Chapter 3 - The Man Across the Street
Harper did not appreciate being ordered around.
Victor discovered this approximately thirty seconds after Arthur moved them through the restaurant kitchen toward a secured rear exit.
“Stop.”
Victor kept walking.
Harper planted her feet.
“Victor.”
He turned.
Arthur stopped beside the door.
“We need to leave.”
“You need to explain.”
“Later.”
“No.”
Victor stared at her.
Most employees would have backed down immediately.
Most executives would have apologized for asking.
Harper folded her arms.
“I was having perfectly good pasta five minutes ago, and now two men are escorting me through a kitchen like I'm being evacuated from a political coup.”
Arthur glanced toward Victor.
Victor lowered his voice.
“Someone has been watching you.”
Harper's expression changed.
“What?”
Victor showed her the photograph.
The color drained from her face.
“That was this morning.”
“I know.”
“Who sent it?”
“We don't know yet.”
She looked at the message.
YOU FINALLY GAVE US SOMEWHERE TO AIM.
Then at Victor.
“This is about you.”
“Yes.”
The honesty surprised her.
Harper swallowed.
“So someone thinks I'm—”
Victor interrupted.
“Important to me.”
The kitchen seemed suddenly quieter.
Harper stared at him.
“Am I?”
Victor had negotiated billion-dollar projects without hesitation.
That question defeated him.
Arthur opened the rear door.
“We should move.”
Victor used the interruption.
“Yes.”
Harper didn't.
“Yes what?”
Victor met her gaze.
“You are important enough that I'm not taking chances.”
Arthur's vehicle waited in the alley.
They entered.
The SUV accelerated before the doors completely settled.
Harper sat beside Victor.
For several blocks she said nothing.
Then: “How long?”
Victor looked at her.
“How long have they been watching me?”
“We noticed yesterday.”
Her head snapped toward him.
“And you didn't tell me?”
“I didn't know what it meant.”
“You knew enough to investigate.”
“Yes.”
“You ran a background check on me, didn't you?”
Victor remained silent.
Harper's eyes widened.
“You did.”
“For security.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
Arthur suddenly became very interested in traffic.
Harper stared at Victor.
“What do you know?”
He didn't answer quickly enough.
Her expression hardened.
“How much money is in my checking account?”
Victor looked away.
“Oh my God.”
“Harper—”
“Eighty-three dollars?”
Victor said nothing.
She pointed at him.
“You know the eighty-three dollars?”
“Eighty-three fourteen.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
Harper's mouth opened.
“Victor!”
“I didn't personally access the account.”
“That is somehow not making this better.”
She turned toward the window.
Victor watched her.
He realized the absurdity of the situation.
Someone had threatened the first woman he'd cared about in years, yet the thing currently endangering his relationship with her was fourteen cents.
“I'm sorry.”
Harper looked at him.
Victor Gallow rarely apologized.
Arthur knew it.
Harper didn't.
Which perhaps made the apology more genuine.
“I shouldn't have looked,” Victor said.
“No. You shouldn't have.”
“I was trying to understand who entered my elevator.”
“You could've asked me.”
That answer stayed with him.
You could've asked me.
Victor had built an empire by finding information people didn't voluntarily give him.
He had forgotten ordinary people simply talked.
“I don't trust easily.”
“I noticed.”
“It's kept me alive.”
Harper's anger softened slightly.
“And has it made you happy?”
Victor looked at her.
He had no answer.
The SUV entered the secured garage beneath Victor's penthouse building.
Harper stared outside.
“Where are we?”
“My home.”
She turned.
“Absolutely not.”
“It has private security.”
“So does my building.”
“No, it doesn't.”
“There's a man named Earl at the desk.”
“Earl falls asleep at eleven.”
Harper paused.
“How do you know Earl falls asleep at eleven?”
Victor wisely didn't answer.
Arthur opened the door.
Harper muttered something under her breath and stepped out.
Victor's penthouse occupied the top two floors.
Harper entered and stopped.
