I stared at the timestamp until the numbers stopped looking like numbers.
The photograph had been taken twelve days earlier.
That alone should not have terrified me.
Dante had already told me my sister had been followed for two weeks.
What terrified me was what the photograph showed happening at almost the exact same time.
My sister was walking out of school.
The black sedan sat half a block away.
And reflected faintly in its side window was the man I recognized from Dante’s sealed file.
But in the corner of the surveillance image, visible only because Dante’s people had photographed the entire block, was me.
I was getting out of a cab across the street.
I remembered that afternoon instantly.
My sister had forgotten a folder she needed for an application.
I had left work early, brought it to her, hugged her on the sidewalk, and gone straight back to Moretti Holdings.
I looked at Dante.
“He wasn’t following her first.”
Dante said nothing.
I looked back at the photograph.
The man wasn’t looking at my sister.
He was looking at me.
The realization moved through me slowly and horribly.
“He followed me to her.”
“That’s what I believe.”
My knees weakened.
I lowered myself into the chair across from Dante’s desk.
A few minutes earlier, I had been terrified that my feelings for Dante had made me reckless.
Now I understood that something far more practical had put my sister in danger.
Access.
For three years, I had controlled Dante Moretti’s calendar, screened his calls, prepared his meetings, handled confidential packages, and knew which doors inside Moretti Holdings opened without a second question when I was carrying something.
I wasn’t powerful.
But I stood close enough to power to be useful.
Dante moved the resignation letter away from the edge of the desk as though the sight of it irritated him.
“The man in that photograph works for people who have been trying to get inside one of my deals for months,” he said.
“A competitor?”
“Among other things.”
I almost laughed, but there was nothing funny in the room.
“And you ordered me never to open his file because?”
“Because the less you knew, the safer you were supposed to be.”
“That worked beautifully.”
He accepted the blow without reacting.
That frightened me more than if he had snapped back.
“You’re right.”
I looked at him.
Dante Moretti did not admit fault easily.
In three years, I had watched him negotiate contracts worth more money than I could imagine without raising his voice.
I had watched grown men enter his office angry and leave careful.
But now he stood across from me and simply said, “I was wrong.”
I folded my arms because otherwise he would see my hands shaking.
“How long have you known?”
“I knew someone was watching you sixteen days ago.
I confirmed your sister was part of the surveillance two days later.”
Anger cut through my fear.
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“I wanted to know what they were after before I put panic into your life.”
“You don’t get to decide how much danger I’m allowed to know about.”
His eyes dropped for half a second.
“No.
