Chapter 23
On Thursday, Celine and I went to the agency to clear out the office.
Most of the contents had been sitting ever since Marco forced me to reopen the doors—boxes stacked and untouched, like the business itself had been holding its breath, waiting to see whether it would survive or finally be allowed to die.
Packing what remained took less time than I expected.
Too little, considering how much of my life had once lived within these walls.
While Celine stepped outside to take a call, I drifted toward Ray’s old office.
The room was stripped bare now. No desk.
No chairs—just the folding kind we’d brought in.
On the walls, pale rectangles marked where framed certificates and photographs had once hung.
Even the air felt wrong. Thin. Stale. It still carried the faint scent of old paper and the cologne Ray favored near the end.
And beneath it all—the heavier thing.
The smell of secrets.
Who would have known that for years this place had been the nerve center of a money-laundering operation? Medicare fraud. Illegal gambling profits washed clean behind polished smiles and corporate letterhead.
I ran my fingers along the wall, tracing the faint outline where a bookcase once sat.
“Well, Ray,” I murmured, my voice swallowed by the emptiness. “This is it.”
My throat tightened.
“I’m closing it for good. No more loose ends. No more ghosts.” I paused, then added more quietly, “Creed will keep us safe. He protects the girls. He protects me.”
The words felt strange in my mouth—like a confession offered to someone who could no longer argue back.
I brushed away the tear that slipped free despite my resolve and turned toward the front office just as Celine came back in.
“Sorry,” she said lightly. “That was my daughter. She started a training program this week, and I need to pick my granddaughter up from school.”
“Go,” I said. “I just need to load the last few things and take down the sign in the window.”
The Elite Staffing sign still hung there—wooden, hand-painted, slightly crooked. Ray had commissioned it years ago from a local artist for the open house. Back when everything had still felt... legitimate.
“I’ll help you get it down,” Celine said, already moving closer.
“I’ve got it.”
She smiled. Patient. She’d always been patient with me. “You know I won’t leave until you let me.”
I climbed onto a chair and lifted the sign from its hooks while she steadied it from below.
“I think I’ll hang it in the twins’ room,” I said. “Just as a reminder of their father.”
She nodded. “That makes sense.”
We packed the last of the boxes and carried the sign out to my car, where I laid it carefully in the trunk.
“I’ve got the rest,” I said. “Go before traffic gets heavy.”
“Oh—” Celine snapped her fingers. “The laptop. I left the bag under the windowsill.”
The laptop.
The one we’d used at the office so the IP address wouldn’t change.
Because some things only stayed hidden if they stayed familiar.
“I’ve got it,” I repeated, firmer this time. “Take care of your granddaughter.”
Another pause. Then she hugged me and drove off.
I stood there longer than necessary, watching her taillights fade. A heaviness settled in my chest—an instinctive unease I couldn’t quite name.
I glanced around the parking lot, then turned back inside.
The agency felt different now. Too quiet. The kind of silence that presses against your ears, making you hyperaware of every breath, every footstep, every shift of air.
The laptop sat exactly where we’d left it. My fingers brushed the smooth casing, and a chill slid down my spine. I sat it by the door to Ray’s office, then I crouched to lift the final box and carried it to the front. It was heavier than it should’ve been.
When I turned—
He was standing there.
Just inside the doorway.
Watching me.
My heart slammed hard enough to steal the air from my lungs.
Francesco.
He didn’t rush me. Didn’t smile. He simply looked down at the box, then back at my face—slow, deliberate.
As if he’d known exactly when I’d be here.
I set the box down carefully.
Not because he told me to.
Because my body understood something my mind hadn’t caught up to yet.
Francesco Vincenzo stood with his hands loose at his sides, posture relaxed. He hadn’t stepped closer. He didn’t need to. Men like him occupied space without effort—quietly, completely—like the room had already rearranged itself around him.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said. My voice didn’t shake. That surprised me.
Francesco smiled faintly. “And yet,” he said, “here we are.”
He turned the lock.
That was the first real spike of fear.
“I’m closing the agency,” I said.
He glanced around the stripped-down office—the pale squares on the walls, the scuffed carpet, the place where Ray’s life had once been.
“Looks like you already did,” he said. “Clean exit. Very American.”
My fingers tightened by my sides.
“How did you know I’d be here?” I asked.
He tilted his head, studying me. Measuring.
“You’re predictable,” he said at last. “You like to finish things yourself.”
That wasn’t the answer.
And we both knew it.
“You’ve been following me.” I took a step back, angling toward the door. His gaze flicked to my feet, then returned to my face.
“Relax,” he said gently. “If I wanted to hurt you, we wouldn’t be talking.”
My pulse jumped.
“That’s not comforting.”
“It should be,” he replied. “I’m not my father.”
Marco Vincenzo.
The name rang through my skull like a warning bell. If this wasn’t about Marco...
