Chapter 17
Callum
The first thing I saw was Avery’s face.
It had gone white.
I crossed the operations area without thinking about who watched me.
Later, Benjamin would tell me that I moved with ‘the controlled velocity of a man about to make evidence inadmissible,’ which was his way of saying I had frightened half the room into suddenly discovering urgent work on their monitors.
At the time, I only knew that Avery had something in her hand, her mouth was parted as if she could not quite draw air, and every protective instinct I had ever possessed had sharpened itself into a blade.
I reached her desk. “Avery.”
She tried to answer, but nothing came out. I took the paper from her gently, though there was nothing gentle in me when I looked down.
The photograph was taken from across the street outside Rowe Tower the evening I had first kissed her.
Avery stood on the sidewalk with her coat pulled around her, hair loose, face turned partly away.
There was nothing explicit in the image.
Nothing that would damn us by itself. But I knew that hair.
I knew the slightly stunned softness of her mouth.
I knew what had happened minutes before she stepped out of the building looking like that.
Beneath the photo, printed in neat black letters, were the words:
Does Mr. Rowe know you’re being watched?
My hand closed around the paper before I could stop myself. Avery flinched, which cooled me faster than any lecture Benjamin could have given.
I loosened my grip and looked at her. “Are you hurt?”
She blinked. “No.”
“Did anyone touch you?”
“No.”
“Did you see who left it?”
“No. It was just under my keyboard.” Her voice was quiet, too controlled. “I thought it was a note from you.”
Something colder than anger moved through me. Someone had left it at her desk. On my floor. Inside my company.
Benjamin appeared at my side. “Conference Room C. Now.”
Dana arrived half a breath later. She took one look at Avery, then at me, then at the paper. “Who else has seen it?”
“No one,” Benjamin said.
“Good.” Dana looked at the surrounding desks, and the three employees pretending not to look immediately became statues. “Everyone back to work.”
They obeyed. Dana had never needed volume to make herself understood.
I looked at Avery. “Come with me.”
She stood, but her knees were not steady. I put my hand at her back without thinking. This time, it was not heat. It was not flirtation. It was not the secret language we had been reckless enough to invent in hallways and behind locked office doors. It was simply support.
In Conference Room C, Benjamin closed the blinds, Dana shut the door, and I set the photograph on the table like evidence in a murder trial.
Avery sat in the nearest chair with both hands pressed flat against her thighs, trying hard not to look frightened and doing a poor job of it because I knew every inch of her face by then.
I knew that she was being brave because she had no better option.
Benjamin photographed the note, bagged it in a clear evidence sleeve that he produced from somewhere I did not want to question, and called security with the tone he usually reserved for calendar errors and mortal sin.
“Pull hallway footage from operations,” he barked. “Nine to noon. No, not later. Now. Also lobby, service elevators, stairwells, and janitorial access. If someone so much as sneezed near Ms. Hale’s desk, I want to know what brand of tissue they prefer.”
Dana stood at the window, arms crossed. “This was not random.”
“No,” I said.
Avery looked up. “You knew this might happen.”
I did not answer quickly enough.
“Callum.”
“We had received a tip,” I answered.
“A tip.”
“A photo of you outside the building. My car at your apartment.” I forced myself to keep my voice even because rage would only make her feel smaller in the room. “Nothing explicit. Nothing public. Nothing we could do anything with yet.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I should have,” I admitted.
Avery stared at me, and the hurt in her face landed exactly where it should have.
“Yes,” she agreed in a quiet voice. “You should have.”
“I didn’t want you afraid.”
“I’ve been afraid. I just thought I was being dramatic.”
Her words cut deep. “I’m sorry.”
Her mouth tightened, not in anger, not exactly. “Don’t do that again.”
There were a dozen things I could have said, beginning with the fact that I had been trying to protect her and I wanted her safe, but none of that mattered.
“I won’t,” I said.
Benjamin glanced up from his phone, and for once, did not make the obvious comment, which was how I knew the situation was worse than it looked.
We kept it contained through the weekend and for two more days. By Wednesday morning, Benjamin had narrowed the breach to two impossible channels.
“One inside,” he said, standing in my office with a tablet in hand and the expression of a man who had slept badly for much of his life. “Then one personal.”
“Personal?” I asked.
His jaw tightened. “Someone close enough to know her movements, or careless enough to expose them.”
I looked at him. “Say what you mean.”
“They know the public things,” he said. “Dinner. The car. The after-hours departures. That can be surveillance. Expensive surveillance, but surveillance.”
