Chapter 5: The First Time He Came for Her
The message sat on her screen for ten seconds before Emily turned the phone face-down.
Daniel watched her.
"Problem?"
"Someone is watching me." She kept her voice level.
"Or watching you.
Or both."
Daniel didn't look alarmed.
He looked like a man confirming something he had already suspected.
"Blake has used a private intelligence firm before," he said.
"When he pushed me out, I found out later that he'd had someone monitoring my communications for six weeks prior.
Completely illegal.
I chose not to pursue it at the time." He folded his hands on the table.
"I should have."
"He's escalating," Emily said.
"He's frightened." Daniel picked up the original incorporation document again.
"This frightens him.
He knows what it means."
Emily's phone buzzed a second time.
This time it was a number she recognized.
Blake.
She answered.
"You met with Daniel Reeves." His voice was controlled, but only just.
"I'm allowed to have lunch with whoever I like."
"Emily.
I need you to think very carefully about what you're doing."
"I am thinking carefully.
That's the problem for you."
A pause.
When he spoke again, the control had thinned slightly.
"Daniel Reeves has an agenda.
He's been trying to damage this company for years because of what happened between us.
Whatever he told you, whatever he showed you, it's designed to manipulate you."
"He showed me the Toronto partnership collapse," Emily said.
"The one I warned you about three times.
In writing.
With the board copied."
Silence.
"That's business," Blake said finally.
"Deals fail."
"And the Austin rebranding?
The Meridian Pacific losses?"
"Where are you getting this information?"
"From people who are watching your company bleed and wondering why the person who used to stop that from happening was erased from the founding records."
His voice dropped.
"Don't do this."
"Don't do what, Blake?
Build something?
Work with people who respect what I actually contributed?" She stood up from the table, moving toward the window, lowering her voice.
"You brought your fiancée to our divorce signing.
You filed to erase my name while we were still married.
And now you're having me followed." She paused.
"What exactly did you think I was going to do?"
"I'm asking you," he said, "as someone who once cared about you — walk away from this.
Take the brownstone.
Start something small.
You're talented, Emily.
You don't need to make this a war."
"You already made it a war.
I'm just the last one to show up."
She ended the call.
Daniel was watching her from the table.
"He'll move quickly now," he said.
"He'll go to the two institutional investors before we do.
He'll try to get ahead of the narrative."
"Can he?"
"Not if we move first." Daniel stood.
"I have a meeting with one of them — Hartwell Capital — on Monday.
I'd like you to be there.
Not as my associate.
As Emily Carson, co-founder of Carson Meridian, presenting an alternative opportunity."
Emily looked at him.
"You've been planning this for longer than three days."
"I've been planning this since the day Blake pushed me out," Daniel said simply.
"I just needed the right partner." He picked up the original incorporation document and held it out to her.
"Keep this somewhere safe.
Not the brownstone.
Somewhere Blake doesn't know about."
Emily took it.
Her hand was steady.
Outside, a black car that had been parked across the street pulled away from the curb.
She noticed it.
She didn't say anything.
May you like
She filed it.
She was learning to notice everything now — the way Blake had always noticed nothing.
