Chapter 1 - THE LIE IN HER LEFT SHOE
“Terrible traffic today,” Katarina added because Vittorio Servino’s silence made the hallway feel smaller. “It won’t happen again.”
Vittorio did not answer immediately.
His gaze dropped once more toward her right ankle.
Katarina resisted the instinct to hide it behind the other foot.
“You were here at seven forty-three every Monday for the last nine months,” he said.
Her smile remained in place.
“I suppose today ruined my record.”
“You took a cab.”
“Yes.”
“You normally take the train.”
Katarina’s smile weakened.
Most executives would not know how their administrative assistant reached work.
Vittorio apparently knew the minute she usually entered the building.
“I overslept.”
“So you said.”
“No. I said traffic.”
His eyes met hers.
Katarina’s stomach dropped.
She had spent years learning to make lies small enough that people did not bother examining them. Chase never accepted large explanations. Large explanations sounded defensive.
So Katarina had learned to offer fragments.
Traffic.
Headache.
Clumsy.
Forgot.
Fine.
Always fine.
Vittorio looked at her for another second before stepping aside.
“Go see Joanna.”
Katarina blinked.
“Sir?”
“Your ankle.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Good. Then Joanna can confirm that in five minutes.”
“I have the Harper presentation to finish.”
“It’s finished.”
Her confusion must have shown.
“I finished it myself while waiting for the meeting to start.”
“You did?”
Vittorio’s expression barely changed.
“I occasionally know how to use PowerPoint, Miss Aiello.”
Under different circumstances, she might have laughed.
Instead she nodded.
“Of course.”
She began walking.
The first three steps were nearly normal.
The fourth sent pain up her calf.
She heard Vittorio’s voice behind her.
“You’re putting less than half your weight on your right foot.”
Katarina stopped.
Her entire body went cold.
That was how Chase watched her.
Noticing.
Measuring.
Collecting details that could become accusations later.
She turned too quickly.
“I said I’m fine.”
The sharpness surprised both of them.
Vittorio did something Chase never did when Katarina’s tone displeased him.
Nothing.
No narrowed eyes.
No step forward.
No punishment waiting inside silence.
He simply said, “Then I’ll accept your answer.”
Katarina stared.
“But if you need medical care, leave work and get it. Your job will still exist tomorrow.”
He walked away.
That should have relieved her.
Instead it almost made her cry.
Joanna was waiting around the corner.
“You look like someone just told you Santa Claus files tax returns.”
Katarina exhaled.
“He noticed my ankle.”
Joanna’s face changed.
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
“Cat.”
“Please.”
Joanna lowered her voice.
“Did Chase do it?”
Katarina looked toward the elevators.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not trying to interrogate you.”
“Then don’t.”
Joanna crossed her arms.
“I am trying to figure out how many mornings I’m supposed to watch you walk in here with a new explanation.”
Katarina’s eyes burned.
“You think I don’t know what I look like?”
“I think you know exactly what you look like.”
Joanna’s voice softened.
“And that scares me more.”
For a moment neither woman spoke.
Then the elevator opened.
Nathan Rourke stepped out.
He was Vittorio’s legal adviser and one of the few men in the building who could enter Servino’s office without requesting permission.
“Katarina.”
She straightened automatically.
“Mr. Rourke.”
“Vittorio wants the Mercer contracts.”
Her heart stopped.
“Mercer?”
Nathan nodded.
“Chase Mercer. Stonebridge Facilities.”
Katarina stared at him.
“What about him?”
Nathan’s expression sharpened.
“You know him?”
She answered too slowly.
“He’s my boyfriend.”
Nathan said nothing.
Joanna did.
“Oh, hell.”
Katarina looked between them.
“What?”
Nathan recovered.
“Nothing necessarily. We’re reviewing irregularities in vendor billing.”
“What irregularities?”
“I can’t discuss an active internal review.”
“Is Chase in trouble?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Nathan looked toward Joanna, then back at Katarina.
“Does Mr. Mercer know where you work?”
The question almost made her laugh.
“He drove me to my interview.”
Nathan’s face became more serious.
“Does he ever use your company laptop?”
“No.”
“Phone?”
“No.”
“Badge?”
“Absolutely not.”
A memory surfaced.
Chase standing beside the kitchen counter two weeks earlier.
Katarina’s purse open.
Her access badge missing for twenty minutes.
He had told her it fell beneath the passenger seat.
She had believed him.
Or pretended to.
Nathan saw something change in her face.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Katarina.”
“I said nothing.”
She hated how quickly the words came.
Joanna touched her arm.
Katarina pulled away.
“I need to work.”
She reached her desk before the first tear escaped.
She wiped it instantly.
At 10:16, Chase texted.
Why were you late?
Katarina stared.
He knew.
Of course he knew.
Maybe he had checked the location app he insisted they share.
Maybe he had called the building.
Maybe he had simply remembered.
She typed:
Alarm didn’t work. Meeting was fine.
Three dots appeared.
I unplugged it.
Her fingers went cold.
