Chapter 3: Surveillance
I turned the phone so Ethan could see the screen.
It was a photograph of the two of us.
Taken from a distance, through glass — the floor-to-ceiling windows of Ethan's office on the forty-third floor.
I was handing him a folder.
He was looking at me instead of the folder.
The timestamp in the corner read eleven months ago.
Three weeks after I started working for him.
Andrew had been watching us since almost the beginning.
"He had someone follow you," Ethan said.
It wasn't a question.
"I didn't know." My voice came out smaller than I intended.
"I didn't know he was doing this."
Ethan took the phone from my hand and studied the image.
His thumb scrolled up.
There were more.
Dozens of them.
Me arriving at Carter Tower.
Me leaving late.
Me laughing at something Ethan had said in the lobby while we waited for his car.
Each photo had a timestamp.
Each one had been taken without my knowledge.
"How long has he had access to your phone?" Ethan asked.
"He doesn't — I don't let him touch my phone."
"Then he has someone inside this building."
The words landed like something physical.
I reached back and found the edge of the dressing table behind me.
"That's not possible," I said.
"It's already happened." Ethan set the phone face-down on the table.
"He's been building a file on you.
On us.
On whatever he thought was happening between us."
"Nothing was happening."
"I know that."
"He doesn't believe it."
"No," Ethan said.
"He doesn't.
And that's exactly why he's been hurting you."
The room felt smaller suddenly.
The music from the ballroom drifted up through the floor.
A woman laughed somewhere below us, bright and easy, the way people laugh when they have no idea what is happening two floors above them.
"He's jealous," I said.
"He's been jealous of you since before I even understood what was happening.
Every time your name came up at home, he would go quiet.
And then later —" I stopped.
"And then later he would hurt you."
I didn't answer.
I didn't need to.
Ethan picked up my phone again.
He took a screenshot of the photo Andrew had sent, then forwarded it to a number I didn't recognize.
"Who is that?" I asked.
"My head of security.
His name is Marcus.
He's been with me for nine years."
"Ethan, you can't involve more people in this.
If Andrew finds out —"
"Andrew already started this.
He sent you that photo on purpose.
He wanted you to know he's been watching.
He wanted you frightened enough to come downstairs and stand next to him and smile."
My stomach turned because he was right.
That was exactly what Andrew wanted.
He had sent the photo as a warning.
A reminder of what he knew, what he had, what he could use.
"I have to go down there," I said.
"If I don't show up, he'll come looking.
And if he comes up here and finds us together —"
"Let him."
"You don't understand what he'll do."
Ethan looked at me steadily.
"Go downstairs.
Stand where you need to stand.
Smile if you have to.
But do not leave the ballroom with him tonight.
Can you do that?"
"And then what?"
"Then let me handle the rest."
A knock at the dressing room door.
Sharp.
Three times.
We both went still.
A voice came through the door — low, controlled, the voice Andrew used in public when he was performing calm.
"Ava.
May you like
I know you're in there.
Open the door."
