The caller’s threat seemed to remain in the office after the line went dead.
Tell Cara her sister has ten minutes.
I stared at the speakerphone, unable to pull enough air into my lungs.
Every instinct told me to run, but the locked door stood behind me and Dante stood between me and the black drive he had removed from the hidden compartment.
“My sister,” I said.
“Call her now.”
Dante did not reach for a phone.
Instead, he looked directly into my eyes.
“She is safe.”
I almost struck him.
“You just let that man tell me—”
“He is bluffing.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I moved her twenty-three minutes ago.”
The precision of his answer stopped me.
Dante unlocked his mobile phone and called a secure number.
A woman answered after one ring.
“Status?” he asked.
“Secure,” the woman replied.
“She is with two detectives and her school counselor.
No injuries.
No contact with the subject.”
“Let me hear her.”
A few seconds later, my sister’s frightened voice came through the speaker.
“Cara?”
My knees nearly gave way.
“I’m here.
Are you all right?”
“I’m scared, but I’m okay.
Some officers picked me up before I left school.
They said someone had been following me.”
“I’m coming to you.”
Dante shook his head once.
My anger returned instantly.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I told her.
“Stay with the officers.
Don’t go anywhere alone.”
After the call ended, I turned on him.
“You knew she was being watched.
You arranged police protection.
You moved her without telling me.
What else have you decided for my family?”
Dante accepted every word without defending himself.
“I discovered the surveillance forty-eight hours ago,” he said.
“The first photographs are dated two weeks ago because Vale’s team had been recording her before my security unit identified the pattern.”
“You still had forty-eight hours.”
“Yes.”
“You should have told me immediately.”
“Yes.”
His agreement unsettled me more than an excuse would have.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because someone inside this building was feeding Vale information.
I did not know which phones were compromised, which guards were loyal, or whether telling you would trigger whoever was watching.”
He glanced at the locked door.
“The moment you entered with that resignation letter, an unauthorized badge activated in the service corridor below us.
Vale knew you were here before you reached my desk.”
