Chapter 9 Surveillance
Rowan
The security feed glows against the dark of my penthouse, the city stretched out beyond the windows like something already conquered. I rewind the footage with a flick of my finger, watching the timestamp roll backward until it lands just after midnight.
There.
Avery.
She moves through the employee kitchen like someone who’s never learned that machines don’t respond to panic. She presses buttons too hard. Too fast. Opens drawers she doesn’t need. Tries to force the coffee pot into doing what she wants instead of reading the instructions taped right above it.
I lean back slightly, arms crossed.
She pours water where it doesn’t belong. Grounds spill. She swears—loud, dramatic, useless. When the pot sputters and dies, she freezes like it betrayed her personally.
Water floods the counter. Spreads to the floor.
She stares at it.
Does nothing.
I fast-forward.
She wipes at the mess with a single paper towel, gives up, and leaves. No call to maintenance. No message to anyone competent. Just abandonment and the assumption that someone else will fix it.
Of course.
I tap the screen again and switch feeds.
The printer room is next.
She loads paper incorrectly. Slams the tray shut. Jabs at the screen. Hits print again. And again. And again.
The machine whirs obediently.
She smiles, relieved.
I skip forward.
Paper everywhere. Schedules stacked and spilling. The printer blinking red, out of paper again.
Avery stares at it like it’s mocking her.
Then she leaves.
No call. No explanation.
I exhale slowly through my nose.
Interesting.
I fast-forward again.
Early morning.
Earlier than necessary.
Violet Pierce enters the frame.
No hesitation. No surprise. Just immediate assessment. She surveys the damage like it’s expected. Like she planned for it.
She rolls up her sleeves.
Cleans.
Methodical. Efficient. She unplugs the machine before touching water. Dries the counter. Mops the floor. Disposes of the grounds. Resets the coffee maker like she’s done it a hundred times.
Which she probably has.
She moves to the printer next.
Checks the tray.
Loads paper properly.
Watches the output.
Stops the flood of schedules before it gets worse. Recycles the excess without annoyance. Keeps one.
Just one.
She scans it.
Frowns.
I slow the footage.
She notices the removed meeting. Checks the system. Sees I removed it myself.
No reaction.
She updates the schedule without question. Reprints it once. Clean.
Then she makes the coffee.
Correctly.
She sets everything on the counter. Sits down. Puts on her headset. Answers a call like nothing happened.
Like chaos doesn’t exist unless she allows it to.
I pause the feed.
Where was Avery?
I rewind. Check timestamps.
No call to me. No voicemail. No appearance at my penthouse. Which means she stayed at her own apartment, slept through the mess she made, and assumed—correctly—that Violet would handle it.
I tap the screen harder than necessary.
“Fuck it,” I mutter.
I don’t need Avery to function. I need her to stop being a liability.
I check the time.
Camille Carter arrives at 9:03.
Right on schedule.
That’s when I press the intercom. “Carter. Come to my office.”
There’s a pause on the other end. Surprise, then compliance. “Yes, Mr. Ashcroft.”
A minute later, she knocks.
“Come in.”
Camille steps inside cautiously. Her posture is professional, but there’s tension in her shoulders. She wasn’t expecting this. She isn’t my assistant. She doesn’t report to me directly.
That alone is enough to make people nervous.
“You wanted to see me?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Sit.”
She does.
Her eyes flick briefly to the desk. The screens. The city beyond the windows. She keeps her hands folded in her lap.
I don’t waste time. “Tell me what happened yesterday.”
Her brow furrows. “Yesterday?”
“With Violet,” I clarify. “She mentioned an external issue.”
Camille’s expression shifts immediately.
Guarded.
“I don’t think that’s something I should discuss,” she says carefully. “That’s Violet’s—”
I lift my gaze.
Not sharply. Not threateningly.
Just enough.
Camille exhales. “She should really be the one to tell you.”
“I didn’t ask her,” I reply. “I asked you.”
Silence stretches between us.
Camille looks torn. She glances at the door, then back at me. Finally, she straightens.
“You didn’t hear this from me,” she says.
“Of course,” I respond.
Her jaw tightens. “Violet’s brother is missing.”
That gets my attention.
“How long?”
“Almost a month,” Camille says. “He was helping pay for their mother’s rehab. When he disappeared, the bills stopped getting paid.”
I lean back slightly. “Rehab.”
“Yes,” she says. “Their mother’s been there for a while. Insurance doesn’t cover all of it.”
“And Violet is covering the rest,” I infer.
Camille nods. “By herself.”
I file that away.
“There’s more,” she adds.
“I assumed.”
She hesitates. “She got a call yesterday from the rehab center. Another payment due. Same day.”
My jaw tightens imperceptibly.
“And?”
“And,” Camille continues, “there’s a detective. Calder, I think. He’s… not kind. He’s treating Violet like a suspect instead of a sister trying to find answers.”
“What kind of questions?”
“The wrong ones,” she says flatly. “About where she was. Who she’s seeing. Implying things he shouldn’t be implying.”
I consider that.
“Is she in danger?” I ask.
Camille meets my gaze. “Emotionally? Yes. Professionally? She’s holding it together. Barely.”
She swallows. “Violet doesn’t complain. She doesn’t ask for help. She just… absorbs it.”
That tracks.
I sit in silence for a moment longer than necessary.
“Thank you,” I say finally.
Camille blinks. “That’s it?”
“Yes.”
She stands, relief and worry crossing her face at the same time. “She didn’t want anyone at work knowing.”
“I won’t be discussing it,” I reply. “This conversation stays between us.”
Camille nods immediately. “Of course.”
I gesture toward the door. “You’re dismissed.”
She leaves without another word.
The office settles into quiet again.
I look back at the paused security feed.
Violet Pierce, standing in a mess she didn’t make, fixing it without comment.
External matter.
I don’t pry into my employees’ lives.
But when personal chaos bleeds into my building, it becomes my problem.
And Violet Pierce just became something I need to monitor more closely.
Not because she failed.
Because she didn’t.
And people who endure that much pressure without breaking eventually do one of two things—
They shatter.
Or they harden.