She’d started working for Alicio just before Mom had died and had given me a bad feeling right from the start; she had pandered to Alicio when his focus should have been his dying wife. Instead, he’d catered to Sasha’s every whim. Regardless of my personal animosity toward the woman, facts didn’t lie and the numbers justified digging deeper. So I’d kept pushing and pushing.
And pushing.
When I stormed into an executive board meeting, demanding an internal audit, all but accusing Sasha outright, Alicio had calmly asked me to leave the meeting and wait for him in his office.
I left, all right.
Out the door, down the elevator and away from LeFranc forever.
When I ran into Dani at Java Jean’s, it was the closest I’d been to the building since walking out.
I never did talk to Alicio face-to-face. Victor sent over a nondisclosure agreement for me to sign upon my “resignation,” cutting me off from everyone presently employed at LeFranc and issuing a gag order—I would not speak to the press about my suspicions under any circumstances. A phone call from my stepfather was more than enough to let me know that should I choose not to sign it, I would swiftly reap the consequences; he wouldn’t hesitate to send over the documentation for the retroactive student loan account he’d be happy to set up in my name to cover my very expensive Ivy League education.
It was a dirty move, and in my mind, more than cemented the fact that Alicio, or someone on the inside, had something to hide. Just the same, it was enough to make me sign.
So I had.
And I regretted it every single day.
My phone buzzed and I looked away from my laptop screen, closing it with a huff. I’d spent too many hours staring at numbers, wishing I could see what they meant. A distraction was welcome.
I retrieved the phone off of my bed and stretched out across the mattress to see who’d texted.
Dani.
My heart rate climbed just from the sight of her name.
What do you mean, be careful? she’d texted.
I closed my eyes. How could I answer? It had been a risk saying that much. I’d only wanted her to know I still thought Sasha was up to something and I didn’t think she should let her guard down. But there was no way I could actually answer her question.
Instead, I answered with another question. Is something going on?
Don’t answer my question with a question, she responded.
I smiled, despite the seriousness of our conversation. I missed Dani’s fire.
I can only speak in generalities, Dani. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific.
It took a long time for her to respond. For how long the little dots bounced at the bottom of my phone screen, I expected a much longer text. Instead, it was just one sentence.
But you don’t think I should trust Sasha.
At least that was a question I could answer. I’d made no secret of my distrust for Sasha, even before I left LeFranc.
No. My feelings about that haven’t changed.
Several minutes went by with no response. I waited, occupying myself with a scroll through Dani’s photo feed on Instagram. It was mostly her clothes—she worked hard to maintain a professional online presence—but there was an occasional photo of her face. I lingered on those the longest.
After ten minutes with no response, I texted her again.
Dani, are you in trouble?
Again, no response.
I dropped the phone on my desk with a heavy thud, a knot of dread forming in my stomach. Something was up. And there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t my problem. It wasn’t, even if Dani was in trouble. She’d made her choice and I’d made mine. There wasn’t a reason for me to keep thinking about her, and yet, I couldn’t escape.
I looked around the sparsely furnished bedroom I occupied in Isaac’s home. A bed, a small desk. A chair in the corner. Without even realizing it, I’d furnished the room to look like a slightly grown-up version of my childhood bedroom. The furniture held the same clean, simple lines and the muted blues and grays of the bedding, and the chair in the corner was an echo of what my father would have chosen. Dani’s question hovered in my mind. Why did I live with Isaac? It wasn’t as though I couldn’t afford to live on my own. I’d meant what I told her about believing the job was only temporary, but even after