Two Little Secrets From My Boss

Chapter 96

I stepped into the corridor and closed the door before Xander or Archie could register the change in my expression. My hands trembled, but my mind had shifted into the operational clarity that comes when the threat has a location, a timestamp, and your children's faces attached to it.

I called building security first. "I need the private security detail expanded immediately—full perimeter on my family's residence and a mobile unit dispatched to the following address." I gave them the school's location.

"Mrs. Hale, what's the nature of the—"

"Do it now. I'll explain when there's time to do that."

The next call was to Mrs. Patterson, the school's headmistress, groggy with sleep and sharp with alarm.

"This is Daphne Hale, and my daughters may be in danger. I'm sending a security team before opening hours, and I need you to cooperate with their protocols. I'll be removing the girls by eight o'clock."

"Mrs. Hale, what kind of danger are we talking about? Should I be contacting the police?"

"I'll be filing a report myself. For now, I need your trust and access to the school's exterior camera system. There may be relevant surveillance footage from this morning."

"Yes, of course. The girls' safety is our first priority."

The third call would have been unimaginable a year ago. I dialed my mother's number, feeling the compression of time that occurs when a woman who swore she'd never ask her parents for anything finds herself needing exactly what they'd offered.

"Daphne?" My mother's voice was immediately alert—she'd learned to sleep lightly since the reconciliation.

"I need you and Dad to take the girls today. Somewhere safe, not connected to Xander or any public address. Can you do that?"

"Sure, we’ll do that, but Daphne… You sound terrified. What’s wrong? Is something threatening you or the girls?"

"Mom—" My voice cracked. "Someone is watching them. I'll have security bring them by nine."

When my mother spoke again, her voice carried a cold, absolute fury that mirrored my own so precisely I understood where I'd inherited it.

"No one is getting near those girls. Your father and I will handle our end—you handle yours."

I hung up and leaned against the corridor wall. My parents—the ones who had once rejected me pregnant and terrified—after all these years… I can’t say that I’ve forgiven them completely, but now, at least, they’re trying to finally be present.

I pulled up the photograph and examined its metadata. The image had been sent through a burner—no subscriber information, the number probably already deactivated, but the photo file retained its original data.

The photograph had been taken at exactly 8:17 AM. Drop-off time. GPS coordinates placed the camera forty feet from the school's front entrance, consistent with someone sitting in a parked car across the street.

Someone had been there during the morning rush, watching families arrive, watching parents kiss their daughters goodbye.

They had chosen the moment—sidewalk crowded with small bodies and bright backpacks—to communicate a single message: ‘We know where they are and when they're vulnerable.’

The rage was unlike anything I'd experienced—cleaner than anger, more focused than fury. A crystalline force that stripped away complexity. This was no longer about corporate politics or old grudges or justice. This was about my children.

I walked back into the conference room. Xander looked up from his laptop, and whatever he saw on my face made his hands stop moving on the keyboard.

"What happened?"

I placed my phone on the table in front of him, the photograph facing up. "This came in at three AM. Unknown number, burner phone."

Xander picked up the phone. His skin went white first, blood draining from his cheeks with a speed that made the fluorescent lighting harsh against his features. Then color returned, concentrated, his jaw hardening, his eyes narrowing into something I recognized from every description of the man he'd been before we met.

The man Gerald described. The one capable of anything.

His hand tightened around the phone until the knuckles blanched. His voice was low, flat, carrying the danger of absolute control imposed on absolute fury.

"I'm going to find whoever took this photograph, and I'll make them understand what happens when you threaten my children."

"No," I said. "We do this my way, legal and permanent. You go after them with violence or intimidation, and Gerald gets exactly what he wants—proof that you're the dangerous, uncontrollable man he's been painting you as. Every threat you make becomes evidence in his narrative."

"They photographed our daughters' school, Daphne."

"And I've already moved the girls—security is transporting them to my parents this morning. The school is cooperating, and the headmistress is granting us access to the exterior camera system. Now we handle the source, and we do it in a way that puts these people in prison rather than in a hospital where they can claim victimhood."

Archie had been watching in silence. He spoke carefully.

"Daphne's right, Xander. Marcus's evidence is enough to destroy them permanently—but only through proper channels with clean hands."

Xander stood motionless, the war between the man he'd been and the man he was trying to become playing across his features. Then the tension in his jaw released—not into softness but into the harder resolve that comes from choosing the longer road.

"Your way," he said quietly. "But if anything happens to those girls before this is finished—"

"Nothing will happen to them. I promise you that."

I called David Lee. Nearly 4 AM, and he answered with the alert efficiency of a man accustomed to crisis calls.

"I need security camera footage from Greenfield Academy's exterior—street-facing cameras covering the front entrance between eight and eight-thirty yesterday morning. The photo metadata places the vehicle approximately forty feet from the entrance on the south side."

David called back within the hour. The footage showed a dark sedan parked at the curb at 7:52 AM, remaining through the entire drop-off window, departing at 8:23. The resolution captured the license plate.

"The plate is registered to Meridian Fleet Services," David said. "Premium rental company—corporate accounts only, no walk-ins. I've seen that name in Marcus's archive financials."

"Whose subsidiary is it?"

"Wholly owned by the Ashford Group."

I set the phone on the table. Xander and Archie watched me, reading the shift in my expression.

"Victor Ashford," I said. "The car belongs to his rental subsidiary. He's moved beyond corporate warfare—threatening our children directly, using his own infrastructure, leaving a trail that connects straight back to his organization."

The city was beginning to lighten beyond the windows, the first gray of dawn pressing against the glass.

"Then—" Archie said, his voice carrying quiet steel, "we file for an emergency protective order, notify the FBI, and bury Victor Ashford so deep in federal charges that he never sees daylight again."

I looked at Xander, and he looked at me. Between us, in the space where Gerald's threat still echoed, a shared understanding settled into place, the one requiring no words.

We were done being afraid and careful. And we were done letting men who threatened children hide behind corporate structures and old money.