don’t want that.”
The words were nearly a whisper.
My pulse accelerated.
Then Mick entered.
“Boss.”
Gabriel stepped away immediately.
“What?”
“We cracked the drive.”
Mick placed the isolated laptop on the table.
A folder appeared.
Inside were dozens of scanned financial records.
Transfers.
Property deeds.
Political payments.
Documents from my files.
Documents that had only existed on Gabriel’s private servers.
Someone had been stealing information for months.
Then Mick opened the final document.
My blood ran cold.
It was a photograph.
Me.
Leaving Gabriel’s office.
Taken through the window of another building.
Across the image, someone had typed one sentence.
SHE IS HIS WEAKNESS.
Gabriel stopped breathing for half a second.
I saw it.
Then the screen changed.
Another photograph.
Me entering my apartment.
Another.
Me buying groceries.
Another.
Me visiting my father’s grave.
Someone had followed me for weeks.
Maybe months.
Gabriel closed the laptop.
“Who has access to those files?” Mick asked.
I swallowed.
“Four people.”
“Names.”
“You. Gabriel. Me.”
“And?”
I looked toward the dark hallway.
My voice became quiet.
“Vincent Rourke.”
Gabriel’s expression turned lethal.
Vincent had been his financial partner for twelve years.
The man who helped build Mercer Holdings.
The man Gabriel called brother.
And the man who had spent the last six months telling Gabriel that I knew too much.
---