The apartment looked like a magazine photograph.
Stone.
Glass.
Black steel.
Expensive furniture.
No photographs.
No clutter.
No evidence that a human actually lived there.
Harper slowly turned.
“This is the saddest expensive apartment I've ever seen.”
Victor removed his jacket.
“Thank you.”
“That wasn't a compliment.”
“I gathered.”
Arthur entered moments later with a laptop.
“We traced part of the photograph metadata.”
Victor approached.
“Where?”
“Camera connected to a device registered through an old freight account.”
Victor's expression darkened.
“Which account?”
“Northline Transit.”
Victor stopped.
Harper noticed.
“What is that?”
Arthur looked at Victor.
Victor answered.
“A company that doesn't exist anymore.”
“But?”
“It used to work with my father.”
Arthur rotated the laptop.
A corporate record appeared.
Northline Transit had dissolved twelve years earlier.
Its final operational director had been a man named Malcolm Vane.
Harper watched Victor's face.
“You know him.”
Victor's voice hardened.
“My father destroyed him.”
“Financially?”
Victor glanced at her.
“Completely.”
Arthur continued.
“Vane disappeared after Northline collapsed. There hasn't been a confirmed sighting in almost nine years.”
Harper looked at the image on the laptop.
Malcolm Vane was older now if he was alive.
But the photograph showed cold eyes she immediately disliked.
“Why would he care about me?”
“He wouldn't,” Victor said.
“He cares about me.”
Arthur nodded.
“And now he knows Victor cares about you.”
Harper looked at Victor.
He hated seeing fear in her eyes.
“I should go home.”
“No.”
“I have work tomorrow.”
“You're not going to work.”
She blinked.
“You don't get to decide that.”
“Someone threatened you.”
“And I'll be careful.”
“This isn't a pickpocket.”
“And locking me in your luxury fortress isn't a long-term solution.”
Victor's voice became colder.
“It is tonight.”
Harper stared at him.
Then walked away.
Arthur waited until she disappeared down the hallway.
“You're handling this well.”
Victor looked at him.
Arthur corrected himself.
“You're handling this.”
“Find Vane.”
“We will.”
“And tomorrow?”
“We increase security.”
Victor looked toward the hallway.
“I don't want her frightened.”
Arthur's expression became serious.
“Then you should tell her what she's standing next to.”
Victor knew what he meant.
Harper thought Gallow Holdings was a powerful corporation.
She did not understand its shadow operations.
Its private warehouses.
Its off-record freight routes.
The deals his father had built.
The ones Victor had inherited.
If Malcolm Vane was back, the corporate world was only the surface.
Harper returned wearing one of Victor's oversized shirts over her clothes.
“The guest room has no pajamas.”
Victor stared at her.
Harper looked down.
“I borrowed this.”
“That was mine.”
“Yes. That's generally how borrowing works.”
Arthur hid a smile.
Harper walked toward the kitchen.
“Do billionaires have cereal?”
Victor watched her open cupboards.
Something unfamiliar settled inside his chest.
Domesticity.
It terrified him more than Malcolm Vane did.
“Top cabinet,” he said.
Harper found the cereal.
“Bowls?”
“Left.”
“Spoons?”
“Drawer.”
She looked over her shoulder.
“See? We're communicating.”
Victor almost smiled.
Then Arthur's phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
And went pale.
Victor saw it instantly.
“What?”
Arthur turned his laptop.
Another security image had arrived.
Harper's apartment door.
Open.
Inside, furniture had been overturned.
Drawers emptied.
Walls searched.
Someone had broken in while they were at dinner.
Harper stopped moving.
Victor crossed to her before she could speak.
On the living room wall, written in black marker above her couch, were five words.
ASK VICTOR ABOUT ROUTE SEVENTEEN.
Harper read them.
Then looked slowly at Victor.
“What is Route Seventeen?”
Victor's silence told her the answer would change everything.
May you like
And this time, she wasn't going to let him hide behind it.
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