13. Mia
MIA
The last line cook clocks out at eleven-thirty, leaving me alone in Sable's kitchen with a mop bucket and the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that makes even standing feel like a questionable choice.
I'm wiping down the prep station when Tanya appears in the doorway, still in her server blacks, purse slung over her shoulder.
"You need anything before I go?"
"I'm good. Get home safe."
She lingers, keys jangling in her hand. "You sure? You've been weird all night."
"I'm fine."
"Mia."
I look up. Tanya's watching me with the expression she reserves for moments when she's deciding whether to push or retreat, and right now she's clearly weighing her options.
"Go home," I tell her. "I'm just tired."
She nods slowly, unconvinced but willing to let it drop. "Lock up behind me."
The front door chimes when she leaves. I wait until I hear the deadbolt catch, then set down the rag and lean against the counter.
My office is at the back, barely larger than a closet. I head there now, intending to grab my bag and leave, but when I open the door I see it immediately.
An unmarked envelope on my desk.
Plain white, no address, no postage. Just sitting there on top of the vendor invoices I was reviewing this morning.
My pulse kicks up. I approach the desk slowly, like the envelope might detonate if I move too quickly. When I'm close enough I can see it's not sealed, the flap tucked loosely inside.
I pull out my phone, text Ethan. "Are you still up?"
His response comes within seconds. "Yes. What's wrong?"
"Can you come to Sable?"
"Now?"
"Please."
"On my way."
I don't touch the envelope. Just stand there staring at it while my heart hammers against my ribs and every worst-case scenario plays out in my head.
Derek was here. Or someone he sent was here. They walked into my restaurant, into my office, and left this for me to find.
The violation of it makes my stomach twist.
Twenty minutes later, headlights sweep across the dining room windows. I let Ethan in through the front door. He's wearing jeans and a t-shirt, hair slightly disheveled like he dressed in a hurry, and when he sees my face his expression shifts immediately into something sharp and focused.
"What happened?"
I lead him to the office, pointing at the envelope.
He crosses the space in three strides, stops beside the desk. He doesn't touch it, just studies it from different angles.
"When did you find this?"
"Five minutes ago. It wasn't here this morning when I left."
"Who has access to your office?"
"Staff during service. Sometimes vendors if I'm not around to sign for deliveries. Anyone, really. I don't lock it."
"You will now." He pulls out his phone, snaps several photos of the envelope from different angles. Then he produces a pen from his pocket, uses it to flip open the flap.
Inside are photographs. Maybe a dozen of them, printed on standard photo paper.
Ethan slides them out carefully, spreads them across the desk without touching them directly.
My throat closes.
The photos are of me and Ethan. All from the past two weeks.
Us leaving City Hall after the wedding ceremony.
The brunch at the Tribeca bistro, taken through the window.
Walking together on the street, his hand at the small of my back.
One from Saturday's service at Sable, captured through the kitchen pass.
And one from the night after the benefit concert. The two of us in that doorway, kissing.
The angle suggests the photographer was across the street, maybe fifty feet away. The image is sharp, perfectly focused, capturing the exact moment my hands fisted in Ethan's jacket.
"Jesus," I whisper.
Ethan's jaw works. He's staring at the photos with an expression I've never seen on him, something cold and furious that makes the temperature in the room drop.
"He's been following you," he says quietly. "Following us."
"For how long?"
"At least two weeks. Maybe longer."
I sink into my desk chair. My hands are shaking. I press them flat against my thighs, trying to stop the tremor.
"He was at Lincoln Center," I say. "Wasn't he? That's how he got this shot."
"Probably. Or he hired someone to trail us." Ethan pulls out his phone again, dials. "I'm calling Josiah. We need these photographed and documented before anything else happens to them."
While he's on the phone I stare at the images spread across my desk. Each one a moment I thought was private, or at least semi-private, captured and catalogued and delivered like a message.
I'm watching. I see everything. You're not safe.
Ethan finishes the call. "Josiah's coming. He'll be here in thirty minutes."
