PART 2 For two years, invisibility had kept me safe inside the mansion of the most feared man in Chicago
PART 2
For a moment, the mansion went silent around us.
Not quiet.
Silent.
There was a difference I had learned during my two years in Jackson Steel’s house. Quiet meant the absence of sound. Silent meant something had noticed you.
And Jackson Steel had noticed me.
The words he had spoken still hung between us like a locked door.
“That dress isn’t leaving this house. And neither are you.”
My fingers tightened around the clutch until the beaded surface bit into my palm.
I had spent two years training my body not to react around powerful men. Do not flinch. Do not apologize too quickly. Do not show fear because some people consider fear an invitation.
But my heart had not been trained as well as the rest of me.
It beat wildly against my ribs.
“Excuse me?” I said.
Jackson’s gaze flickered.
For the first time since I had known him, something like regret moved across his face.
He took one step back.
One.
It was not much, but it mattered.
“I phrased that badly,” he said.
“You think?”
My voice came out sharper than I expected. Good. Sharp was better than trembling.
His eyes stayed on my face now, no longer on the dress. “Cassidy, I need you to listen to me.”
“No.” The word escaped before I could soften it. “I don’t need to do anything. I’m off duty. I have plans. I’m leaving.”
I moved toward the front door.
Jackson did not touch me.
He did not block me either.
But he said one sentence that stopped me more effectively than a hand ever could.
“The man you’re meeting tonight isn’t named Trevor.”
My fingers froze on the strap of my bag.
The marble hallway seemed to stretch around me, long and white and cold beneath the crystal lights. Outside the tall windows, Chicago glittered under early evening rain, the city reflected in the glass like another world I could not quite reach.
Slowly, I turned.
Jackson stood several feet away, tie loose, sleeves rolled, face unreadable again except for his eyes. His eyes were too focused.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Because his photograph crossed my security desk twenty minutes ago.”
“My date’s photograph crossed your security desk?”
“Yes.”
A laugh came out of me. It was small, brittle, and almost unfamiliar. “That’s convenient.”
“It is not convenient.”
“You expect me to believe that the one night I finally wear a dress and leave this house like an actual person, my employer suddenly knows private details about the man I’m meeting?”
“No,” he said. “I expect you to question it. You should.”
That answer unsettled me more than defensiveness would have.
Jackson looked past me toward the front entrance. “But I also expect you to consider why I would risk frightening you if I did not believe there was a reason.”
Risk frightening me.
The phrase slid under my skin because it was not what men usually worried about.
They worried about being misunderstood.
They worried about being accused.
They worried about consequences.
Jackson Steel, the most feared man in Chicago, had noticed my fear and named it.
I hated that it mattered.
“Show me,” I said.
He reached into his pocket slowly, giving me time to object. I did not. He took out his phone, tapped once, and held it toward me without stepping closer.
On the screen was a photograph.
Trevor smiled back at me from a profile picture I had already seen three times that day. Brown hair, kind eyes, dimple in one cheek. He had written thoughtful messages. Asked about books. Said he admired women who worked hard. He seemed harmless.
Under the photograph was another name.
Julian Mercer.
Below that were three words that made my stomach tighten.
Known associate: Vale.
I looked up. “Who is Vale?”
Jackson’s face changed slightly, so slightly most people might have missed it. But I knew small things about him. I knew the difference between tired and sleepless, between irritation and concern, between business calm and real danger.
This was real danger.
“Adrian Vale,” he said. “A man who believes I took something from him.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
The honesty hit harder than a denial.
“What?”
“A company. A contract. A future he thought belonged to him.” Jackson slipped the phone back into his pocket. “He has been looking for a way into my house.”
My mouth went dry.
“And you think I’m the way in?”
“I think someone wants you to be.”
I glanced toward the front door.
Suddenly, it no longer looked like freedom. It looked like an opening into the unknown.
Still, stubbornness rose in me. It had carried me through hospital bills, night classes I could no longer afford, and mornings when grief for my former self felt heavier than laundry baskets.
“Why would anyone choose me?” I asked. “I’m the housekeeper you barely know.”
“I know you.”
The words landed softly, but they startled me.
“No, you don’t,” I said.
Jackson’s jaw tightened. “Your coffee schedule says otherwise.”
