Chapter 4A
Rose
He doesn’t know I’m watching him.
None of them do.
The cameras were installed after the divorce, officially for "enhanced security" and "board oversight." That’s what the memo said. Motion sensors in the halls. Discreet lenses in the elevators. Keycard logs, firewall upgrades, a whole glossy presentation about how safe we all are now.
Safety is a good story, but control is a better one.
Cain thinks the system belongs to him. He signed the authorization forms, approved the budget, and nodded along while IT explained encryption protocols and data retention policies. He calls it protection, calls it necessary. He calls it mine when he wants to flatter me.
He’s wrong. It belongs to whoever knows how to use it.
My office is dark except for the glow of my laptop. Board meeting ended an hour ago; the others scattered to their dinners, families and their little lives. I stayed. Told them I had numbers to review. It wasn’t a lie. There are always numbers.
But tonight, the numbers are in the background. Tonight, the feed is front and center.
Camera 12: Executive floor reception. Empty.
Camera 15: Hallway outside Cain’s office. Dim, the way I prefer it when I watch.
And there.
Grey.
He sits at his desk, shoulders rounded, head bent, lit only by his screen. The rest of the floor is dark, the way it always is after hours, but he stays. He always stays.
Five months ago, I watched Cain bring him into this building for the first time. A new hire with a clean résumé and a polite smile. Nothing special. Nothing obvious. Just another secretary with good references and better posture.
Then he looked at Cain.
Not the way most people look at him with polite respect, fear, and greed. It was hungrier. Sharper. Like he’d been starving for years and had finally found something, he thought could fill him.
I recognized that look. I’ve had it myself.
I remember the night he made his first million. He called me at 2 AM. Not his Ex. Me. We sat on the floor of his empty office and drank cheap champagne. He said, "You're the only one who gets it." I believed him.
Years of small observations and smaller victories. Which coffee he actually drinks versus what he orders in front of clients. The way his shoes drags when he’s tired. The exact moment in a negotiation where his voice changes and everyone else loses without realizing it.
I built a file on Cain, and everything that makes him Cain.
Then Grey walked in and tilted the axis.
On the screen, he’s still typing. But I’m not looking at the words. I’m watching the tabs at the top of his browser. The shitty little details most people never notice.
Net worth. House. Divorce. He’s googling Cain again. I zoom the feed. His cursor hovers over a search bar. He hesitates then types: Cain Micheals dating.
I smile.
Of course.
He’s not even subtle about it. Doing it from his own desk, on his work machine, like no one has ever explained what audit logs are. Like the whole office isn’t wired to notice when someone spends twenty minutes refreshing an article about Cains’ marital status.
Pathetic, I think. But it’s not contempt, not entirely. There’s a sliver of fascination in there too. Most people hide better than this. He doesn’t. Or doesn’t know how. He clicks away from the search. Opens a folder at the edge of his screen. The name is minimal and clean. Just a single letter.
C.
My fingers tighten on the edge of my laptop. I’ve seen the folder before, in passing, when I walked by his desk this morning and his screen flashed just enough for me to glimpse it. I couldn’t stop. Board members aren’t supposed to snoop, at least not openly.
But the cameras don’t care about supposed to.
Grey scrolls. Columns of files flick past, too fast for the camera to render every name, but I catch enough. Schedule. Audio. Photos. Contacts. Hundreds of images. Cain in conference rooms. Cain getting out of his car. Cain at the window in his office, a ghost in gray light.
One frame holds too long.
Cain’s living room.
My breath catches.
It’s an interior shot. Not from the hallway feed; not from building security. It’s closer. Intimate. The angle is wrong for any legitimate camera.
Grey has been inside his apartment. Of course he has.
I feel the old familiar heat of jealousy, rage, something twisted and sharp flares under my ribs. I’ve been waiting three years, and the little mouse broke into his penthouse in less than six months.
I should be impressed. I’m not.
I scroll in my own file. It’s neatly organized: timestamps, stills, transcripts.
Evidence. Power. Leo would be horrified if he saw what I’ve done with the access he gave me, but Leo isn’t here.
Leo is useful. That’s his defining trait.
Not brilliant, not ruthless. Useful. The type of man who believes women when they say they’re afraid.
Three weeks ago, I walked into his tiny office with its dying plant, family photos and sat down, hands folded, shoulders tight. Told him someone was following me.
"I think it’s a former client." I said. "I think he got my home address. He keeps showing up in the lobby after hours. I don’t feel safe."
Leo’s face had gone pale. "Of course, Ms. Sophie. We’ll increase coverage. We’ll look into it."
I let my voice tremble, just enough. I let my eyes gloss with unshed tears.
I let him see exactly the kind of prey he’s trained to protect.
"Is there a way, I asked, to…monitor the floors more closely? I don’t want to bother Mr. Micheals with this.
You know how busy he is. If I could just see… who’s around."
It took ten minutes. Ten minutes of feigned vulnerability and careful prompting, and Leo handed me the goods. Door logs, feed access, and admin passwords, "temporarily, just until you feel safe."
I’ve never felt safer in my life.
I swipe back to the current feed. Grey is still there. Still staring at his screen like it holds everything he’s ever wanted.
He doesn’t know I’ve watched him press his forehead against Cain’s office door like it’s holy. Doesn’t know I’ve seen him stand in the empty hallway at midnight, hand on the handle, backing away like someone has tethered him there with invisible rope.
Doesn’t know a board member has a private archive of his worst impulses.
On my phone is a secondary folder. Not the official security files I could show in a board meeting, not the sanitized logs and neatly timestamped anomalies. A personal file.
Grey.
I open it now. Scroll past the images until I reach my favorite sequence: stills from camera 15, taken over six nights.
Night one: Grey outside Cain’s office, just standing.
Night three: his hand on the doorframe, knuckles white.
Night five: his forehead pressed to the wood, eyes closed.
Night six: Cain watching him back.
That was the pivot point. For months, this had been amusing. A secretary with a crush, an obsessive little man who thought stealing paperclips counted as intimacy. I let him play. It wasn’t my problem.
Then the angle of Cain’s gaze changed.
The first time I saw it was in the elevator footage. Two people, a closed box of mirrored walls and bad music. Cain on his phone, usual bored expression, half-listening to someone drone about projections. Grey in the corner, pretending not to stare.
Halfway between floors, Cain hung up. Put his phone away. Turned his head.
Looked at him.
Not the brief, polite acknowledgement he gives every employee who has done something useful that day. A real look. Focused. Measuring. Curious.
I’ve seen that look on his face before, in his office, when he studies a new acquisition target and decides whether to gut it or keep it.
Seeing it directed at Grey changed the game.