Chapter 19: COUNTING DOWN

Chapter 19: COUNTING DOWN
For a solid thirty seconds, I stared at the screen like I could will the message into making sense. No sender. No emoji. No extra words to soften the blow. Just 72 hours.

It was clean. Deliberate. Like they’d cut away everything unnecessary so my brain would have no choice but to fill in the blanks.

My thumb hovered over the “show Steve” option. Not that there’s an actual “show Steve” button on my phone, but there might as well have been. He was three feet away, still scrolling his tablet, the glow making his face look sharper.

I didn’t want to hand it to him yet. Not because I was scared—fear wasn’t the right flavor for this. It was… I wanted to read it again. To make sure it was real. To maybe decide what it meant for me before letting it become something his.

I didn’t get the chance.

Dante appeared out of nowhere, the way he does... like he’s been waiting just offstage for his cue. He didn’t ask if something was wrong. His eyes went to my hand, then the phone, then me.

“Problem?”

I opened my mouth to lie, because lying is sometimes just a softer word for delaying the truth. But Dante doesn’t give you space for that.

His hand was already there, palm up. “Let me see it.”

It wasn’t a request.

I handed it over, and he read it once, twice, before glancing at Steve. No dramatic announcement. No “Oh my god, you need to see this.” Just a flat: “She got one.”

Steve looked up, and I swear the temperature in the room dropped. He didn’t reach for the phone. He just said, “When?”

“Just now.”

Steve nodded once. That was all. Then: “Lock it down.”

That’s what started the next three hours.

Locking it down didn’t mean a simple calendar clear. It meant Dante on the phone with people I couldn’t hear, talking in clipped half-sentences like the other half was classified. It meant routes being adjusted, meetings moved, locations swapped at the last second.

Steve’s schedule was mapped out in blocks, and now those blocks shifted like tectonic plates. The goal wasn’t to disappear entirely, that would look suspicious... it was to be unpredictable without seeming unpredictable.

I stayed in the corner, watching the machine run.

Somewhere in the middle of it, my attention drifted from the chessboard to the player.

It’s in the little things with Steve. The way his eyes don’t flick across a page, they track, line by line, like he’s locking each sentence into a vault. The way his voice shifts depending on who he’s talking to—steel with the board members, velvet with the PR team, some calm neutral tone with Dante that probably has its own encrypted language.

Even the way he signs his name... sharp first letter, clean slash at the end, like it’s both a statement and a weapon.

I hated that I noticed. I hated that noticing didn’t feel like a choice.

By the time the last call was made, the building had emptied. The city outside the glass was buzzing, but up here it felt suspended, like we were between seconds.

Steve finally looked at me. “You’ll have security detail outside your building until further notice.”

“Like… a guy with an earpiece in the lobby?”

“Two. Don’t make friends with them.”

“Wow. You really know how to make a girl feel special.”

That almost-smile again, quick and dangerous, before he turned to Dante. “See her out.”

Which is how I ended up taking the long elevator ride down with Dante leaning against the mirrored wall like he owned gravity.

“You’ve done this before,” I said.

“Done what?”

“This whole… controlled chaos thing.”

He didn’t answer, which was basically an answer.

The lobby was quiet. Too quiet for a building this size, this late in the city. Dante pushed the glass door open, and the cool night air rushed in like it had been waiting for me.

My car was parked at the curb where I’d left it earlier. Except now… someone was leaning against the driver’s side.

Tall. Broad shoulders. NYPD jacket unzipped just enough to show the badge clipped to his belt.

And when he straightened, I knew exactly who it was.

Mark O’Brien.