“That is not knowing me.”
“You arrive six minutes early when it rains because you hate rushing on wet roads. You leave the kitchen light on in the back corridor for Mrs. Alvarez because she’s afraid of the basement stairs. You switch the silver-framed photograph on the piano back to its original spot every Thursday after the florist moves it. You buy the cheap tea for yourself but serve the expensive one to guests even when no one asks. You read during your lunch break with the book hidden inside a cleaning supply catalog.”
Heat climbed my neck.
I did not know whether to feel seen or exposed.
Jackson looked away first, as if he understood he had crossed into territory too intimate for a hallway.
“I notice more than I say,” he added quietly.
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“No,” he said. “It probably doesn’t.”
The chandelier above us hummed faintly. Somewhere deep in the mansion, the heating system clicked on. I could hear my own breathing.
My phone buzzed inside my clutch.
I startled.
Jackson’s eyes dropped toward it, but he did not ask to see.
That restraint made me angrier somehow.
I pulled the phone out.
Trevor: I’m outside. Can’t wait to see you in red.
I stared at the message.
My blood cooled.
I had never told him the color of my dress.
Riley knew. I knew. The saleswoman at the boutique knew. No one else.
Jackson must have read it on my face.
“He’s here?” he asked.
I nodded.
A second message appeared.
Trevor: Don’t keep me waiting, Cassidy.
For two years, I had been careful with my full name. At work, everyone called me Cass. The staff files used Cassandra Warren, not Cassidy. Riley was the only person who still called me Cassidy because she had known me before I learned to fold myself into shadows.
Trevor had called me Cass in every message.
Until now.
My hand began to shake.
I hated that Jackson saw.
He lowered his voice. “You are not trapped here.”
The words broke through the fog forming in my head.
I looked up.
“You can leave,” he said. “You can call the police. You can call your friend. You can ask me to step back and I will. But if you walk out that door alone, you may be walking toward someone who already knows more about you than he should.”
Outside, headlights swept across the front windows.
A car had pulled into the drive.
My stomach turned.
Jackson did not move toward the door. He looked at me instead.
“What do you want to do?” he asked.
No one had asked me that the night my former employer locked the office door.
No one had asked when I changed my hair and bought ugly sweaters three sizes too large.
No one had asked when my father’s medical bills swallowed my college savings and my future narrowed into hours worked, checks mailed, and prescriptions picked up before closing.
What do you want to do?
The question was so simple it nearly undid me.
“I want,” I said slowly, “to know who he is.”
Jackson nodded once. “Then we find out.”
He walked to the security panel beside the archway and pressed a button. “Mason.”
A voice answered immediately. “Yes, sir.”
“Keep the front gate closed. No one enters. No one approaches the house.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Mason?”
“Sir?”
“No intimidation. No theatrics. The man in the car gets treated like a guest until he gives us a reason to do otherwise.”
I blinked.
Jackson noticed.
“I’m not what people whisper,” he said.
“People whisper a lot.”
“They’re wrong about some things.”
“And right about others?”
His eyes held mine. “Yes.”
I appreciated the truth more than I wanted to.
A minute later, a tall man in a dark coat appeared at the far end of the hall. Mason, the head of security, had the kind of calm expression that suggested he had seen every version of trouble and was bored by most of them.
“Mr. Steel,” he said, then glanced at me. “Miss Warren.”
Miss Warren.
Not Cass.
Not the invisible woman who polished the banisters.
Something in me tightened.
Jackson turned to him. “The driver outside. Confirm identity. Quietly.”
Mason nodded. “Already running the plates.”
“Good.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly aware of the red dress again. What had felt like courage in the staff room now felt too bright, too visible, like a flare in darkness.
Jackson noticed that too.
“There’s a sitting room off the west corridor,” he said. “No cameras inside. You can wait there if you want privacy.”
Privacy.
Another word powerful men often forgot women needed.
I nodded.
The sitting room was small by mansion standards, which meant it was still larger than my entire apartment. Soft blue walls, a fireplace, books no one had touched in years, and tall windows looking out over the side garden. Rain ticked gently against the glass.
Jackson stayed at the doorway.
“I’ll be outside,” he said.
I looked at him. “You’re not coming in?”
“Not unless you ask.”
