“I think so too. My wife has very good taste.” He frowned slightly, straightening in his chair. “I was a little surprised though when I saw your surname in the title of the real estate agency name... Whitmore.”
My throat felt tight as I tried to remain calm. “Yes, it’s my mother’s business.”
“Julia told me she saw you at the front desk... I see your mother likes keeping things in the family?”
“I guess so.”
“I had my people do some digging into who’s runnin’ these investigations into my clubs. You can imagine my surprise when your surname popped up again too.” He lowered his forearms to the desk, eyes on me. “Tell me, Lily, does your father, Detective Sergeant Whitmore, share anything with his family? Or you with him?”
I felt like a deer in headlights and couldn’t remember when I blinked last. Or moved.
“You have seen quite a lot.”
I shook my head. “I haven’t told him anything.”
“That’s what I believed for a while myself until Roxy overheard your conversation in the staff room with the staff members. I believe one questioned if your father was a detective?”
Jen had accidentally blurted it out on the night of Antonio’s meeting in The Den.
Antonio considered me for a moment and then opened his desk drawer. When he brought his hand back up to the desk, I flinched, but he placed a black folder on the glass surface. Not a gun.
He slid the folder to me and nodded for me to open it. I did so carefully. Inside were black and white photos. My eyes widened when I realized they were of me leaving the precinct where my father’s office was. The day we had lunch.
“You didn’t tell him anything?” Antonio asked.
Looking at the angle the images were taken, it dawned on me why Roxy’s sleek black car looked so familiar. It had been parked in the parking lot that day. It was also the same car I accidentally stepped in front of while trying to flag down a bus when I was blinded by my anxiety. I hadn’t paid any attention to what I was doing, worrying too much about being followed. My intuition that day hadn’t been far off. I was being followed. The continuous, smug expression on Roxy’s face right now, only confirmed it as she watched me piece it together.
I wondered if she would’ve struck me that day if there hadn't been so many people around.
Antonio cleared his throat. “Lily?”
My eyes flicked to him, and then the photos as I shook my head in denial. “This was just for lunch.”
He sat back in his seat. “What’d you talk about over lunch?”
I paused. Not out of worry but because I knew the answer I was about to give him would’ve been way down on his list of priorities. Dating statuses and overbearing parents didn’t exactly seem like something Antonio would care about. I felt embarrassed saying it out loud.
“My dad was trying to...convince me to stop seeing Dean...”
The room fell silent, except for when Vince coughed quietly.
Antonio’s face grew bored as he crossed his arms. “Right.”
“I think,” I continued, noting how the tension in the room seemed to shift, “if I had told him anything, he wouldn’t have allowed me to keep working under you... He would’ve thrown me into witness protection or something.”
Antonio brought his attention to Roxy and raised a white eyebrow slightly. The look on his face was the look of someone who was told a slightly more embellished story and was now very disappointed. Meanwhile, Roxy pursed her lips and refused to meet his gaze. Ashamed, irritated, and maybe a little embarrassed.
I frowned slightly and chewed my cheek in hesitation as I looked at Antonio again. “Mr Gimello?”
“Please, call me Antonio.”
“Right, sorry. Antonio...” I twisted my fingers in my lap. “What would you have done if I did go to my dad about all of this?”
He seemed genuinely surprised that I wanted to know. “Are you saying you might?”
“No. Definitely not,” I said quickly.
“It would’ve been a very different conversation...”