Then:
I wanted to see if you’d blame me.
Katarina stopped breathing.
Another message.
You didn’t. Good girl.
She turned the phone face down.
For several seconds she could hear nothing but the blood in her ears.
At 10:24, Vittorio passed her desk.
He did not stop.
He did not look directly at her.
But Katarina noticed his pace change when he saw the phone.
Ten minutes later Joanna appeared.
“Come with me.”
“I have work.”
“Vittorio wants you upstairs.”
Katarina’s pulse accelerated.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
The twenty-eighth floor belonged almost entirely to executive offices.
Vittorio’s corner suite overlooked Philadelphia through glass walls, though the inner office itself was darker than Katarina expected. Walnut shelving. Leather chairs. Almost no decoration.
Except photographs.
A woman laughing on a beach.
A young boy on a bicycle.
An older couple outside a church.
Family.
Vittorio stood beside the window.
Nathan sat near the conference table.
No one else.
Katarina remained by the door.
“You asked for me?”
Vittorio gestured toward a chair.
“You can stand if you prefer.”
She stayed standing.
Nathan placed a document on the table.
“This came from security.”
Katarina looked.
A photograph.
Someone entering Servino Holdings at 6:11 on Saturday morning.
Chase.
Her stomach turned.
“That’s impossible.”
Nathan slid another photograph forward.
Chase leaving twenty-three minutes later.
“He shouldn’t have access on weekends,” Katarina said.
“He doesn’t,” Vittorio replied.
Katarina looked closer.
Chase wore a visitor badge.
Her visitor badge.
The reusable executive guest credential Katarina kept locked inside her desk.
Nathan asked, “When did you last see that badge?”
“Friday.”
“Where?”
“My desk.”
“Was Mr. Mercer here Friday?”
“No.”
She stopped.
Chase had met her for lunch.
He had complained she kept him waiting downstairs.
She had left her purse in the restaurant booth when she went to the restroom.
Her office key was inside.
Katarina slowly sat down.
Nathan spoke carefully.
“Someone entered the tenth-floor vendor records room using your credentials Saturday.”
“I didn’t give them to him.”
Vittorio answered immediately.
“We know.”
She looked up.
“How?”
“You were at a pharmacy in South Philadelphia at the time.”
Katarina’s mouth went dry.
“You tracked me?”
“We verified your phone location after discovering your credentials had been used.”
Fear replaced confusion.
“Does Chase know you’re investigating him?”
“No.”
Nathan leaned forward.
“And we need it to stay that way.”
Katarina’s mind raced.
“What did he take?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“What is Stonebridge accused of?”
Nathan exchanged a look with Vittorio.
“Overbilling, false subcontractors, possible kickbacks.”
“How much?”
“Three point eight million.”
Katarina almost laughed because the number felt absurdly large.
Chase complained about the price of groceries.
He inspected her bank account every Friday.
He made her explain twenty-dollar cash withdrawals.
And somewhere around them, millions of dollars had apparently been moving.
Vittorio watched her.
“Miss Aiello, I’m going to ask you something. You are free not to answer.”
She nodded.
“Has Chase ever pressured you to bring information home?”
“No.”
“Asked about meetings?”
“Yes, but everyone does.”
“Everyone does not ask about internal vendor audits.”
Katarina froze.
Vittorio’s eyes sharpened.
“He asked about that?”
She remembered Friday night.
Chase had poured wine.
He had been unusually gentle.
Anybody at work worried about Stonebridge?
She had laughed.
Why would they be?
Then he asked whether Vittorio would attend Monday’s operations meeting.
Katarina had thought he was jealous.
Now she understood.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“When?”
“Friday.”
Nathan wrote something down.
Vittorio asked one final question.
“When you woke up this morning, was your alarm simply broken?”
Katarina stared at him.
She had not told anyone.
Not Joanna.
Not Nathan.
No one.
“How did you know?”
“I didn’t.”
His voice softened.
“I asked.”
Katarina looked down.
The room became unbearable.
The bruises under her blouse seemed suddenly visible through fabric.
The mark beneath her makeup felt enormous.
She stood.
“I need to go.”
Vittorio did not block her.
“Go.”
That surprised her again.
She reached the door.
“Katarina.”
It was the first time he had used her first name.
She turned.
Vittorio remained across the room.
A deliberate distance between them.
“If you are afraid to go home tonight, you do not have to.”
Her throat closed.
“I’m not afraid.”
It was automatic.
Vittorio nodded once.
“Then forget I said it.”
Katarina opened the door.
Her phone rang.
Chase.
She nearly dropped it.
The screen showed a photograph he had sent instead of a message.
Her apartment bedroom.
Taken minutes earlier.
On the bed lay Katarina’s second phone.
The old prepaid device Joanna had secretly given her months ago.
The phone Chase was never supposed to know existed.
Below the photograph were five words.
We need to talk tonight.
Katarina stopped in the doorway.
Vittorio saw her face.
May you like
This time he did not ask whether everything was all right.
He already knew the answer.
