Chapter 1 - The Woman He Chose
Emma Hayes backed into the kitchen door and whispered, “Don’t come any closer.”
Damian Moretti stopped in front of her and looked at the leather ledger in her hands.
A tiny number had been written beneath its brass clasp.
Damian’s expression changed.
This was no longer about stolen charity money.
Twenty-four women had been waiting for Damian Moretti to choose one of them.
Not one understood why he had chosen Emma Hayes.
Neither did Emma.
The Sterling Children’s Foundation ballroom had gone almost completely silent around them. A few seconds earlier, crystal glasses had been clinking beneath chandeliers and a string quartet had been playing near the marble staircase. Now hundreds of Chicago’s wealthiest people were pretending not to stare.
They were failing.
Damian stood two feet from Emma.
Tall. Controlled. Dressed entirely in charcoal and black.
He did not look like a man who needed bodyguards, although four of them had entered with him.
Emma held the ledger tighter.
“You’re Emma Hayes,” Damian said.
“How do you know my name?”
“The same way you know mine.”
“Your name is in newspapers.”
A faint trace of amusement touched his face.
“Not the sections you read.”
“I read the financial section.”
“Of course you do.”
Emma wished her voice sounded less steady.
Fear would have made sense.
Instead, irritation was winning.
Three hours ago, she had been an accountant trying to finish an audit. Now the most feared man in Chicago was standing between her and the only obvious exit.
Behind Damian, Mateo Cruz watched her.
Emma recognized the scar along his jaw from newspaper photographs.
Damian’s second-in-command.
Mateo’s attention moved from Emma to the folder.
Then to her purse.
Emma noticed.
So did Damian.
“Don’t,” Damian said quietly.
Mateo stopped.
Emma blinked.
That single word had not been directed at her.
Damian looked back at her.
“You found South Shore Hospitality.”
Her mouth went dry.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The duplicate invoices.”
Silence.
“The false vendor addresses.”
Her fingers tightened.
“Calder Freight.”
Emma said nothing.
Damian stepped slightly closer.
“You’re very bad at lying.”
“I’m an accountant.”
“Exactly.”
Behind them, someone laughed nervously and immediately stopped.
Emma glanced toward the ballroom entrance.
Two unfamiliar men stood beside it.
They were not Damian’s people.
She knew because Damian looked at them too.
Only for half a second.
That was enough.
Something was wrong.
“Are you going to kill me?” Emma asked.
Mateo’s eyebrows lifted.
Damian’s expression remained unchanged.
“If I intended to kill you, Miss Hayes, you would not have seen me coming.”
“Comforting.”
“I didn’t come here to threaten you.”
“You walked into a ballroom with four armed men.”
“Three.”
Emma looked behind him.
Four men.
Damian followed her gaze.
His face hardened.
The fourth man was moving toward them.
Fast.
“Mateo.”
Everything happened at once.
Mateo stepped between Damian and the approaching stranger.
The stranger reached beneath his jacket.
Damian caught Emma around the waist.
“Down.”
He pulled her behind a marble serving station as guests screamed.
A champagne glass shattered.
Then another sound cracked through the ballroom.
Not a gunshot.
A serving tray hitting the floor.
Security guards tackled the stranger before he could draw whatever was beneath his jacket.
People surged toward the exits.
Emma tried to stand.
Damian kept one hand against her shoulder.
“Wait.”
“Get off me.”
“Wait.”
His voice was so calm that she obeyed despite herself.
Mateo appeared moments later.
“Knife,” he said.
Damian looked toward the struggling man.
“Who?”
“No identification.”
Emma’s heart hammered.
“This was about you.”
Damian turned toward her.
“No.”
“How can you possibly know?”
“Because he never looked at me.”
Emma stopped breathing.
Damian pointed toward the purse hanging from her shoulder.
“He looked at that.”
The encrypted drive.
Someone knew.
Emma slowly stood.
Damian did too.
“What exactly did you copy?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Stop lying.”
“Stop ordering me around.”
“You have perhaps five minutes before whoever sent that man realizes he failed.”
“Then I’ll call the police.”
“You should.”
That surprised her.
Damian removed his phone and held it toward her.
