Chapter 7 - THE MAN I THOUGHT I CHOSE
Brendan and I met four years earlier at a coffee shop.
He spilled tea near my laptop.
Apologized.
Bought me another drink.
Asked what I was reading.
For six months, he was charming.
Then slowly he became interested in everything.
My schedule.
My friends.
My passwords.
My clothes.
Where I went after work.
By the time I understood attention had become surveillance, I was already changing my behavior to avoid upsetting him.
Now I had to consider something worse.
Maybe he had selected me.
The Kensington Foundation gala filled an entire ballroom overlooking Central Park.
Diamonds.
Champagne.
Men who spoke softly because their money was loud enough.
I wore a borrowed black dress Vanessa—Miles’s sister, whom I had met only briefly—sent upstairs.
Jared wore a tuxedo.
He looked exactly like the dangerous man people whispered about.
Except when he looked at me.
Then something changed.
“You stay beside Miles.”
“No.”
His mouth tightened.
“We discussed this.”
“You discussed it.”
“You have an impressive relationship with disobedience.”
“I had a man tell me what to do for three years. I’m currently retired from the experience.”
That ended the argument.
Dominic arrived at nine.
He smiled for cameras.
Kissed an elderly donor’s cheek.
Shook Jared’s hand as if nobody had accused him of murder six hours earlier.
Nero wasn’t there.
But the memory card was.
Or rather, a copy.
The original remained elsewhere.
At 9:23, Brendan appeared on the second-floor balcony.
My body reacted before my mind did.
Jared noticed.
“You don’t have to speak to him.”
“I do.”
Brendan led me into an empty gallery.
Jared stayed within sight.
For once, he didn’t interfere.
Brendan looked thinner.
Older.
Less powerful than he did in my memories.
“Why did you choose me?”
He looked genuinely ashamed.
“I was paid to watch you.”
The answer still hurt.
“By Dominic?”
“Not initially.”
“Who?”
“Evelyn.”
I stared.
“No.”
“She hired a private investigator after meeting you at the clinic.”
“That was six months ago. Brendan, I met you four years ago.”
His face changed.
“Then you don’t know.”
“Know what?”
He swallowed.
“Your father worked for the Kensington family.”
My father had died when I was six.
Construction accident.
Ordinary man.
Ordinary life.
At least that was what my mother told me.
Brendan continued.
“Daniel Thornton wasn’t a construction worker.”
Jared moved closer.
Brendan saw him and lowered his voice.
“He was Jared’s father’s accountant.”
Jared stopped.
“What?”
“Daniel discovered Dominic was stealing from the family twenty-two years ago.”
My hands went cold.
“What happened to him?”
Brendan looked at me.
“The construction accident was staged.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Dominic killed my father?”
“I don’t know who gave the order.”
“Then why were you watching me four years ago?”
“Because somebody started looking for Daniel’s missing ledger.”
“What ledger?”
Brendan reached inside his jacket.
Jared’s hand moved instantly.
“Relax.”
Brendan removed an old photograph.
My father stood beside Jared’s father.
Between them was a small wooden box.
On the back, my father had written:
FOR WILLA WHEN SHE’S OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW WHAT KENSINGTON MEANS.
I stared at my own name.
Brendan whispered:
“The ledger was never about money.”
“What was it about?”
He looked toward Dominic across the ballroom.
“Names.”
“Whose names?”
“Everybody Dominic bought.”
Then the lights went out.
People screamed.
When emergency lighting returned ten seconds later, Brendan was gone.
So was Dominic.
And on the gallery floor lay the silver memory card.
Crushed beneath a shoe.
But beside it was something much worse.
May you like
A fresh bloodstain.
And Jared was missing too.
