Chapter 3 - The Price of Being Seen
By morning, every secure line in Castile Global was ringing.
Victor Blake had not declared war publicly. Men like Victor rarely did anything publicly. But my sources reported movement around Brighton Beach. Armed men were appearing near warehouses. Old debts were being called in. Shipments were delayed at the docks.
It was a message.
He wanted me to understand that Clara’s past had become my problem.
I sat in my office on the sixty-fifth floor, staring through glass walls at Manhattan below.
Clara sat across from me, back in her gray-green cardigan and thick glasses.
The disguise felt absurd now.
Not because it did not work.
Because I could no longer pretend I did not know what she had hidden beneath it.
“You should take the day off,” I said.
“I have three investor calls, two executive meetings, and your lunch with the Singapore delegation.”
“I can manage.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“You forgot the Singapore delegation exists until I mentioned it.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
I almost argued.
Then I stopped.
For two years, Clara had quietly kept my life from collapsing under the weight of my own priorities. She knew which board members needed praise, which ones needed pressure, which calls could become crises, and which people were only pretending to be important.
“You are not going back to your apartment,” I said.
“I have lived there for eighteen months.”
“Victor knows your identity now.”
“He may not know where I live.”
“He will.”
Her expression tightened.
“I cannot hide forever.”
“I am not asking you to hide. I am telling you to stay somewhere secure.”
“You do not get to tell me where to stay.”
“Anya.”
“No.” She stood from her chair. “For two years, I have accepted your orders because I was your employee. But I will not become another person trapped behind someone else’s walls.”
Her words hit with more force than she intended.
Or perhaps exactly as much force as she intended.
I thought about what she had told me the night before. Her father trying to leave. Victor burning down a home because someone wanted freedom. A girl barely seventeen escaping with a new name and no one to protect her.
“I am not Victor,” I said quietly.
“No,” she replied. “You are not. But powerful men often believe protection gives them the right to make choices for everyone else.”
I held her gaze.
Then I nodded.
“You are right.”
She looked surprised.
“I will not force you,” I continued. “But I will ask you to let my security team accompany you.”
She hesitated.
“Two people,” I said. “At a distance. You choose where they stand. You choose when they leave.”
After a long moment, she sat back down.
“Two people,” she agreed.
The next week became a careful balance between danger and routine.
Clara continued working, though I moved her desk into an office inside my private floor. She protested that it was unnecessary. I told her it was temporary. She told me I was impossible.
For the first time in years, I found myself looking forward to being challenged.
She had a way of cutting through my decisions without disrespect. When I wanted to cancel a meeting, she asked whether I was avoiding a problem. When I worked until midnight, she placed food on my desk and refused to remove it until I ate.
One evening, she found me in the private conference room reviewing dock reports.
“You have been staring at that page for ten minutes,” she said.
“I am thinking.”
“You are exhausted.”
“Same thing.”
She sat across from me.
Without her glasses, she looked too exposed. Without the severe bun, she looked like someone who belonged in a life untouched by violence.
But then she spoke.
“Victor is trying to pressure you through the Baltimore situation.”
“Yes.”
“He expects you to retaliate.”
“Yes.”
“And you are considering it.”
I did not answer.
Clara leaned forward.
“Do not give him what he wants.”
“You think I should do nothing?”
“I think you should be smarter than him.”
The words should have offended me.
Instead, I listened.
She reached for one of the reports. “Victor’s power is built on fear. But fear makes people loyal only until a better option appears. Your people follow you because you protect your own.”
“Most of them follow money.”
“That too,” she said. “But money does not explain why your driver refused to leave your office at three in the morning during the storm last month.”
I looked at her.
“You notice everything.”
“I had to.”
Her voice softened.
“In my father’s world, noticing things kept you alive.”
A knock sounded at the door.
Mateo, my head of security, entered with a grim expression.
“We found something,” he said.
He placed photographs on the table.
They showed Clara leaving her apartment that afternoon.
A black SUV followed her.
Then another image.
A man entering the building’s lobby.
Victor’s man.
Clara went still.
“When?” I asked.
“Two hours ago,” Mateo replied.
My chest tightened.
“Send a team.”
“Already done.”
Clara stood abruptly.
“My apartment.”
“You are not going there.”
“My father’s watch is there.”
“Anya—”
“It is the only thing I have left of him.”
Her voice cracked.
For the first time, I saw her fear.
Not the controlled caution she carried every day.
Real fear.
I stood.
“Mateo, prepare the car.”
Clara looked at me.
“You said you would not force me.”
“I am not forcing you,” I said. “I am going with you.”
The apartment had been torn apart by the time we arrived.
Drawers were dumped onto the floor. Her books had been ripped open. A lamp lay shattered near the kitchen wall. The small, fragile life Clara had built for herself had been violated with frightening precision.
She walked through the mess silently.
Then she found the watch.
It had been hidden inside an old nursing textbook beneath loose floorboards.
A silver pocket watch, scratched with age.
Inside was a photograph of a younger Clara beside a man with kind eyes and dark hair.
Her father.
Clara held it against her chest.
Then she noticed something else.
A small black envelope resting on her kitchen table.
I reached for it first.
Inside was a single photograph.
Clara at Le Jardin Noir in the emerald dress.
May you like
Across the bottom, Victor had written:
COME HOME, ANYA.