“Call them.”
Emma stared at him.
“You think I won’t?”
“I think you should ask them one question.”
“What?”
“Ask who authorized Detective Warren Pike to receive evidence from tonight’s Sterling audit.”
Emma’s expression changed.
She knew that name.
Pike had emailed Paul Mercer that afternoon.
He had said he was the financial-crimes liaison assigned to the charity.
“How do you know about Pike?”
Damian lowered the phone.
“Because he has been taking money from someone for six years.”
“You?”
“No.”
That answer came too quickly to be theatrical.
Emma searched his face.
“Then who?”
“That is what I have been trying to discover.”
The ballroom was being evacuated around them.
Damian looked down at the ledger.
“Where did you get that?”
“The auction office.”
“No.”
“I just told you.”
“I know what you told me. That ledger hasn’t belonged to the foundation in twelve years.”
Emma looked at the worn leather cover.
“It was in their cabinet.”
“Someone put it there.”
“Why?”
“For you to find.”
A cold sensation moved down Emma’s spine.
Damian held out his hand.
She pulled the ledger closer.
“No.”
“If I wanted to take it, we wouldn’t be negotiating.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It wasn’t intended to be.”
Emma hesitated.
Then she opened the ledger herself.
Pages of handwritten transactions filled the interior.
Most were old.
She had barely examined them because the digital records had seemed more important.
Damian turned several pages without touching them.
“Stop.”
Emma stopped.
His gaze settled on a transaction dated seventeen years earlier.
$417,000.
Account: HAYES CONSULTING.
Emma stared.
Her father had owned Hayes Consulting.
Until his death.
“That’s impossible.”
Damian looked at her.
“Your father was Daniel Hayes?”
Emma could barely answer.
“Yes.”
Daniel Hayes had died when Emma was fifteen.
Car accident.
At least that was what she had always believed.
Damian’s face had become unreadable.
“You knew him,” Emma said.
“No.”
“You recognized his company.”
“I recognized the amount.”
“Why?”
Damian looked around the ballroom before answering.
“Because $417,000 disappeared from my father’s organization the week yours died.”
Emma felt as though the floor had shifted beneath her.
“My father was a tax consultant.”
“So was mine.”
She stared at him.
“That makes no sense.”
“It will.”
Mateo approached.
“We need to leave.”
Emma shook her head.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Mateo looked at Damian.
Damian did not argue.
Instead, he reached inside his jacket.
Emma tensed.
He removed a folded piece of paper.
“A courier brought this to my office two hours ago.”
He handed it to her.
Emma unfolded it.
There was only one sentence.
LET THE ACCOUNTANT FIND 417.
Below it was a photograph.
Emma recognized herself leaving work that morning.
Someone had taken it from across the street.
Her stomach turned.
“Who sent this?”
“We don’t know.”
“Then why come here?”
“To find you before they did.”
Emma stared at the photograph.
“You expect me to believe you’re protecting me?”
“No.”
Damian stepped closer.
“I expect you to stay alive long enough to decide for yourself.”
Emma looked toward the ballroom entrance.
The man who had approached her was gone.
So were the security guards who had restrained him.
“Where is he?”
Mateo turned.
His expression sharpened.
Damian immediately understood.
Someone had removed the attacker during the evacuation.
Emma reached for her phone.
A new message appeared.
Unknown number.
She opened it.
A photograph filled the screen.
Her mother.
Sitting inside her own kitchen.
Taken through the window.
Underneath were five words.
BRING THE DRIVE. COME ALONE.
Then another message appeared.
It contained an address Emma knew better than her own.
Her mother’s house.
Emma looked up at Damian.
“My mother.”
Damian read the screen.
His calm disappeared.
“Mateo, get the car.”
Emma grabbed his arm.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“That is my mother.”
“And this is a trap.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will when you understand who set it.”
Damian turned toward the exit.
Emma followed.
Then her phone vibrated again.
This time, the message contained no photograph.
Only a name.
Emma read it once.
Then again.
Her blood went cold.
Because the name on the screen belonged to the man she had trusted with every detail of the audit.
Paul Mercer.
May you like
And beneath his name were three words.
HE KNOWS EVERYTHING.