"What do we do until then?"
"We don't touch anything. And you tell me everything that's happened in the past week that you haven't told me already."
I look up at him. He's leaning against the filing cabinet, arms crossed, watching me with an intensity that makes me want to confess everything and also run from the room.
"The rug," I say finally.
"What rug?"
"In my apartment. After the wedding. I came home and my rug was moved. Not much, just a few inches, but enough that I noticed. I thought I was being paranoid."
"You weren't being paranoid." His voice is flat, controlled. "What else?"
"That's it. Just the rug and now this."
"Mia."
"I'm serious. That's everything."
He studies me for a long moment, and I can see him running calculations, weighing whether I'm telling the truth or holding back.
"Derek's escalating," he says finally. "Mia, I... I need to tell you something about this guy."
The way he says it makes my stomach drop. "What?"
Ethan crosses to the desk, leans against it so we're at eye level. His expression has shifted into something careful, the way he looks when delivering bad news to a client.
"Josiah found two other women," he says. "Before you. They were both in Chicago and filed restraining orders against Derek. Both relocated after the orders expired and disappeared from public record."
"…What do you mean, disappeared?"
"Scrubbed their social media, left no forwarding addresses, severed all public ties. The kind of disappearing people do when they're running from something."
"Or someone."
"Yes."
I stand up, needing to move. The office is too small, walls pressing in. I pace to the door and back, arms wrapped around myself.
"How long have you known this?"
"For more than two weeks. Josiah sent the report on him."
"And you didn't tell me."
"I was trying to figure out how to present it without terrifying you."
"Well, congratulations. I'm terrified now."
He exhales slowly. "Mia?—"
"Two women… and they both disappeared." I laugh, sharp and bitter. "What happened to them?"
"I don't know. Josiah's still trying to locate them, but they've made themselves difficult to find."
"Because Derek made them difficult to find."
"That's one possibility."
"What's the other possibility, Ethan? That they just randomly decided to erase their entire lives for fun?"
"No. The other possibility is that Derek's family paid them to disappear quietly instead of pressing criminal charges."
The suggestion sits between us, ugly and plausible. I think about Derek's father, Gregory Wayne, a real estate developer with enough money to make problems vanish. Think about how Derek always seemed to slide through consequences like water through a sieve.
"There's also a sealed case," Ethan continues quietly. "Criminal charges filed against Derek in 2016. Details are sealed by court order, but the docket entry suggests some kind of plea agreement. He did something bad enough to warrant charges, then his family's lawyers made it go away."
I sink back into the chair. My hands are still shaking. I press them against my thighs again but it doesn't help.
"So you're telling me that this man makes other women disappear when they became inconvenient."
"I'm telling you Derek Wayne is more dangerous than either of us initially thought. And that we need to take this seriously." Ethan closes the distance between us, his hands reaching out to take me by the shoulders. "He will not touch what you've built."
"You can't promise that."
"Yes, I can. And I am."
I turn around. We're standing close enough that I can see the muscle working in his jaw, the way his eyes have gone sharp and cold in that way that probably terrifies opposing counsel.
"Ethan—"
"I mean it, Mia. Derek Wayne is done. He doesn't get to keep doing this. Not to you, not to anyone."
The possessiveness in the statement should alarm me. Instead, it excites me.
Before I can respond, headlights sweep across the windows again. Josiah, probably. Here to document evidence and turn my violated privacy into a legal case.
Ethan steps back, creating professional distance. The walls go back up so smoothly I almost wonder if I imagined the past five minutes.
"Let him in," he says. "And tomorrow we're installing security cameras in here. No arguments."
"Fine."
"And you're not staying alone tonight."
I blink. "Excuse me?"
"Derek knows where you live. He's been in your apartment. You're coming home with me."
"Ethan—"
"It's not a request, Mia. It's the smart play and you know it."
He's right. I hate that he's right. But standing in my office looking at photos of my life captured without consent, I can't argue.
"Fine," I say again. "But I'm sleeping on the couch."
"Whatever makes you comfortable."