Chapter 1 - Eight Months Missing
Harper Reed dropped the silver drive onto Mateo Falcone’s desk and whispered, “Simon framed me.”
Mateo stepped forward and picked up the tiny metal object.
A thin scratch crossed its back.
Under the scratch were three engraved characters:
“F-17.”
Mateo stopped breathing.
Simon Gorski had not been working alone.
The silence inside the penthouse office became heavier than any shouting could have been.
Harper stood on the opposite side of the enormous desk, one hand resting against the curve of her stomach.
Eight months pregnant.
Eight months missing.
And standing less than six feet from the man she had once believed might order her death.
Mateo Falcone had frightened powerful men without raising his voice. He had built an empire from legitimate construction companies, shipping contracts, restaurants, and businesses whose ownership became considerably less clear once investigators started asking questions.
Harper had never been impressed by any of it.
That had been one of the reasons Mateo hired her.
She had been a forensic accountant with an irritating habit of asking questions nobody else dared ask.
Twenty million dollars had disappeared from several companies connected to Mateo.
Harper had found the pattern.
Then the pattern had changed.
Suddenly, every electronic trail pointed toward her.
Her passwords.
Her credentials.
Her authorization codes.
Someone had constructed a perfect financial portrait of a thief.
Then two armed men had entered the records room after midnight.
Harper had escaped through a service stairwell with the master ledgers in her bag.
She had run before Mateo could hear her explanation.
For 243 days, she had paid cash, used false names, changed motels, avoided airports and security cameras, and slept with furniture pushed against doors.
Six days into that nightmare, she had discovered she was pregnant.
Now Mateo stared at her as though that fact mattered more than the missing money, the ledgers, or the betrayal.
“How far?” he asked again.
Harper hated how vulnerable the question made her feel.
“Eight months.”
His jaw tightened.
She watched him calculate.
There was no possibility of confusion.
Their relationship had never been simple enough to call love and never casual enough to dismiss.
One night before everything collapsed, the walls between them had disappeared.
One night.
Then Harper had vanished.
Mateo slowly approached her.
“Is the baby mine?”
Harper looked toward the three men standing behind him.
Liam Costa, Mateo’s security chief, understood immediately.
“Everyone out.”
The guards moved.
The female assistant near the bookshelf followed them.
Within seconds, the heavy doors closed.
Mateo and Harper were alone.
Harper looked at him.
“Yes.”
The word was almost soundless.
Mateo did not move.
Harper had expected anger.
Questions.
Maybe accusation.
She had not expected the strange devastation that crossed his face.
He turned away.
One tattooed hand braced against the desk.
“You knew?”
“Six days after I left.”
“And you never told me.”
“I thought you wanted me dead.”
Mateo turned sharply.
“I never ordered anyone to hurt you.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You knew me.”
“I knew two armed men came into a locked records room looking for me.”
“They weren’t mine.”
“I know that now.”
His expression changed.
Harper opened her handbag.
She removed several folded documents and placed them beside the silver drive.
“Simon manipulated the access records. But he couldn’t completely erase the original authentication chain. I found fragments.”
Mateo glanced down.
“Why come back now?”
“Because Simon is dead.”
Mateo’s eyes narrowed.
“And?”
“And whoever was above him thinks the problem disappeared with him.”
That got his attention.
Harper pulled out another sheet.
A network of company names covered the page.
Some were legitimate.
Some were shell corporations.
At the center sat a company called Fulton Meridian Holdings.
“I followed the money,” Harper said.
Mateo studied it.
“Fulton Meridian doesn’t exist.”
“It does on paper.”
“Owner?”
“Hidden behind six trusts.”
Mateo looked at her.
“But you found something.”
“I found seventeen.”
His gaze immediately shifted toward the drive.
F-17.
Harper nodded.
“Every suspicious transfer was broken into seventeen pieces before being moved offshore.”
“How much?”
“Not twenty million.”
Mateo waited.
Harper swallowed.
“Eighty-six million.”
His face hardened.
“That’s impossible.”
“I thought so too.”
She pointed toward several transactions.
“The twenty million I discovered was only what they wanted me to discover.”
