Chapter 18
Two days later, I told myself I was being irrational.
The unease creeping beneath my skin, the constant prickle at the nape of my neck—it had to be my imagination.
Fear had always worked that way for me, subtle and patient, coiling quietly around my spine while I pretended not to feel it.
It waited until the moment I convinced myself I was safe before it struck.
Someone knew.
Someone had been alerted the instant I accessed that account, and yet nothing had happened. No strange calls. No anonymous warnings. No unfamiliar cars idling too long on my street. The absence of reaction only sharpened the dread, turning silence into something loud and watchful.
At work, I caught myself scanning the corridors, my reflection in the glass walls taut and restless.
My fingers curled around the edge of my desk as I skimmed emails, waiting for an unsigned message or a cryptic threat that never came.
Every shadow felt wrong. Every unfamiliar face lingered a second too long.
Nothing.
When I picked up the girls from school, I studied the line of parents with forced calm, my heart stuttering every time an unfamiliar vehicle rolled past the curb. I memorized license plates without meaning to. Counted exits. Calculated distance.
Still nothing.
The nothing felt like something.
Sleep became a suggestion rather than a reality.
I twisted beneath the sheets, every creak of the house sending my pulse spiking.
I left the bedside lamp on, staring at shadows that stretched and shifted along the walls, waiting for movement that never came.
By morning, I was exhausted and wired, unraveling in slow motion.
Ray had done this.
I had believed I’d buried his secrets with him. Believed whatever sins he’d carried into the ground had died there, sealed beneath earth and finality. I had been wrong.
The account. The money. The fact that he’d hidden it in our daughters’ names. The weight of it sat heavy and unrelenting in my gut. Why them? Why not himself? What had he been planning?
And who else knew?
I needed to fix it. I just didn’t know how.
Going to the police should have been the obvious answer.
The responsible one. But what exactly would I tell them?
That I’d stumbled onto an offshore account holding three million dollars stolen from men I had no intention of ever encountering again?
That my dead husband had laundered money for the Vincenzo family and used our daughters’ identities as cover?
I could already see the questions forming in their eyes, suspicion sharpening with every word.
Why did he hide it in their names?
How long have you known about the money?
I didn’t have answers. And the one person who might have been able to untangle it was the man I had no business calling.
Marco.
My hands curled into fists at the thought. No.
I considered telling Aunt Ruth, then dismissed it immediately. She had joined a bingo group, and just met a widower named Donald who’d invited her to lunch next week. I wasn’t dragging her back into the shadows again.
Our involvement with the Vincenzos was supposed to be over. Creed had wiped Ray’s debt clean. Marco made it clear that business was concluded. Finished.
But had it ever really ended?
The last time I’d seen him, Marco’s eyes had been colder than the steel at my throat. And yet, the money was still there. Untouched.
I logged into the account again, staring at the glowing balance. If Marco—or anyone else—had access, wouldn’t it already be gone?
The question looped endlessly, every answer leading nowhere. Maybe I was paranoid. Ray was dead. Haley was dead. My ties to the Vincenzo family had ended months ago. By Friday, I had almost convinced myself that it was true.
Almost.
But the feeling didn’t go away. It stayed. Lurking in the quiet moments. In the shadows behind me. In the tightening of my chest when I stepped outside. In the way my pulse jumped at the sound of my phone buzzing on my desk. I told myself I was imagining things. Told myself I was overreacting.
I exhaled, logged out, then tried to shake the weight pressing down on me. Maybe I had nothing to fear.
But then again... maybe I did.
“Enough,” I muttered, pushing away from the desk.
I had allowed fear to steal my energy, my sleep, and far too much of the joy I took in running one of the hottest magazines in the country. I refused to let it take anything else.
“I’m not doing this.”
I planned a quiet, uneventful weekend with my girls. Movies. Takeout. Pajamas. Normal. I needed to close the door on the Vincenzos and on Creed once and for all.
No more games. No more waiting. No more heartache.
I packed up my briefcase, slipped into my full-length coat, and turned off the light in my office.
Celine was shrugging into her coat when I stepped out. We fell into step together. My heels echoed against the marble floor as we headed toward the elevators, the sound too sharp in the late hour. I forced a smile I didn’t quite feel.
“You okay?” she asked, her tone casual, her gaze anything but.
“Yeah,” I said, lying smoothly. “Just tired.”
