Chapter 2 - The Photograph
By 8:12 the next morning, my face was everywhere.
I had been awake for exactly twenty-three minutes when Naomi Chen walked into my penthouse carrying three phones, a tablet, and the expression of a woman who had already argued with half of Chicago.
“Good morning,” she said.
“That depends.”
“It does not.”
She dropped the tablet on my kitchen island.
The first headline read:
MERCER’S MIDNIGHT MYSTERY: BILLIONAIRE SPOTTED WITH UNKNOWN WOMAN AND CHILD.
The second was worse.
SECRET FAMILY? ETHAN MERCER’S NEW YEAR’S SURPRISE.
I stared at the photograph.
It had been taken through the restaurant window.
Lily was laughing.
Maya was looking down at her coffee.
I was looking at Maya.
The angle made the image intimate.
Too intimate.
“They photographed a child,” I said.
Naomi nodded.
“We’ve asked every major outlet to blur her face. Some already have. Smaller sites won’t.”
“Get legal involved.”
“Already done.”
“I want every image of Lily removed.”
“We can threaten. We can’t erase the internet.”
“I didn’t ask what we can’t do.”
Naomi folded her arms.
This was why she had lasted nine years as my chief of staff.
Most people backed away when I used that tone.
Naomi leaned in.
“And this is why you terrify normal people.”
I looked at her.
She pointed at the screen.
“You cannot sue the entire planet into behaving.”
“Watch me.”
“No.”
I turned away.
Chicago was gray beyond the windows. Snow sat on rooftops and fire escapes. Far below, traffic moved like blood through arteries.
“Victor knew her name last night.”
Naomi went still.
“What?”
“He called me after she left. Said she worked in my building.”
“That’s possible. We have twelve hundred employees and almost four hundred contract workers in the downtown complex.”
“She said she works overnight security.”
Naomi typed on her tablet.
“Security is outsourced to Sentinel North.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I looked at her.
“That wasn’t an insult. You sign strategy. Other people sign vendor contracts.”
I hated that answer because it was true.
Mercer Dynamics occupied forty-two floors in the Lakeshore Center, but I could not have named half the companies responsible for keeping those floors clean, safe, heated, stocked, or secure.
I knew revenue by division.
I knew research budgets to the decimal.
I knew which government agencies had delayed approvals in which markets.
But I had no idea who stood at the lobby desk at three in the morning.
Until now.
Naomi found the employee record.
“Maya Collins. Thirty-four. Overnight security officer. Badge access north tower, lobby through floor forty-two. Employed by Sentinel North for three years.”
“Pay?”
She looked at me.
“You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“Twenty-one dollars an hour.”
Something inside me tightened.
“What?”
“She has differential pay after midnight.”
“How much?”
“Seventy-five cents.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because sometimes a number is so insulting that your brain rejects it.
“Benefits?”
“Limited. Vendor plan.”
“Define limited.”
“I’ll have HR pull the contract.”
I walked to the window.
Forty-two floors.
A woman guarded them all night for less than the cost of the bottle of wine Victor ordered without asking during most dinners.
“Do not do that,” Naomi said.
“What?”
“That thing where your face goes blank and somebody loses a department by lunch.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re thinking loudly.”
My personal phone rang.
Unknown number.
Naomi looked at it.
“Could be press.”
I answered.
“Mercer.”
Silence.
Then Maya said, “You really answer the phone like that?”
I turned away from Naomi.
“Maya.”
“I thought billionaires had people for this.”
“I do. They’re terrifying.”
Naomi gave me a look.
I stepped into the hallway.
“How are you?”
“Bad.”
My chest tightened.
“Did someone come to your apartment?”
“No.”
“Are reporters calling?”
“Yes.”
“How did they get your number?”
“That’s an excellent question.”
“I can change it.”
She exhaled.
“There. That. You did it again.”
“Did what?”
“Started solving my life without asking.”
I closed my eyes.
“Sorry.”
There was a pause.
“I had to explain to my seven-year-old why strangers online are calling me your girlfriend.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She thinks it’s funny.”
“I’m less sorry about that.”
“I’m not.”
Another pause.
Then she said, “My supervisor called.”
I straightened.
“What happened?”
“I’m suspended.”
“What?”
“For violating employee conduct policy.”
“How?”
“Apparently being photographed with the CEO of the company whose building I guard creates an ‘appearance of impropriety.’”
“That is absurd.”
“I told them I didn’t know who you were.”
“They know that.”
“Do they?”
“I’ll call Sentinel.”
“No.”
“Maya—”
“No.”
“They suspended you because of me.”
“They suspended me because they can.”
“I can fix it.”
“That’s the problem.”
I gripped the phone.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing.”
“I can’t do nothing.”
“Learn.”
The word landed harder than anger.
“Learn what?”
“What happens when you walk away.”
She hung up.
I stood in the hallway, staring at the phone.
Naomi had followed me.
“She’s suspended?”
“Yes.”
Naomi’s face changed.
“Sentinel is making a mistake.”
“No. They’re making a calculation.”
“What do you mean?”
I walked back to the kitchen.
“Victor knew her name too fast.”
Naomi understood immediately.