“Then why are you here?” I asked.
His eyes dropped to the box.
“Because your husband was sloppy,” he said. “And I want my money.”
Cold unease slid down my spine.
“Whatever Ray did, died with him.”
Francesco’s mouth curved slightly.
“No,” he said. “What he did lives very comfortably offshore.”
Silence pressed in.
That was the moment everything shifted—the instant this stopped being confrontation and became calculation.
“You don’t have access,” I said.
Not a question.
His gaze lifted. Dark. Sharp.
“No,” he agreed. “But you do.”
The quiet hummed.
“That’s fortunate,” he added. “For you.”
I swallowed.
“If you think threatening me is going to make me hand over anything—”
“I’m not threatening you,” he cut in, his voice never rising. That was worse. “I’m explaining the situation.”
Francesco stepped closer.
One step.
My back brushed the folding table.
“The account is untouched,” he said. “That tells me you’re smarter than your husband.”
I stayed silent.
“And it tells me something else,” he continued. “You’re waiting. The question is—why?”
He was too close now. I could smell his cologne. Clean. Expensive. Wrong.
“I didn’t touch the money,” I said. “I don’t plan to.”
“Of course not,” he replied. “Because you think moving it is the danger.”
His gaze dropped to the box.
“But the danger,” he said, “is leaving it exactly where it is.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He smiled again. This time there was pity in it.
“Peyton,” he said, “everyone who knows that account exists is already watching it.”
My breath caught.
“You log in,” he continued, “and alarms whisper instead of scream. Location. Time stamp. Patterns.”
He knew.
I stared at him..
“You don’t touch it,” he said, “and the question becomes why.”
My chest tightened.
“You want me to move it.”
“Yes,” he said. “Eventually.”
“And if I don’t?”
His gaze slid past me, to the hallway, the exit, the world beyond this room.
“Then you remain a person of interest,” he said. “And that’s never good for a mother of two.”
Ice flooded my veins. “My daughters have nothing to do with this.”
The air changed when he looked back at me.
“Then don’t make it about them,” he said.
Quiet.
Final.
My phone buzzed in my purse.
We both froze.
Francesco glanced at the sound, then back at me. His smile sharpened.
“You should answer that,” he said. “Let Kirkland know I’m here to collect. I promise you—he won’t get here fast enough.”
My breath hitched, but I didn’t answer. I kept my eyes locked on Francesco.
“You thought no one was watching?” His head tilted. “You logged in. And now I know you know how to access it.”
“How?” I asked, stalling.
“Ray received email notifications,” Francesco said easily. “Haley had access to his inbox. And now”—his mouth curved—“so do I.”
It took seconds for the words to register.
Then my stomach dropped.
“Haley?” I whispered. “Why would she—”
He made a soft ticking sound with his tongue.
“We were working together.”
My skin went cold.
“You and Haley?”
“Bingo.”
“He thought a woman like that wanted him?” Francesco scoffed. “Please.”
The air left my lungs.
“She told you Ray was stealing?”
He nodded, almost amused. “The idiot thought they were going to run away together.”
“Then why didn’t she take the money?”
He looked at me like I was the foolish one.
“Because he never told her where he hid it.”
Ray must’ve known better. Somewhere deep down.
“She was supposed to find it,” Francesco continued. “We were splitting it. Fifty-fifty. But my father killed him before we got access.”
“And Haley?”
“She stayed. Ran the business. Tried to locate the account.” His jaw tightened. “Then you complicated things by shutting it down.”
“So, you killed her?” I asked.
“No,” he said flatly. “My father believed she’d betrayed him. He doesn’t tolerate uncertainty.”
The pieces slammed together.
“He had no idea she was working for you,” I said.
Francesco smiled.
“But Marco killed her before she could get me access,” I whispered.
“And now,” Francesco said, “there’s you.”
“I don’t have the passcode.”
He studied me. For a moment, I thought he believed me.
Then he shrugged. “You located the account. You have the username. The password. You even logged in. The hard part’s done.”
My ears roared.
“So, figure out the rest,” he added. “Or those pretty little girls get reunited with their father.”
The world hollowed, like I’d sunk underwater.
I looked into his eyes.
He would do it.
My phone buzzed again.
Creed.
Sweat gathered between my breasts.
Francesco’s gaze locked onto the sound. “Your boyfriend again?”
I nodded.
“Put him on speaker.”
My hands shook as I answered. “Creed.”
“Peyton?” His voice was sharp. Alert. “What’s wrong?”
“The agency,” I whispered. “He’s here.”
“Who?”
I met Francesco’s devilish grin.
“Francesco.”
Silence.
Francesco stepped closer.
“One foot inside this building,” he said calmly, “and I’ll blow her head off.”
He lifted his shirt just enough for me to see the gun at his waist.
I stopped breathing.
The trap had closed.
And this time—
There was nowhere left to run.