She nodded, even though I could tell she didn’t believe me, then shifted topics without missing a beat. “The accountant called earlier. He needs the payroll records for the W-2s.”
Of course he did. Tax season never waits.
“Sure,” I replied. “I’ll transfer the information on Monday.”
Celine gave me a look that lingered, thoughtful and concerned, before she nodded. “Okay, sounds good.”
When the elevator reached the lobby, she stepped off. I continued down to the corporate parking garage alone.
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, cold, and unforgiving. The flicker made shadows stretch unnaturally along the concrete walls, bending the edges of my vision. I walked with my keys clenched between my fingers, breath shallow, senses tuned for movement.
A soft scuff of a shoe echoed behind me.
I stopped.
My pulse slammed hard as I turned.
Two employees emerged from the shadows, their conversation low, oblivious. One nodded politely before climbing into a black SUV.
I let out a shaky breath.
Get a grip.
An engine revved somewhere deeper in the garage as I reached my car and unlocked the door. Creed stepped out of the shadows beside it. My breath caught painfully in my chest.
After weeks of silence, weeks of nothing, he was just there. As if he had been waiting. Creed wore a black sweatshirt stretched across broad shoulders and dark jeans that clung to lean hips. Even dressed down, he looked dangerous. Effortlessly so.
I hadn’t even noticed his Maybach parked beside mine.
“Peyton,” he said, his voice low and smooth. “How are you?”
My heart leapt. I hated it for that. “I’m great.” A lie, clean and sharp.
I reached for my car door handle. “Have a good weekend.”
“Wait.” His hand pressed flat against the door before I could open it. “Don’t go.”
I looked at him, unimpressed. “Why?”
He stepped closer, his height and presence crowding the space without touching it. His scent wrapped around me, smoke, spice, and familiarity I hadn’t asked for.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“About what?” My tone sharpened. “What do you want?”
That disapproving look crossed his face, the one that used to make my stomach tighten. It didn’t work anymore.
“What do you want, Sir?”
His gaze locked onto mine. “I want you.”
I laughed once, cold, and humorless. “Really? Could’ve fooled me.”
“I had things I needed to work out.”
“Like what?” I shot back.
Silence.
“That’s what I thought.” My voice rose, edged with weeks of restraint snapping loose. “You disappeared. Again. No calls. No texts. No explanation. And now you’re standing here like I’m supposed to be grateful you showed up?”
He started to speak.
I cut him off.
“I’m not waiting around anymore, Creed. I’m not some obedient little puppy you can ignore until it suits you. I’ve had enough of playing by your rules.”
“Peyton—”
“No.” I lifted a hand. “I’m done.”
“If you give me five minutes, I can explain.”
“Explain what?” I demanded. “Why you shut me out whenever things get real? Why you vanish like I don’t matter?”
“You do matter.” His eyes darkened.
“Not enough.”
His jaw flexed, fists tightening at his sides.
“I’m not doing this dance with you anymore,” I said, my voice steady despite the ache underneath. “I want to be loved. I want a real relationship. I have two little girls to raise. I won’t let them watch their mother chase a man who can’t stay.”
“I want to be part of their lives,” he said, stepping closer. “I want to really get to know them.”
I turned on him sharply. “And that’s the problem.”
He stilled.
“They’re vulnerable,” I continued quietly. “So am I. If you disappear on them the way you disappear on me, I couldn’t survive watching their hearts break.”
“I would never intentionally hurt them.”
“You already have,” I whispered. “They asked about you. Over and over. And I had to make up reasons why you weren’t around.”
Something flickered across his face. Guilt. Fracture.
“I won’t do that anymore,” I said firmly.
His brow furrowed. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I want a man who chooses us,” I replied. “Someone who doesn’t run when things get complicated. And if I’m sleeping with my boss, that will never happen.”
Ice settled into his gaze.
“Goodnight, Creed.”
I slid into my car and shut the door. He stood there, hands in his pockets, watching as I pulled out of the garage.
In the rearview mirror, he hadn’t moved.
The drive home was quiet, heavy with everything I refused to say out loud. My chest ached. I missed him already. His presence. His voice. But I wouldn’t let him unravel me again.
As I turned onto my street, my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
I let it ring out.
When I pulled into the garage, it lit up again.
Unknown number.
I didn’t answer.
I shut the phone off, locked the door, and armed the alarm. Then I leaned back against the wall, heart pounding.
Something was coming.