Mateo looked at the numbers.
“A decoy.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“To make you hunt me instead of whoever was actually stealing from you.”
Mateo became silent.
Harper knew that expression.
He was rearranging eight months of assumptions.
Simon had betrayed him.
But Simon had not possessed the authority required to move eighty-six million dollars through multiple companies.
Someone else did.
Someone close.
Someone trusted.
Mateo looked at the drive again.
“What’s on this?”
“Everything I could recover.”
“Password?”
Harper hesitated.
Mateo noticed.
“What?”
“The drive has two encryption layers.”
“And?”
“I can open the first.”
“The second?”
“I never cracked it.”
Mateo’s eyes sharpened.
“Then who can?”
“I think whoever created F-17.”
A sudden pain tightened across Harper’s abdomen.
She inhaled sharply.
Mateo was beside her instantly.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
“The baby kicked.”
“You looked like you were in pain.”
“I’m eight months pregnant, Mateo. Everything hurts.”
His expression remained alarmed.
Despite herself, Harper almost smiled.
This man could face armed enemies without blinking.
One movement from an unborn baby had terrified him.
Mateo noticed her expression.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You smiled.”
“I absolutely did not.”
“You did.”
Another movement rolled beneath Harper’s palm.
Mateo stared.
Harper hesitated.
Then she took his hand.
She placed it against her stomach.
Mateo froze.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then the baby kicked.
His entire expression changed.
The ruthless composure disappeared.
“Jesus.”
Harper’s throat tightened.
Another kick.
Mateo lowered his eyes.
“My son?”
“We don’t know.”
“Daughter?”
“I didn’t want to find out.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted one surprise that nobody could steal from me.”
Mateo looked at her.
The anger between them suddenly seemed much smaller than the months separating them.
“I would have protected you.”
Harper slowly removed his hand.
“I needed to know whether I needed protection from you.”
The words hurt him.
Good, she thought.
Maybe they needed to.
Mateo stepped back.
“Simon confessed before he died.”
Harper stiffened.
“What?”
“He admitted framing you.”
“How did Simon die?”
Mateo did not answer immediately.
“He was shot before he could tell me who ordered it.”
“By you?”
“No.”
Harper searched his face.
“Then by whom?”
“We never found the shooter.”
A chill moved through her.
Simon had been eliminated.
Not punished.
Silenced.
“Mateo.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
Harper reached for the drive.
He stopped her.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
She stared at F-17.
“I received something three weeks ago.”
“What?”
“A photograph.”
“Of?”
“Me.”
Mateo went still.
“Where?”
“Outside a motel in Milwaukee.”
“You were followed?”
“I changed hotels twenty minutes later.”
“Who sent it?”
“Unknown number.”
“What did the message say?”
Harper remembered every word.
“Go home before the child arrives.”
Mateo’s expression became lethal.
“Why didn’t you lead with that?”
“Because there’s more.”
She took out her phone.
No active SIM.
No personal accounts.
Almost nothing stored locally.
Except one photograph.
Harper opened it.
Mateo studied the screen.
It showed Harper leaving a motel.
Across the street stood a black sedan.
The photographer’s reflection was faintly visible in the glass of a nearby storefront.
Mateo enlarged it.
His breathing changed.
“You recognize him?”
Mateo did not answer.
“Mateo.”
He looked toward the closed office door.
Then back at Harper.
“Stay here.”
“Who is it?”
“Harper.”
“Who?”
Mateo took the phone.
Before he could answer, the office lights went out.
Harper gasped.
Mateo immediately pulled her behind him.
Emergency lights illuminated the room in dim red.
Footsteps sounded outside.
Liam shouted something from the hallway.
Then came a gunshot.
Harper gripped Mateo’s arm.
The office door handle slowly turned.
Mateo reached beneath his desk.
His hand came back holding a pistol.
Another gunshot echoed.
Closer.
The handle stopped moving.
Then Harper’s phone lit up in Mateo’s hand.
A message had arrived from the same unknown number.
Mateo opened it.
May you like
Four words appeared on the screen.
“I know she returned.”
