Chapter 2 - THE DEBT THAT WAS NEVER HERS
Gabriel’s expression did not soften.
That would have frightened Paige less.
Instead, something colder disappeared from his eyes.
“No,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Paige’s lungs finally remembered how to work.
Gabriel stepped around her and opened the office door.
“Nico.”
The security chief appeared almost immediately.
“Find Rizzo.”
Nico’s eyebrows moved a fraction.
“Now?”
“Now.”
Paige stared between them. “Who’s Rizzo?”
“The man calling you.”
Her stomach tightened.
Gabriel returned to his desk and opened a drawer.
He removed a thin black folder.
Paige recognized her own photograph clipped inside.
“You have a file on me?”
“I have files on everyone who works in this building.”
“That’s incredibly creepy.”
Nico coughed.
Gabriel slowly raised his eyes.
Paige wanted to swallow the sentence back.
Instead, something unexpected happened.
The corner of Gabriel’s mouth moved.
Not quite a smile.
Close enough to make Nico stare.
“Sit down, Paige.”
“I’d rather stand.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
“See? Creepy.”
This time Nico actually turned away.
Gabriel looked almost offended by the possibility that someone might find him amusing.
Paige sat.
He slid the folder toward her.
Inside were copies of Kevin’s loan documents.
Her signature appeared on the final page.
Paige leaned closer.
“That isn’t my signature.”
“I know.”
Her eyes snapped up.
Gabriel placed another document beside it.
Her employment application.
The signatures were similar, but not identical.
“Kevin forged it,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Then why am I paying?”
“Because somebody wanted you frightened enough not to ask questions.”
Paige felt the room tilt.
Gabriel pointed to the loan date.
It had been issued three days before Kevin disappeared.
Thirty thousand dollars.
Except another sheet showed a transfer made twenty-four hours later.
Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Paige looked up.
“Where did that come from?”
“That,” Gabriel said, “is what interests me.”
The money had moved through four shell companies before landing in an account connected to one of Moretti Logistics’ dock supervisors.
That supervisor had disappeared six weeks earlier.
Paige’s boyfriend had not simply borrowed money and run.
He had been involved in something much larger.
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because whoever used Kevin is now calling you.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“I believe you.”
She blinked.
“Why?”
“Because guilty people don’t accidentally call me honey in front of thirty witnesses.”
Despite herself, Paige almost laughed.
Gabriel’s eyes remained on her.
Something in the room shifted.
Not warmth.
Not yet.
But the terror was changing shape.
Nico returned twenty minutes later.
“Rizzo’s gone.”
Gabriel straightened.
“Gone where?”
“Apartment cleared out. Phone dumped near Newark.”
“When?”
“About an hour ago.”
Gabriel looked at Paige.
An hour ago.
Before she had been summoned upstairs.
Before anyone outside the building should have known Gabriel had taken an interest in her situation.
Someone already knew.
Gabriel reached for his phone.
“Lock down the building.”
Paige stood.
“What?”
The office doors closed automatically.
Nico pulled his jacket aside and checked his weapon.
Gabriel spoke quietly into the phone.
“No one leaves.”
Paige’s heartbeat accelerated.
“What is happening?”
Gabriel ended the call.
“Someone inside my company warned Rizzo.”
Paige thought about the fifth floor.
Thirty coworkers.
Sylvia.
Managers.
Accountants.
People she saw every day.
“You think someone is watching me?”
“I know someone is.”
Her desk phone had received fourteen calls.
The internal system logged them.
Only a handful of employees had access to those records.
Gabriel moved toward her.
“From this moment forward, you do not go home alone.”
“No.”
His eyebrows lifted.
Paige surprised herself.
“I’m already working two jobs to pay a debt that isn’t mine. I’m not adding ‘hostage of terrifying CEO’ to my schedule.”
“You misunderstand.”
“Then explain.”
“I’m assigning protection.”
“I can’t afford protection.”
“You work for me.”
“Apparently everyone who works for you gets guns and surveillance?”
“Only the ones somebody is trying to kill.”
Paige stopped.
Gabriel’s voice had remained perfectly calm.
That made the sentence worse.
“Kill?”
Nico placed a clear evidence bag on Gabriel’s desk.
Inside was a photograph.
Paige recognized herself walking out of her apartment building.
The photograph had been taken that morning.
A red circle had been drawn around her head.
On the back were three words.
SHE KNOWS SOMETHING.
Paige’s knees weakened.
“I don’t.”
Gabriel caught her elbow before she stumbled.
The contact lasted only seconds.
His hand was warm.
Steady.
She looked down at the tattoos disappearing beneath his cuff.
Then at his face.
“You believe me?”
“Yes.”
“Then whoever sent that is wrong.”
“No.”
His gaze sharpened.
“They’re afraid you know something you haven’t realized you know.”
Paige remembered Kevin.
His strange behavior before disappearing.
Late-night drives.
Locked bathroom calls.
The week before he vanished, he had given her an old laptop and told her never to throw it away.
She had assumed he was being cheap.
Her mouth went dry.
Gabriel noticed.
“What?”
“Kevin left something.”
“What?”
“A laptop.”
“Where?”
“My apartment.”
Gabriel reached for his jacket.
“We’re going.”
Nico immediately objected.
Gabriel ignored him.
Twenty minutes later, Paige sat in the rear of a black armored SUV beside the man everyone in her office feared.
Rain streaked Manhattan’s windows.
Gabriel remained silent.
Paige finally glanced sideways.
“Are you always this cheerful?”
“Yes.”
“That explains employee morale.”
He looked at her.
“You talk when you’re frightened.”
“I talk when I’m awake.”
“Apparently you use pet names when you’re tired.”
Paige covered her face.
“Please forget that.”
“No.”
She lowered her hands.
For the first time, Gabriel Moretti smiled.
It lasted perhaps one second.
It transformed him.
Then the SUV stopped.
Nico’s voice came through the front.
“Boss.”
Gabriel’s smile vanished.
Paige looked through the windshield.
Her apartment building was surrounded by firefighters.
Smoke poured from a third-floor window.
Her third-floor window.
“No.”
She reached for the door.
Gabriel caught her wrist.
“Wait.”
“My apartment!”
“The fire department is already there.”
“Buster’s picture—my things—”
“Paige.”
She turned toward him.
His grip loosened.
Through the rain, flames suddenly flashed behind the glass.
Everything she owned was inside.
Including Kevin’s laptop.
Gabriel stared at the burning window.
“They knew where it was.”
Paige stopped struggling.
“That’s impossible.”
Gabriel slowly turned toward Nico.
“No,” he said.
May you like
“It means whoever is watching her heard our conversation upstairs.”
And for the first time since Paige had met him, Gabriel Moretti looked genuinely furious.