“And the rest?” I asked.
Benjamin’s mouth tightened. “The rest reads like someone standing too close to Ms. Hale while she was trying to decide whether to trust you.”
My hand went still on the desk.
“How close?”
“Close enough to know she was worried about the godfather angle. Close enough to know the pencil skirt meant something before she ever walked into work wearing it.”
My voice came out colder than I intended. “Who knows those things?”
Benjamin looked at me for one long second.
“Not many people.”
“Do you have names?” I asked.
“I have possibilities.”
“Tell me.”
“Not until I can prove which one is real. I will not set fire to her life or yours because my instincts are wearing tap shoes.”
I stared at him and he held my gaze.
“Fine,” I said.
“Good. I treasure these moments when you make intelligent choices without a sedative.”
“Get out.”
“Already gone.”
* * *
The whole thing exploded on Thursday. Benjamin entered my office while I was on the phone with Marcus and placed a cream card on my desk with a name printed in black type.
Grant Vale
Meridian Strategic Risk
I looked at the card, then at Benjamin.
“No,” I said into the phone, though Marcus thought I was speaking to him and immediately started apologizing. “Not you. I’ll call you back.”
I hung up.
Benjamin’s face had gone smooth in a way I did not like. “Mr. Vale is downstairs.”
“Did we invite him?”
“No. He says interested parties requested a private conversation regarding the Hartwell project.”
“Is he from Lang?”
“Unofficially, spiritually, and aromatically.”
“Send him away.”
“I considered that. Then he said he had material responsive to the message left for Ms. Hale.”
I stood up too quickly, anger flaring from deep in the pit of my soul.
Benjamin’s eyes narrowed in my direction. “Callum.”
“Conference Room B. No phones except yours. I want Tom and Dana present.”
“And Avery?”
“No.”
Benjamin did not move. I just looked at him.
“She is involved in this too,” he almost argued.
“She is not sitting across from a man using her as leverage.”
“Agreed. But she is in it.”
I hated that he was right.
“I’ll tell her after.”
“Before you make any decision?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Benjamin picked up the card. “For the record, this has the texture of corporate mafia.”
“Meridian is not the mafia.”
“No. The mafia has the decency to use fewer euphemisms.”
Grant Vale looked like a man designed by a committee of expensive villains who had been told to avoid anything overtly criminal.
He was in his mid-fifties with silver hair, wearing a navy suit and no wedding ring.
He arrived with a leather folio and one associate, a woman in a gray dress whose expression suggested she had never once wasted a blink.
I sat at the head of the table. Tom sat to my left with a legal pad. Dana sat on my other side. Benjamin stood behind me near the wall, tablet in hand, eyes bright with contained violence.
Vale smiled as he sat. “Mr. Rowe. Thank you for making time to meet with me.”
“I didn’t.”
His smile did not change. “Then I appreciate the adjustment.”
“We’re recording this,” Tom said.
Vale’s associate set a small recorder on the table. “As are we.”
“How civilized,” Benjamin murmured.
Vale glanced at him. “Mr. Mercer.”
“Mr. Vale.”
“You have a reputation.”
“I’m flattered. Let’s continue.”
Vale opened his folio. “I’ll be direct.”
“Please,” I said. “I’d hate for this to become unpleasant later.”
Another small smile. “There are concerns among certain interested parties about Rowe Structural’s continued involvement in the Hartwell Civic Center redevelopment.”
“Lang lost the bid,” Dana said. “They can remain concerned in the parking lot.”
“I don’t represent Lang.”
“No,” Benjamin said. “You represent the miasma surrounding Lang.”
Vale ignored him. “This is not about bid disappointment. It is about risk, public trust, and reputational stability. The city cannot afford distraction.”
Vale slid a document across the table. Tom caught it before it reached me. His eyes moved down the first page, and his face tightened.
“What is this?” I demanded.
“A path to resolution,” Vale explained condescendingly.
“Rowe Structural exercises the voluntary withdrawal clause under Section 14. Hartwell proceeds without litigation, without a public fight, and without further disruption. Interested parties agree not to disseminate certain reputationally sensitive materials that would otherwise become relevant to public discourse.”
Tom looked up. “This is extortion.”
Vale’s associate said, “No one is demanding payment.”
Benjamin smiled without warmth. “How refreshing. A blackmail coupon.”
Vale folded his hands. “Mr. Rowe negotiated the withdrawal provision himself. Exercising a contractual right is not unlawful.”