Chapter 1 - The Seam That Was Never Supposed to Open
Don't touch that zipper.
Vaughn Mercer's voice came from behind me, low enough that I almost decided I had imagined it. Almost. My hand froze halfway behind my back, fingers still pinching the little metal pull that had refused to move for the last five minutes.
It was 11:38 at night on the forty-seventh floor of Mercer Maritime Holdings. Thirty seconds earlier I had been completely alone. The executive lounge was supposed to be empty. The gala downstairs had started an hour ago, the catering staff had moved to the ballroom, and every normal employee had gone home hours before.
I was only still there because my boss had changed three meetings, added two calls, cancelled a dinner, and somehow still expected me to appear at the company gala looking like I had not spent twelve straight hours fixing his schedule.
I had stepped into the private changing room with a garment bag, a cup of cold coffee, and exactly seven minutes to turn myself from exhausted executive secretary into someone who belonged beneath chandeliers.
Then the zipper jammed halfway up my back.
"Mr. Mercer."
His eyes did not come to my face right away. They had dropped toward the back of my dress — and there was nothing inappropriate in his expression. No smile. No amusement. Something colder than either of those replaced both.
"Do not move, Laurel."
"I am perfectly capable of handling a stuck zipper."
"It is not the zipper."
That changed the air between us more than anything he had said. Vaughn stepped inside and shut the door behind him without any hurry at all.
"You should probably open that again in about a minute."
"That is not how doors work."
Normally that would have earned me the smallest movement at the corner of his mouth. Tonight, nothing. He took out his phone, tapped the screen once.
"Ronin. Executive changing room."
He ended the call.
I stared at him through the mirror. "Would you like to explain why your security chief is coming to help me get dressed?"
"No one is helping you get dressed." His gaze settled on one precise point near my shoulder blade. "There is something caught beneath the fabric."
My irritation went somewhere. "A tag?"
"No."
He took one careful step closer and stopped well outside my personal space. He was thirty-six, six foot two, and had the irritating ability to make any room smaller simply by entering it. Most people stopped talking when Vaughn appeared. I usually kept working. It was one of the reasons I had lasted eleven months in this job when nobody else had lasted six.
"There is a metallic reflection inside the seam," he said.
I looked over my shoulder as if that could possibly help. "I cannot see my own back."
"Vaughn."
I almost never used his first name at work. He noticed. He always noticed everything.
"That is why I told you not to move."
Three soft knocks. He opened the door just far enough for Ronin Keen to come through.
Ronin was forty-two, broad-shouldered, quiet, and somehow more intimidating when he whispered than most men were when they shouted. He took one look at Vaughn's face and stopped asking unnecessary questions.
"What do you see?" Vaughn asked.
Ronin moved behind me, careful and professional. He studied it for less than ten seconds.
Then his expression changed.
"Sir."
That one word tightened my stomach. "What?"
Ronin looked at Vaughn before he answered me. I hated that.
"Please answer the woman wearing the dress."
"It appears to be a listening device."
For a moment I thought he was joking. Vaughn Mercer did not joke.
The room dropped ten degrees. I looked down at the dress I had received that afternoon — delivered in a white garment box with a card claiming it was a courtesy of the gala committee. I had barely glanced at the card. I had assumed somebody in public relations was making sure the executive secretary did not embarrass the company in front of donors.
Ronin removed it without damaging it and set it inside a small evidence pouch he carried in his jacket. It was smaller than my fingernail. Silver. Almost invisible.
Something that insignificant had just changed everything.
Vaughn looked at me. "Who sent you this dress?"
"The gala committee."
"Who specifically?"
"I don't know. Reception signed for it."
"Who knew you would wear it tonight?"
I thought about the email chain. "The event coordinator. Public relations. Two assistants downstairs. Several people."
Silence settled over the room. Vaughn's phone buzzed once. He ignored it.
"You are not going downstairs alone."
There it was. The tone everyone else obeyed without question. The voice that turned instructions into facts.