I didn’t know what to do with a man who could command a room by entering it but chose to stay in the hallway because I had not invited him closer.
So I said nothing.
He stepped back and left the door half open.
My legs finally gave out. I sank onto the sofa, clutch in my lap, phone in my hand. The screen had gone dark, but I could still see the message burned behind my eyes.
Can’t wait to see you in red.
I called Riley.
She answered on the second ring. “Are you on your way? Tell me you didn’t chicken out. Trevor said he was really excited, and I swear if you cancel—”
“Riley.”
The word cracked.
Silence.
Then her voice changed completely. “Cass? What happened?”
“Where did you meet Trevor?”
“At the bookstore event. Why?”
“Did you tell him where I work?”
“No.” A pause. “I mean, I said you worked in a private home. Maybe I mentioned the neighborhood? Cass, what’s going on?”
“Did you tell him about the dress?”
“No. Why would I?”
My eyes closed.
Riley’s breathing quickened. “Cassidy, you’re scaring me.”
“He’s outside Jackson’s house.”
“What? He said he was picking you up at the corner restaurant.”
“He knows my full name. He knows I’m wearing red.”
“Oh my God.”
A sound came from her end of the line, like she had knocked something over.
“Riley,” I said carefully, “is Trevor there with you?”
“No. But…” Her voice faltered.
“But what?”
“He asked me a lot about you. Not weird at first. Sweet, you know? Like he cared. Where you grew up. Whether you had family. Whether you lived alone. I thought he was interested.”
I pressed a hand against my stomach.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“This isn’t your fault.”
“It feels like my fault.”
The words were so familiar that I almost laughed. How easily women inherited blame for someone else’s careful deception.
“It’s not,” I said, and realized I was saying it to both of us.
Mason appeared at the open door, but he did not enter. “Miss Warren?”
I lowered the phone. “Yes?”
“Mr. Steel asked me to tell you we have the plate confirmation. The car is registered to a shell company connected to Vale Holdings.”
My pulse jumped.
Riley heard enough to panic. “Cass, who is that?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“I’m coming over.”
“No,” I said quickly. “Stay where you are. Lock your door. Send me screenshots of every message Trevor sent you.”
“Okay. Okay. I’ll do it now.”
“And Riley?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t blame yourself.”
Her breath shook. “Only if you don’t blame yourself either.”
After we hung up, I sat very still.
The woman I had been three years earlier would have cried. The woman I had trained myself to become would have swallowed it all and asked whether anyone needed coffee.
Tonight, in a red dress I no longer knew how to feel about, I did neither.
I stood.
Jackson was in the hallway, speaking quietly with Mason. He stopped the instant he saw me.
“I want to see him,” I said.
“No.”
My spine stiffened.
Jackson caught himself immediately. “Sorry. Not no. I mean, I don’t think it’s wise.”
“Then say that.”
He looked at me for one long second, then nodded. “I don’t think it’s wise.”
“Noted. I still want to see him.”
Mason shifted. “Miss Warren, there are safer ways to—”
“I don’t want to speak to him. I want to see his face when he realizes I didn’t walk out alone.”
Jackson studied me.
I expected him to argue. Instead, he asked, “From the security room?”
“Yes.”
“Done.”
The security room sat behind a hidden panel near Jackson’s office. I had dusted that hallway a hundred times without knowing the room existed. Inside, monitors displayed every angle of the property: gates, driveways, gardens, service entrance, garage.
And there he was.
Trevor.
Or Julian Mercer.
He stood outside a black sedan near the gate, holding an umbrella. He looked exactly like his profile picture. Kind eyes. Brown hair. Dimple in one cheek.
Normal.
That was the worst part.
People expected danger to announce itself. To look strange, sharp, obvious. But sometimes it wore a wool coat and smiled in photographs.
Mason spoke into a microphone. “Good evening, sir. Can we help you?”
Trevor looked toward the camera, still smiling. “I’m here for Cassidy.”
Jackson glanced at me.
My hands curled into fists.
Mason replied, “There is no Cassidy available at this residence.”
Trevor’s smile did not change, but his eyes did.
“I believe there is.”
“How did you obtain this address?”
“She gave it to me.”
I whispered, “No, I didn’t.”
Jackson heard.
His jaw tightened.
Mason remained calm. “That is not accurate. Please leave the property.”
