Team

Damien arrived in twenty minutes.

He did not come through the front door. Seraphina's security had swept the street and posted two more men on the block. Damien came in through the back, through the garden gate, with his phone already out and Nathan on speakerphone from New York.

"Nathan. We have a situation in London."

"Put me on speaker with her."

Seraphina was in the kitchen when Damien walked in. She did not hug him. She did not touch him. She just held up the phone with the message on it.

He read it.

His face went still in a way she recognized from three years ago. The way his face had gone still when someone tried to lowball him in a negotiation. When someone threatened something he owned.

"Nathan."

"I am here."

"I want every resource we have on this. I want the trace. I want financial records. I want everyone Aria has ever pissed off professionally in the last three years cross-referenced with anyone in London with a record for stalking or assault or any of it. I do not care how much it costs."

"On it."

Damien put the phone down on the counter. Looked at Seraphina.

"Have you eaten?"

"What?"

"Have you eaten anything this morning?"

"I have not slept."

"That was not the question."

She sat down at the island. She was very tired suddenly.

He crossed the kitchen. Opened the fridge. Took out eggs, cheese, bread, a bunch of chives. He did not ask her what she wanted. He did not make her decide anything. He just started cooking.

She watched him.

He did not know where anything was. He had to open three drawers to find a spatula. He used the wrong pan at first, realized it, and switched to a different one. He cracked the eggs one handed, the way his grandmother had taught him when he was eight. He did not burn anything. He did not spill anything. He made scrambled eggs and toast and a small pile of chives, and he slid the plate in front of her without saying a word.

"Eat."

She ate.

It was, quietly and without any warning, the first meal anyone had cooked for her in three years.

Lucas had tried once or twice. She had always politely refused. She did not want to be cooked for. Being cooked for felt like being owned.

With Damien, somehow, it did not feel like that.

She ate three-quarters of the plate before she could speak.

"Damien."

"Yes."

"I do not know who is doing this."

"We are going to find out."

"I do not know how long it has been going on. I have been getting the messages since the airport in New York. The day I flew in for the first time. I thought at first it was Vanessa. It is not Vanessa."

"Okay."

"It is a woman. Whoever it is."

"How do you know?"

"Pink lipstick on a cigarette, my security found in the garden."

He nodded. Thinking.

"Do you have enemies, Aria?"

"I have competitors."

"Enemies. Someone who hates you personally. Not professionally."

She thought about it.

"I cannot think of anyone. I keep my private life private. I do not do interviews. I do not have a social media account. I have never publicly dated anyone. I have no ex-boyfriends. I have nothing for anyone to grab onto."

"Then it is someone from your old life."

"My old life is you and Vanessa and a handful of charity board wives."

"Or someone connected to it."

She looked up at him.

"Someone connected to what part of it."

"I do not know yet. But we are going to find out."

He sat down across from her. Reached out. Put his hand flat on the counter between them, palm up. An offering. Not a request.

She looked at his hand for a long moment.

Then she put her hand in his.

He closed his fingers around hers. Did not squeeze. Did not pull.

Just held on.

"Aria."

"Yes."

"We are going to figure this out together. You are not alone anymore. Do you hear me."

She could not speak. She just nodded once.

From upstairs, Luna's voice called out.

"Mummy. I want pancakes."

Seraphina laughed once. A real one. The sound surprised her.

"Duty calls," she said.

"Go," Damien said.

She pulled her hand out of his. She went upstairs.

He stayed at the kitchen island with his palm still open on the counter where her hand had been, and he did not move for a long time.

Nathan's voice crackled back onto the speaker phone.

"Damien. I have something."

"Go."

"The VPN is routing the messages. Estonia. But the payment method on the VPN account traces back to a prepaid debit card purchased three weeks ago at a Target in Brooklyn. Cash purchase. No ID required. But the security camera footage from the store was flagged as suspicious by an algorithm we pay for. A woman. Late twenties or early thirties. Dark hair. She paid with a hundred-dollar bill. The footage is grainy, but I had it enhanced."

"Send it to me."

"It just hit your inbox."

Damien opened his email. Opened the image.

It was grainy. Black and white. Shot from a ceiling camera above a register. But the woman's face was clear enough to see. Thin. Pretty. In her early thirties. A mouth that looked familiar in a way Damien could not immediately place.

He stared at the face.

He did not know her.

But something in the shape of her cheekbones, the tilt of her chin, bothered him.

He saved the image to his phone.

"Nathan. Keep digging. I want a name."

"Working on it."

Damien hung up.

He looked at the image on his phone. Something was scratching at the back of his mind. Something about the face felt wrong.

He did not know who she was.

But he had a feeling, somewhere deep in his gut, that he should.