Chapter 7 - One Step From Leaving
Hale vanished for nine days.
During those nine days, everything between Stellan and me changed.
Then it almost ended.
The photograph arrived anonymously.
Stellan kissing a woman outside a hotel.
Recent enough that the date stamp was from two nights earlier.
I stared at it until my hands shook.
He had told me he was meeting federal investigators.
Instead, he appeared to be kissing Celeste Arden, daughter of one of the wealthiest developers in New York.
The internet already believed they were secretly engaged.
I packed.
Maybe that was cowardly.
Maybe I had simply spent too many years learning that leaving first hurt less.
Hazel was with Lillian and Noah.
I went to Stellan’s office because I refused to disappear without returning his key.
He entered while I was placing it on his desk.
That brought us back to where everything had started.
The buzzing fluorescent light.
His desk.
My folded hands.
“You’re not leaving this office until you explain yourself.”
“So I suggest you start talking, Josephine.”
I stood.
“Move.”
“No.”
“Stellan.”
“Tell me why.”
I threw the photograph onto his desk.
He looked at it.
Then laughed.
Actually laughed.
Something inside me broke.
“I’m glad this is funny.”
“It isn’t.”
“You’re laughing.”
“Because that photograph is absurd.”
“It looks pretty clear.”
“That is Celeste.”
“I know who she is.”
“She’s married.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“To Evelyn.”
Silence.
I looked toward the office door.
Evelyn stood there.
She raised one eyebrow.
“Seven years.”
I looked at the photograph again.
Celeste’s face was partially hidden.
The angle made it appear as though she and Stellan were kissing.
“They manipulated it?”
“Cropped it,” Evelyn said. “I was standing approximately eighteen inches to the left.”
Stellan’s amusement disappeared.
“Hale sent this.”
I sat down.
Embarrassment burned through me.
Then anger.
Not at Hale.
At myself.
“I believed it.”
“You’ve had people give you reasons to.”
“That doesn’t excuse it.”
“No.”
Stellan walked closer.
“But leaving without asking me would have.”
I looked at him.
“That sounds judgmental.”
“It is.”
“You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Mostly by me.”
“Exclusively by you.”
I laughed despite myself.
Then his expression changed.
“Jo, I cannot promise you an easy life.”
“I don’t want your life.”
“I know.”
He moved closer.
“That’s why I want you in it.”
The words silenced me.
“I can promise you this. You will never have to discover betrayal through somebody else. If I make a mistake, you’ll hear it from me.”
“That’s a strange romantic promise.”
“I’m inexperienced.”
“You’re terrible.”
“I know.”
I smiled.
Then the office windows exploded.
Stellan knocked me down.
Security alarms screamed.
A bullet struck the wall behind his desk.
Another shattered a lamp.
His guards rushed in.
The shooter disappeared among buildings across the river.
But Hale had made his message clear.
He was done threatening.
Now he was trying to kill us.
That evening, federal agents moved Lillian, Noah and Hazel to a secure location.
Stellan refused to go.
“Hale wants me.”
“So you’re bait.”
“Yes.”
“That is the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”
“It’s strategically sound.”
“I hate strategically sound.”
He touched my face.
“I need you somewhere safe.”
“And I need you alive.”
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Then I realized something.
Hale had spent weeks trying to separate us.
Threats.
Lies.
Photographs.
Because together we had everything required to destroy him.
Evidence from Lillian.
Recordings from Marcus.
Voss corporate records from Stellan.
And one thing Hale had underestimated.
Me.
Because waitresses hear everything.
And months earlier, before I knew any of these people mattered, I had heard Victor Hale talking at Crestwood.
I remembered the table.
The date.
And the man sitting across from him.
A city procurement commissioner.
I also remembered something else.
Crestwood recorded every private dining room for security.
May you like
I looked at Stellan.
“I know where Hale made his mistake.”
