Page 13 of Secret Baby Daddy

I did not attend the funeral.

Roman told me it would be “operationally unwise” for a man in my position to be photographed at a dead informant’s graveside, and I believed him, because at twenty-six I believed everything Roman told me with the uncomplicated faith of a son who has finally found a father worth impressing.

I sent money to Jonah’s sister instead, anonymously, through three shell accounts, and told myself that was the same as grief.

I learned it was not, eleven years too late, standing alone in a cemetery on the anniversary, reading a headstone that would not read differently no matter how many times I came back to it.

I built my entire methodology out of that failure.

Verify everything twice.

Trust instinct only after it survives cross-examination.

Never again let another man’s confident voice replace my own analysis.

It has made me very good at my job.

It has made me, by most honest accounts including my own, difficult to work beside.

Seeing that authorization key attached to this file is not a coincidence I can afford to believe in.

I push my chair back, walk to the window, and press my knuckles against the cold glass.

I breathe in the lemon-scented air of the penthouse, forcing the smell of the rainy alley out of my nose.

I cannot walk away from this job.

Not with Jonah’s name attached to the extortion file.

“Calder.”

Piper’s voice cuts through the room.

She is standing, smoothing the front of her blazer.

“Are you going to brood by the window all day, or are we going to establish some ground rules?”

“Ground rules.”

I walk back to the table.

“Rule one. I control the evidence. I control the physical movement of Sloane Merrick. I control the internal security network. You do not speak to the family without my presence.”

Piper crosses her arms.

“Rule two. I control the external communication. I control the press releases. I control the media narrative. You do not lock Sloane in a panic room without my explicit sign-off.”

I lean my hands on the marble, closing the distance between us.

“If a threat requires immediate evacuation, I will not wait for you to write a press release, Piper.”

“If you evacuate the future CEO in the middle of the night without a cover story, the stock plummets thirty percent by breakfast.”

She leans forward, mirroring my posture, and her bergamot perfume cuts through the lemon oil.

“Cordelia made the rules very clear. Equal partners.”

I look at the fierce, unyielding set of her jaw.