Trevor lowered the umbrella slightly. “Tell Mr. Steel that Vale sends regards.”
The room cooled.
“And tell Cassidy,” Trevor continued, looking directly into the camera now, “that hiding never works forever.”
Something inside me went very quiet.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Those words.
Hiding never works forever.
My former supervisor, Martin Vale, had said almost the same thing outside the courthouse after I withdrew my complaint because I could not afford the fight, because my father was sick, because everyone told me powerful families protected their own.
You can hide behind paperwork, Cassidy, but you can’t hide forever.
Martin Vale.
Adrian Vale.
I turned slowly toward Jackson.
He already understood.
“Vale,” I said. “The man who touched me at my old job was named Martin Vale.”
Jackson’s expression went still with a kind of controlled anger that frightened me less because it was not pointed at me.
“Mason,” he said. “Get the car gone.”
Mason nodded and spoke into the microphone. “Leave now, sir.”
Trevor smiled once more.
Then he got into the car and reversed away from the gate.
No chase. No shouting. No cinematic confrontation.
Just headlights fading into rain.
Somehow, that made it worse.
The danger had not ended. It had simply decided to wait.
I realized I was shaking only when Jackson said my name.
“Cassidy.”
“I need air.”
I left the security room before anyone could stop me. Not that they tried. I walked fast through the hallway, past the office, past the marble staircase, past the front door I had almost opened. My heels clicked too loudly again.
The library was closest.
I entered and shut the door, then pressed my back against it.
Breathe.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
My therapist at the community clinic had taught me that before I stopped going because my father’s medications became more important than my copay.
Breathe.
I heard a soft knock.
“Go away,” I said.
“It’s Jackson.”
“I know.”
A pause.
“I can go away farther if needed.”
Despite everything, a laugh escaped me. It sounded broken, but it was real.
The door remained closed.
He did not enter.
After a minute, I opened it.
Jackson stood outside with his hands visible at his sides. There was something almost awkward about him now, as if a man who could negotiate hostile acquisitions without blinking did not know how to stand in front of a frightened woman without becoming part of the problem.
That awkwardness made him seem human.
“You knew Vale?” I asked.
“Adrian Vale. Business rival. Publicly respectable, privately reckless. I did not know about Martin.”
“His brother,” I said. “Maybe cousin. I don’t know. I tried not to know anything about him after I left.”
Jackson’s eyes darkened. “What happened?”
The question was careful.
I appreciated the space inside it.
“He was my manager at a publishing office,” I said. “I was twenty-three. He was charming. Everyone liked him. One night I stayed late to finish a manuscript review. He locked the office door and touched me after I told him not to.”
Jackson did not speak.
His silence was not empty. It was listening.
“I got out,” I continued. “Nothing worse happened. People like to say that as if it means nothing happened at all.”
“It doesn’t.”
The simplicity of his answer hurt.
I looked down at my red dress. “I reported him. Then the questions started. Why was I there late? Why had I smiled at him? Why did I wait two days? Why didn’t I scream? His family sent lawyers. My father got worse. I needed work. So I left. Changed everything I could change and disappeared.”
Jackson leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, still outside the room. “And then you came here.”
“Yes.”
“A house full of dangerous men.”
I laughed softly. “Irony has terrible taste.”
“I am sorry,” he said.
I looked up quickly. “You didn’t do it.”
“No. But my world may have found you because you worked in my house.”
“My past found me before your world did.”
He nodded, accepting the correction.
That mattered too.
“Why did Vale send someone after me?” I asked.
Jackson looked toward the darkened hallway. “Because last week, I blocked Adrian Vale from acquiring a medical technology company. He needed leverage. He may have searched my staff for vulnerabilities.”
“My father,” I whispered.
Jackson’s face shifted.
“What?”
“He’s in a private care facility. Expensive. I’m behind again.” I swallowed. “That’s a vulnerability.”
Jackson said nothing too quickly, which told me he was thinking.
I narrowed my eyes. “What?”
“There is something you should know.”
The careful tone made my stomach tighten.
“Say it.”
He looked genuinely reluctant.
“Six months ago, your father’s facility received an anonymous grant through the Steel Family Health Fund.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“It covered a portion of unpaid balances for several patients. Your father was one.”
