Chapter 35: AT ALERT

Chapter 35: AT ALERT
The envelope was identical to the one I’d picked up in the service hallway earlier. Heavy white paper. My name scrawled across the front in the same sharp block letters.

“Don’t touch it,” Dante said automatically.

Steve touched it.

Of course he did.

He tore it open, slid out a single sheet of paper.

Typed. Perfectly neat.

“Every step you take puts her closer.”

No signature. No emblem. Just the words.

My stomach dropped. “They’re watching us.”

“They’ve always been watching us,” Steve said calmly, folding the paper once and sliding it back into the envelope like it was just another contract.

“That’s not new,” Dante agreed. “But this...” he tapped the words with one gloved finger “, this changes the angle. They’re not threatening you. Not directly. They’re threatening her.”

The silence that followed was heavier than anything that had come before.

Steve’s gaze flicked to me. Not casual. Not dismissive. Focused. Intense. And in that moment, I realized something that unsettled me more than the note itself.

He wasn’t just angry at the message. He was angry at the possibility. At the idea of me being pulled into this game as more than collateral.

For a man who made empires out of numbers, the look in his eyes right then wasn’t math. It was something rawer.

“We’re leaving,” Steve said.

“Pier 27?” Dante asked.

“Yes. But not before we find out who left this.”

He slipped the envelope into his jacket and turned for the door. Dante moved to follow.

I lingered just a second longer, staring at that empty room, the way it felt like it had been designed just for us to step into. A trap that didn’t need to spring, because we were already caught in it.

Then I left too.

The car ride out of the gala was suffocatingly quiet. Steve sat beside me, eyes forward, unreadable. Dante in the front seat, phone out, thumb moving over the screen in sharp, precise motions. Manhattan blurred past the tinted windows, glittering towers, flashing billboards, the city alive and oblivious.

I wanted to ask what the hell “closer” meant. Closer to what? To who? But the words stuck in my throat. Because deep down, I already knew the answer. Closer to the inevitable.

Steve broke the silence first.

“You’re not leaving my side again.”

It wasn’t a request. It wasn’t even an order. It was something heavier. A vow carved out of granite.

I turned toward him, biting back the dozen responses I could’ve thrown at him. Humor. Sarcasm. Anger. Instead, what came out was quieter. “You think keeping me close makes me safer?”

His eyes slid to me then, sharp and deliberate. “I think not keeping you close makes you dead.”

That shut me up.

We drove the rest of the way in silence, the weight of those words pressing down on me like the city itself.

Pier 27 was chaos when we arrived. Fire trucks still hosed down what was left of the warehouse, smoke curling into the night sky. The air reeked of burned chemicals and twisted metal. Cops swarmed, shouting orders, stringing tape. Mark was there, suit jacket off, sleeves rolled, barking into a radio.

He spotted us immediately, cutting through the mess to meet us. His eyes flicked to me first, sharp, concerned, searching... before landing on Steve with the kind of guarded professionalism that said he didn’t like this man but couldn’t afford to show it.

“You picked a hell of a night for a gala,” Mark said.

Steve didn’t blink. “And you picked a hell of a night to let my property catch fire.”

Mark bristled, but I cut in before testosterone ruined the scene. “What do we know?”

Mark exhaled, grounding himself. “Accelerant used. Timer device. Whoever set it wanted maximum damage, minimum casualties. They knew the building schedule, knew it would be empty tonight. Which means inside information.”

Dante’s voice came sharp from behind us. “Names?”

“Too many to narrow,” Mark said. “But that’s not the real problem.”

He pulled something from his pocket. A charred piece of cardstock, edges burned, middle intact.

A playing card.

The Joker.

Steve took it. Turned it over.

Typed across the back, the same neat font:

“Closer.”

I didn’t realize I’d stepped backward until my shoulder hit the car.

Mark looked between us, reading the tension like a detective and an old friend all at once. “This isn’t just about Freeman anymore, is it?”

No one answered.

Because none of us needed to.

We were about to pile back into the car when Dante’s phone buzzed. He checked it. His jaw tightened.

He turned to us, voice flat but urgent.

“We’ve got another problem,” he said.

Steve didn’t break stride toward the car. “It can wait.”

“No,” Dante said again, blocking the door like he had back at the gala. His eyes were harder now. “Not this one. This one’s already inside your penthouse.”