Chapter 2 - The Woman in the Photograph
“Everybody stays exactly where they are.”
My voice wasn't loud.
It didn't need to be.
The guard slowly removed his hand from his jacket.
A phone.
Not a weapon.
“Unlock it.”
“Boss—”
“Now.”
His name was Marcus Reed.
Thirty-six.
Former military contractor.
Seven years in my organization.
He had stood beside my hospital bed after the shooting that supposedly killed Elena and Sophie.
I had trusted him enough to stand behind me while I ate.
That trust disappeared in three seconds.
Marcus placed the phone on the table.
There was one unsent message on the screen.
SHE TOLD HIM.
Recipient unknown.
I looked at Grace.
“What did you tell me?”
Grace held Amara tightly.
“Not here.”
Marcus moved.
My other guard, Cole, immediately shoved him against the wall.
“Don't.”
Marcus didn't resist.
That worried me more than resistance would have.
I stood.
“Take him downstairs. Nobody speaks to him.”
Cole escorted Marcus away.
Grace looked terrified.
Not of me.
Of whoever might learn she had spoken.
I pointed toward Amara.
“She stays here.”
“No.”
It came instantly.
A mother refusing Julian Hale.
Interesting.
“She stays somewhere protected,” I corrected. “With someone you choose.”
Grace considered that.
Then nodded.
Twenty minutes later, Amara was watching cartoons inside the secured library with Grace's older sister, Maria, whom my people collected from her apartment.
Grace sat opposite me in my office.
Between us was the family photograph.
Elena.
Sophie.
Me.
Before everything burned.
“Start talking.”
Grace stared at Elena's face.
“Her name wasn't Elena when I knew her.”
My pulse changed.
“What was it?”
“Eleanor Vale.”
Impossible.
I had met Elena when she was twenty-five.
She told me she had grown up outside Seattle.
Parents dead.
No siblings.
Grace continued.
“She came to my apartment eleven months ago.”
“You're saying my wife walked into your home?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn't call me?”
“She told me you were the last person I could call.”
That hurt more than I expected.
“Why?”
“She said somebody inside your organization had tried to kill her.”
I leaned forward.
“Who?”
“She wouldn't tell me.”
“Why come to you?”
Grace swallowed.
“Because of Amara.”
My eyes narrowed.
“What does your daughter have to do with Elena?”
Grace reached into her uniform and removed a thin silver necklace.
Hanging from it was a small key.
My breathing stopped.
I knew that key.
Elena wore it every day of our marriage.
It opened a private box I had given her after Sophie was born.
I had searched the wreckage for it after the shooting.
It was never found.
“She gave you that?”
Grace nodded.
“And told me if anything happened to her, I had to get inside your house.”
“Why become my housekeeper?”
“Because she said the safest place to hide something from your enemies was beside the man they were already watching.”
I stared at her.
“What did she ask you to hide?”
Grace looked toward the door.
Then whispered:
“Not what.”
“Who.”
My blood went cold.
Before I could ask another question, the mansion alarm suddenly sounded.
Cole's voice came over the intercom.
“Boss, Marcus is gone.”
I stood.
“What?”
“He escaped.”
Then another guard shouted from the hallway.
Grace's phone buzzed.
A photograph appeared.
Amara sleeping inside my library.
Taken less than thirty seconds earlier.
May you like
Underneath were five words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT QUIET.