My face burned. “You paid my father’s bills?”
“The foundation did.”
“Your foundation.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I saw you crying in the laundry room.”
The memory struck me hard.
Six months ago. A Tuesday. I had opened a letter from the facility during lunch and learned they would move my father if I could not pay. I had hidden in the laundry room between racks of clean sheets and cried into a towel like a child.
I thought no one had seen.
“You watched me cry?”
“I walked past. I heard you. I should not have looked, but I did. Later, I asked accounting whether there was a legal way to help without making you feel obligated.”
I stepped back.
“You should have told me.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Because I thought telling you would turn help into power.” His eyes held mine. “And I had no right to power over you.”
I wanted to stay angry.
Part of me was angry.
But another part—tired, honest, deeply worn down—remembered the month my father had kept his room, his nurses, his familiar window facing the courtyard. I had thought it was a clerical miracle. I had slept for five hours straight for the first time in weeks.
“Thank you,” I said, because both truths could exist. “And don’t ever do that again without asking me.”
Jackson nodded. “Understood.”
No excuse. No pride. No wounded male ego.
Just understood.
It was terribly disarming.
Before I could decide what to say next, Mason appeared at the end of the hall.
“Sir,” he said. “Vale’s car is gone, but we received something at the gate.”
Jackson straightened. “What?”
“An envelope. The driver left it before departing.”
Jackson looked at me.
I looked back.
The night had not finished with us.
We gathered in Jackson’s office, though gathered was too calm a word for how I felt. The room was all dark wood, steel-gray walls, and a desk so immaculate it seemed less like furniture and more like a warning.
Mason placed the envelope on the desk.
My name was written across the front.
Cassidy Warren.
Not Cass.
Not Cassandra.
Cassidy.
Jackson did not touch it. “Do you want it opened?”
I appreciated the question so much it annoyed me.
“Yes.”
Mason put on gloves and slit the top cleanly. Inside were two photographs and a folded note.
The first photograph showed me entering Jackson’s mansion months ago in my gray coat, hair pinned, glasses on. Invisible Cassidy.
The second showed me tonight through the staff room window, red dress half-zipped, hair falling down my back.
My skin went cold.
Jackson turned the photograph over quickly, but not before I saw enough.
Someone had been watching.
Not just tonight.
Watching me change.
My vision blurred at the edges.
Jackson’s voice became quiet and lethal. “Mason.”
“Already checking all exterior footage.”
I reached for the note before anyone could stop me.
The message was typed.
Mr. Steel,
You hide assets well. This one is prettier than your usual investments.
Send the Black Ledger by midnight tomorrow, or Chicago learns what kind of man shelters damaged women and calls it charity.
I read it twice.
The words should have broken me.
Damaged women.
Maybe once they would have.
Tonight, something else rose instead.
Cold, clear anger.
I placed the note on the desk.
“I am not an asset.”
Jackson’s gaze snapped to mine. “No. You are not.”
“I am not damaged either.”
“No,” he said. “You are not.”
Mason looked between us. “The Black Ledger is not something Vale should know exists.”
“What is it?” I asked.
Jackson looked at the envelope, then at me. “Proof of financial crimes tied to several corporations, including Vale Holdings. My father collected it years ago. I found it after he died.”
“And Vale wants it.”
“Yes.”
“Why use me?”
“Because he thinks I care.”
The words came out before he seemed to realize how they sounded.
The room changed.
Mason suddenly found the security monitor very interesting.
I stared at Jackson.
“You barely spoke to me for two years,” I said.
“I know.”
“You didn’t know my full name.”
“I knew it.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“I knew your name.”
“But you called me Cass.”
“Because Mrs. Alvarez did, and you answered to it. I thought it was what you preferred.”
A strange feeling moved through me, delicate and painful.
For two years, I had believed he overlooked me completely.
Perhaps he had been looking quietly, from a distance he thought was respectful.
Perhaps invisibility had never been as complete as I imagined.
Jackson exhaled slowly. “Cassidy, I need to tell you something, and I need you to hear all of it before deciding I’m terrible.”
“That’s not a promising start.”
“No.”
He walked to the window, looking out at the rain-dark lawn.
“Three months after you started working here, I asked Mason to run basic background checks on all employees because we had a security breach.”
Mason looked uncomfortable.