Unfortunately for him, I had spent eleven months managing that voice. I folded my arms.
"I was not planning to ask permission."
Ronin suddenly found the opposite wall fascinating. Vaughn stared at me. Most people looked away after three seconds. I had timed it once during a budget meeting; I made it to seven.
"Laurel," he said quietly. "Someone placed surveillance equipment on something you were expected to wear within twenty feet of me tonight. That is a security problem."
"We have a security problem." I let that sit. "We have a you problem."
His eyebrows rose a fraction. "Choose your next sentence carefully."
Something changed behind his eyes. Not anger. Recognition. Possibly even respect.
He walked to the door and opened it, then paused.
"Change into something else. Ronin will have the room and the ballroom checked."
I blinked. "You are still attending?"
"You are still attending," he corrected. "I thought I was the problem."
"You are." His gaze dropped briefly to the pouch in Ronin's hand. "Which means whoever planted that device may be expecting you."
He left the door open behind him and his footsteps went away down the marble corridor, unhurried as ever.
I stood there in a black dress with a needle-torn seam, listening to him go, and realized that the zipper had never really been stuck.
Somebody had wanted me to find something.
Or they had wanted him to.
Either possibility was worse, and for the first time since I had started working for the most powerful man I had ever met, I wondered how much of his life I actually knew.
The answer, as I would learn over the next few days, was almost nothing.
I changed into a backup dress and returned downstairs.
The gala was still in full swing.
Politicians laughed beneath gold chandeliers.
Shipping magnates lifted champagne glasses.
Celebrities posed beside giant floral arrangements.
No one knew that a listening device had just been removed from the back of my dress.
No one except Vaughn.
He stood near the stage.
His attention moved across the ballroom with surgical precision.
When he saw me, his eyes rested on me for one second.
Then two.
He motioned me closer.
"You stay beside me."
"That will start rumors."
"They already exist."
"Wonderful."
"You've had your coffee?"
"It died hours ago."
"Get another."
I almost smiled.
Then the lights flickered.
Just once.
Enough to make Ronin turn toward the ceiling.
Vaughn's hand closed around my elbow.
The band stopped.
A champagne glass crashed.
Then a waiter stumbled and dropped a silver tray.
Nothing happened.
People laughed awkwardly.
The music resumed.
But Vaughn didn't release me.
"Someone tested the power."
"Are you saying the device was only part of it?"
"Yes."
I looked at him.
"Who wants to hurt you?"
He gave me a cold glance.
"Several people."
"That's reassuring."
His eyes lowered to me.
"Someone wants to hurt you now, too."
My breath caught.
"Because I work for you?"
"No."
He paused.
"Because you know more than you realize."
I didn't sleep that night.
At 2:03 a.m., a black envelope appeared beneath my apartment door.
There was no name on it.
Inside was one photograph.
Me.
Taken that morning.
Walking into Mercer Maritime.
On the back, three words were written.
You were chosen.
I stared at the photograph for several minutes.
Then I called Vaughn.
He answered on the first ring.
"What happened?"
"Someone left a photo under my door."
Silence.
"Are you alone?"
"Yes."
"Lock the door."
I did.
"Don't open it for anyone."
"You sound worried."
"I am."
I heard him moving.
"Send me the photograph."
I sent it.
Another silence.
Then:
"Pack a bag."
"What?"
"You're leaving your apartment."
"Absolutely not."
"Laurel."
"No."
He exhaled.
"Please."
That was the first time Vaughn Mercer had ever asked me for anything instead of ordering me.
I packed.
Twenty minutes later, he arrived personally.
He stood in my doorway.
No tie.
No jacket.
His expression was harder than I'd ever seen it.
He looked at the photograph.
Then at me.
"You're not just my secretary."
I stared.
"What does that mean?"
He stepped inside.
"It means someone has been watching you since before you worked for me."
May you like
And for the first time, I realized the zipper had not revealed a threat against Vaughn.
It had revealed a threat against me.
