Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Didn’t RunLorenzo tried to send me home.
Again.
I refused.
Again.
This became a pattern.
By noon, the executive floor had been swept twice for surveillance devices. Gabriel brought in a private security team that looked as though each man had been assembled in a government warehouse and taught not to smile.
The six microphones were removed without activating or destroying them.
That mattered, apparently.
“If whoever planted them realizes we found them, they change strategy,” Gabriel explained.
I looked at the microphone under my desk.
“So we pretend they’re still listening?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful.”
Lorenzo stood near his office windows.
“No sensitive discussions on this floor.”
I raised a hand.
“This entire floor is sensitive discussions.”
His eyes moved to me.
“Then stop talking.”
“I can see why people think you’re charming.”
Gabriel coughed.
Lorenzo ignored him.
We relocated to a conference room on thirty-two owned by a subsidiary nobody associated directly with Lorenzo’s executive operation.
That was when he told me to quit.
Not temporarily.
Permanently.
“I’ll give you six months’ severance.”
I stared.
“I’ve worked here approximately twenty-six hours.”
“Seven months, then.”
“Do you solve every emotional problem by adding money?”
“Yes.”
“That explains a lot.”
His jaw tightened.
“This is not an emotional problem.”
“Someone broke into six women’s apartments and planted microphones.”
“Exactly.”
“And you think the solution is making me the seventh woman who disappears?”
“I think the solution is keeping you alive.”
The words landed harder than I expected.
I leaned back.
“Alive?”
Lorenzo looked toward Gabriel.
Gabriel said nothing.
That scared me more.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Lorenzo’s expression became stone.
“Enough.”
“No.”
“Mara.”
“You keep saying my name like it’s supposed to end conversations.”
“It usually works.”
“Not with me.”
His eyes narrowed.
That was becoming another pattern.
Finally Gabriel spoke.
“Three years ago, someone inside Rossy Corporation was feeding information to competitors.”
I looked at him.
“Corporate espionage?”
“Partly.”
“What does partly mean?”
Lorenzo answered.
“It means not every Rossy business is represented on the public website.”
There it was.
The thing everybody in Chicago whispered about.
I looked between them.
“Illegal?”
Lorenzo did not answer.
Gabriel did.
“Complicated.”
“That is a yes wearing an expensive suit.”
Lorenzo’s mouth almost moved.
Almost.
Then he said, “My father built the company differently.”
“How differently?”
“Not today.”
“Convenient.”
His eyes hardened.
“Mara, you do not need that information.”
“Somebody sent me a death-adjacent text message because I found your microphone.”
“You found a microphone.”
“Six microphones.”
“You were told not to touch them.”
“That is not the point.”
Lorenzo walked closer.
The room seemed to shrink whenever he did that.
“I’m offering you enough money to leave Chicago.”
I stared.
“You want me to run.”
“Yes.”
“Like the other women.”
“Yes.”
“Then whoever is doing this wins.”
“I don’t care.”
The answer came too fast.
I frowned.
“You care about winning everything.”
“Not this.”
Something shifted.
For the first time, I saw not the billionaire.
Not the Rossy heir.
Just a man with fear buried behind anger.
“What happened before?”
He looked away.
Gabriel became very interested in the opposite wall.
I waited.
Lorenzo eventually said, “Ten years ago, my father’s accountant disappeared.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning nobody found him.”
I swallowed.
“Did he steal?”
“No.”
“What did he find?”
Lorenzo’s eyes returned to me.
“I don’t know.”
“Then why mention it?”
“Because three weeks before he disappeared, he told my father somebody was moving money through fake freight accounts.”
My skin prickled.
“Like the duplicate invoice.”
“Yes.”
“So this has been happening for ten years?”
“Longer, possibly.”
I sat.
Fifty thousand questions arrived.
I chose the largest.
“Why didn’t you investigate?”
Lorenzo laughed once.
No humor.
“You think I didn’t?”
“What happened?”
“My father died six months later.”
The car explosion.
I remembered the article.
“And the records?”
“Gone.”
“Who took over?”
“Me.”
“At twenty-two?”
“Twenty-three.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“It wasn’t.”
Gabriel shifted.
Lorenzo ignored him.
“For years, I assumed the financial irregularities were remnants of my father’s operation.”
“And now?”
Lorenzo glanced toward the evidence bag containing the microphone.
“Now I’m not sure.”
I thought about D’Amico.
“Your CFO has been with the company how long?”
“Seventeen years.”
“So he worked for your father.”
“Yes.”
“Who else?”
“Half the senior leadership.”
“Great.”
I stood.
“We need the six former secretaries.”
“No.”
“We absolutely do.”
“You are not contacting them.”
“Why?”
“Because if somebody is watching them—”
“They already were.”
I pulled my laptop closer.
“Six women leave within one month. Either something changed recently, or they discovered something together.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“They never overlapped.”
“So?”
“What do you mean?”
“Same job. Same desk. Same systems.”
I thought aloud.
“What if each one found part of the same thing?”
Lorenzo frowned.
“The microphones?”
“Maybe.”
I opened HR files.
Secretary one: Rebecca Nash.
Quit after six days.
Secretary two: Michelle Carter.
Four days.
Secretary three: Hannah Ortiz.
Seven days.
Secretary four: Lacey Morgan.
Three days.
Secretary five: Priya Shah.
Five.
Secretary six: Andrea Mills.
Two.
I stared at the dates.
“They’re getting faster.”
Lorenzo understood.
“Someone is frightening them sooner.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel leaned over.
“All complained of apartment intrusion after resignation?”
“Five did.”
“What about Andrea?”