Jackson continued, “Your file raised a flag. Not criminal. Legal. There was a sealed complaint against Martin Vale, then a withdrawal. Soon after, you changed jobs, moved apartments, and your father’s care debt increased.”
My throat tightened. “You investigated me.”
“Yes.”
“At work.”
“Yes.”
“And then what? You decided I was useful?”
He turned quickly. “No.”
The force of it startled me.
“No,” he said again, softer. “I decided you were trying very hard to disappear, and I respected it badly. By pretending not to see you.”
My anger faltered because the sentence was too strange and too honest.
“I thought indifference was kindness,” he said. “Tonight proved it was only ignorance dressed as restraint.”
No one had ever apologized to me like that.
Not perfectly.
But truthfully.
I looked down at the red dress. “I bought this because I wanted one night back.”
Jackson’s face softened.
“Back from whom?”
“From the person I became to survive.”
The office fell quiet.
Then Jackson did something I did not expect.
He pulled out the chair beside his desk, not behind it, and sat. Not towering. Not commanding. Just sitting across from me like a man making himself smaller so the conversation could breathe.
“You should have that night,” he said.
I laughed once. “My date is a fake name who works for the family of the man who ruined my life, and someone photographed me through a window. I think the night is unavailable.”
“Tonight, maybe.” His mouth curved faintly. “But not forever.”
The hope in that simple sentence frightened me more than Trevor outside the gate.
Hope was dangerous because it made hiding feel like loss.
Mason’s phone buzzed. He read the screen, and his expression changed.
“What?” Jackson asked.
“We found the camera.”
“Where?”
“Garden wall, east side. Long-range lens. Recently installed.”
Jackson stood. “Remove it.”
“Already done. There’s more.” Mason looked at me now. “It transmitted to an apartment across the street.”
My stomach dropped.
“My apartment?”
Mason hesitated.
Jackson’s voice sharpened. “Mason.”
“No,” Mason said. “Miss Warren’s apartment has not been breached.”
Relief hit so hard I nearly swayed.
“But the receiving location is registered to someone named Riley Moore.”
I stopped breathing.
“My Riley?”
“I don’t know,” Mason said gently. “But the name matches.”
I grabbed my phone and called her.
No answer.
I called again.
No answer.
The room tilted.
“She always answers,” I whispered.
Jackson was already moving. “Mason, send a unit to Riley Moore’s address. Quiet approach. Now.”
I tried again.
This time, the call connected.
For one second there was only static.
Then Riley’s voice came through, small and shaking.
“Cass?”
“Riley! Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. I’m okay, but there’s someone here.”
Jackson stepped closer, not taking the phone, just listening.
“Who?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I went to lock the door like you said, and there was a package in the hallway. It had my name on it. Inside was my old phone.”
“Your old phone?”
“The one I lost two months ago.”
My eyes closed.
Trevor had known about me through Riley because someone had Riley’s phone.
“What else was in the package?” I asked.
Riley began to cry. “A note.”
“What did it say?”
Her breath hitched.
“It said, ‘Tell Cassidy the red dress was never for Trevor.’”
The room went still.
Jackson’s eyes met mine.
A cold certainty moved through me, quiet and terrible.
This had not begun tonight.
It had been planned before Riley ever introduced me to Trevor. Before the dress. Before I stood in the staff room mirror and whispered my own name back to myself.
Someone had not merely followed me.
Someone had guided me.
Riley sobbed softly through the phone. “Cass, there’s more.”
“What?”
“The note says Jackson Steel doesn’t have the real Black Ledger.” She paused, her voice breaking. “It says you do.”
I stared at Jackson, unable to understand.
“I don’t have anything,” I whispered.
Then my gaze fell to my borrowed clutch.
The one Riley had insisted I use because it matched the dress.
The clutch I had carried into Jackson Steel’s mansion without opening once.
Slowly, with hands that no longer felt like mine, I unclasped it.
Inside, beneath my lipstick and folded cash, was a small black flash drive.
Jackson saw it at the same moment I did.
Neither of us spoke.
On the side of the drive, someone had written one word in silver ink.
WARREN.
END OF PART 2 – LIKE, SHARE AND COMMENT “THE ENTIRE STORY” IF YOU WANT TO READ THE FULL STORY