“You think he had someone pull her file.”
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
She opened her tablet again.
I called Victor.
He answered on the second ring.
“You finally awake?”
“You knew Maya’s name before midnight.”
“So?”
“How?”
“People work for you, Ethan.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is the only answer you need.”
I felt my temper rising.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Victor.”
“Relax. Legal identified her because we needed to assess exposure.”
“Exposure?”
“A contract worker having private dinner with the CEO creates questions.”
“She didn’t know who I was.”
“That’s what she says.”
I went very still.
“Careful.”
He laughed softly.
“Come on. You meet a woman in a crowded restaurant and suddenly you’re sitting with her child on New Year’s Eve? That’s a nice story. It’s also unlikely.”
“You think she planned it?”
“I think you are worth six billion dollars.”
“Five point eight this morning.”
“Very funny.”
“It wasn’t.”
His tone hardened.
“Ethan, people plan entire lives around getting close to men like you.”
“She offered me a chair.”
“Yes. And now she’s on every entertainment site in the country.”
“She was suspended this morning.”
Silence.
That was the answer.
“You knew,” I said.
“It’s a vendor matter.”
“You knew.”
“I was informed.”
“Did you order it?”
“No.”
“Did you suggest it?”
Victor did not answer.
I had known him for thirteen years.
He had been there when Mercer Dynamics had twenty employees and one office with exposed brick walls that froze in winter.
He had raised money with me.
Fought lawsuits with me.
Buried failed products with me.
He was the closest thing I had to a brother.
But there was something in that silence I had never heard before.
“Put her back on schedule,” I said.
“You should stay out of this.”
“That is not a request.”
“You cannot personally intervene in every employment matter because you had one emotional dinner.”
“It became my matter when they punished her for being seen with me.”
Victor sighed.
“You’re compromised.”
“And you’re testing me.”
“I’m protecting the company.”
“From a security guard?”
“From you.”
I ended the call.
Naomi was watching me.
“Bad?”
“Pull every contract we have with Sentinel North.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“All of them?”
“All.”
“That’s six states.”
“Good.”
“What exactly am I looking for?”
“Wages. Complaints. disciplinary actions. safety records. executive relationships. And anything connected to Victor Hale.”
Naomi hesitated.
“That last part is serious.”
“So am I.”
At 9:40, the board called an emergency communications meeting.
At 10:15, our communications director suggested I issue a statement calling Maya “an acquaintance.”
I refused.
At 10:37, a board member asked whether I had slept with her.
I stood up and left the room.
At 11:02, a television reporter camped outside Maya’s apartment building.
At 11:18, the school called Maya because a photographer had tried to speak with Lily near the entrance.
That was when she called me again.
This time she did not say hello.
“You said you could help.”
“I can.”
“Then help.”
Her voice shook.
Not with fear.
With rage.
“They came near her school.”
“I’ll send security.”
“No black SUVs. No men in suits standing outside my building.”
“Okay.”
“I want normal.”
“I can get discreet private protection.”
“Can you make the stories stop?”
“No.”
“Can you make people stop taking her picture?”
“No.”
“Can you make my job call me back?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
“What do you want?”
“I want the child left out of it.”
“I’ll do everything I can.”
“That sentence I can live with.”
“I need you to trust me.”
She laughed bitterly.
“I met you twelve hours ago.”
“Fair.”
“And you lied about who you were.”
“Also fair.”
“And apparently half your company knows my employment history.”
“That part is not fair.”
She went quiet.
“What does that mean?”
“I’m looking into it.”
“Ethan.”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Then don’t give me billionaire mystery voice.”
“I don’t have a billionaire mystery voice.”
“You absolutely do.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
Then Naomi came into the room so fast she did not knock.
Her face was pale.
She held out a file.
I lowered the phone.
“What?”
She mouthed two words.
You need this.
“I’ll call you back,” I told Maya.
“Don’t disappear.”
“I won’t.”
I ended the call.
Naomi placed the file on my desk.
“Sentinel North was renewed two years ago.”
“So?”
“The contract bypassed normal procurement.”
“Who approved it?”
“Victor.”
“That’s not unusual.”
“No.”
She opened the file.
“Victor’s brother-in-law owns eighteen percent of the holding company that owns Sentinel North.”
I looked at her.
“That was disclosed?”
“No.”
The room went silent.
Naomi turned another page.
“There’s more.”
A complaint.
Three years old.
Filed by a night security employee.
The employee alleged that guards were routinely required to work double shifts without full overtime, that safety equipment was outdated, and that supervisors retaliated against anyone who reported problems.
I scanned the list of witnesses.
My hand stopped.
Maya Collins.
“She signed this?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“The complaint was marked unsubstantiated.”
“By who?”
Naomi tapped the page.
Compliance review.
Approved by Victor Hale.
My phone buzzed.
A text from Maya.
I opened it.
One sentence.
They fired me.
I stared at the screen.
Then at Victor’s name on the document.
For the first time in thirteen years, I did not see my friend.
May you like
I saw a man standing between my company and the truth.
And somewhere on the other side of Chicago, a woman who had offered me a chair had just lost her job because she sat beside me.