“No complaint.”
I opened her exit form.
Blank.
No signature.
No forwarding address.
My stomach tightened.
“Where is she?”
Gabriel pulled out his phone.
Twenty minutes later, his expression was grim.
“No activity on her apartment access card in twelve days.”
“Phone?”
“Off.”
“Bank?”
“No transactions.”
I stared at Lorenzo.
“She’s missing.”
He said nothing.
“Did HR know?”
“Apparently not.”
“How does a billionaire company lose an employee?”
Lorenzo’s face hardened.
“It shouldn’t.”
That afternoon, we found Andrea’s emergency contact.
Her sister, Molly.
Gabriel called from a secure phone.
Molly answered immediately.
“Andrea?”
“No, ma’am. My name is Gabriel Stone. I work with Rossy Corporation.”
Silence.
Then:
“Where is my sister?”
Every hair on my arms rose.
Gabriel’s voice softened.
“When did you last speak?”
“Eleven days ago.”
“What did she say?”
“She was scared.”
Lorenzo looked at me.
“Of what?” Gabriel asked.
“She said she found something at work.”
“What?”
“She wouldn’t tell me over the phone.”
Molly started crying.
“She said somebody was listening.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
Gabriel continued.
“Did she say anything else?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“She said if anything happened to her, I should find a woman named Evelyn Rossy.”
Lorenzo moved.
“What?”
Molly heard him.
“Who is that?”
Lorenzo took the phone.
“Repeat the name.”
“Evelyn Rossy.”
His face changed.
I had never seen him truly shocked.
Not even when we found the microphone.
He disconnected after arranging to meet Molly safely.
I stared.
“Who is Evelyn?”
“No one.”
“Lorenzo.”
He turned away.
Gabriel said quietly, “His mother.”
I blinked.
According to every public biography, Lorenzo’s mother had died when he was nine.
Cancer.
I looked at him.
“Your mother?”
“She’s dead.”
“Then why would Andrea tell her sister to find her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was her name Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
“What did she do?”
“Nothing involving the company.”
Gabriel’s face suggested otherwise.
I noticed.
“So we’re lying again.”
Lorenzo turned.
“Enough.”
“No.”
His voice rose for the first time.
“Mara.”
I stood.
“You brought me into this room.”
“I tried to send you away.”
“And I refused.”
“That does not give you access to my family.”
“No.”
I lowered my voice.
“But a missing woman used your dead mother’s name as an emergency clue.”
Silence.
He knew I was right.
He hated it.
Finally, Lorenzo went to the window.
“My mother kept books.”
“What kind?”
“Financial.”
“For Rossy Corporation?”
“For my father personally.”
I stared.
“You said she had nothing to do with the company.”
“She wasn’t employed.”
“That is politician-level wording.”
He ignored it.
“She found things.”
“What?”
“I was nine.”
“Did she die of cancer?”
Lorenzo did not answer.
That was answer enough.
Gabriel looked at him.
“Lorenzo.”
He turned.
“No.”
I felt cold.
“How did she die?”
His face went blank.
“Overdose.”
I swallowed.
“Was she using drugs?”
“No.”
“Then—”
“The official ruling was accidental medication interaction.”
“What did your father say?”
“That she was sick.”
“And you believed him?”
“I was nine.”
The pain beneath those four words shut me up.
For once.
Then Gabriel quietly said, “There were rumors.”
Lorenzo looked at him sharply.
“What rumors?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“My father worked security for yours.”
“I know.”
“He believed Evelyn was planning to leave.”
“With Lorenzo?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Why?”
“Because she found accounts tied to Sicily and offshore holding companies.”
Lorenzo stared.
“You never told me.”
“My father made me promise.”
“Your father is dead.”
“Yes.”
“So is my mother.”
Gabriel lowered his eyes.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then I asked, “Did Andrea somehow find Evelyn’s records?”
Lorenzo looked toward me.
“Those records were destroyed.”
“According to who?”
“My father.”
Exactly.
We spent the next six hours searching archived systems.
Not for Evelyn.
That would be obvious.
We searched old vendor codes.
Initials.
Shipping routes.
Companies that began disappearing around the year she died.
At 8:43 p.m., I found one.
E.R. Consulting.
Twenty-eight payments.
All approved by Lorenzo’s father.
All ending the month Evelyn died.
“Could be unrelated,” Gabriel said.
“It could.”
I clicked the address.
Storage facility.
South Side.
Lorenzo stared.
“That building belonged to my mother’s family.”
Not unrelated.
We drove there that night.
Gabriel hated the plan.
I hated the neighborhood.
Lorenzo hated that I came.
I came anyway.
The building had been abandoned for years.
Dust covered everything.
We found filing cabinets.
Empty.
A broken desk.
Old warehouse furniture.
Nothing.
Then I noticed something painted beneath a shelf.
A pink line.
Gel ink.
I crouched.
A small arrow.
Lorenzo frowned.
“What?”
I pulled out the pink gel pen from my tote.
The one that had rolled against his hand during my interview.
“Women use stupid-looking office supplies too.”
He stared.
“What are you saying?”
“That mark is recent.”
We moved the shelf.
Behind it was a wall safe.
Open.
Empty.
Almost.
Inside lay one flash drive.
And a Polaroid photograph.
Andrea Mills.
Alive.
Standing beside an older woman.
The older woman had Lorenzo’s gray eyes.
He took the photograph with shaking fingers.
I whispered, “Who is she?”
He stared at the woman he had buried twenty-eight years earlier.
Then said the sentence that changed the entire investigation.
May you like
“My mother.”
Evelyn Rossy was alive.
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