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Dinner with too manybodyguards and not enough breadsticks.That’s what this scene should be called when the movie of Chloe’s life was made.
They chose a quiet corner booth at a small, brick-walled trattoria tucked between a florist and a shoe repair place.It was Leo’s idea.He’d claimed the lighting was forgiving and flattering in crisis situations.
Chloe suspected the real reason was deliberate.Kayne needed his back against the wall.Anja needed sightlines to every exit and shadow that didn’t belong.And Leo needed Chloe where he could see her breathe.
She slid into the booth beside Leo, the cracked leather cool against her legs.Kayne took the seat across from her, long frame contained but coiled, like a rattler poised to strike.Anja settled beside him, composed as ever.
Chloe smiled at the red-checkered tablecloth and tried to let the smell of garlic and basil convince her this was normal.
It didn’t work.
This was, without question, the least relaxing dinner of her life.
The server appeared, cheerful and oblivious, took drink orders, scribbled happily, and vanished.And then silence.
Three sets of intense eyes swung to Chloe.It felt as if she were the lone witness to her own kidnapping.
Anja folded her hands on the table.“Okay.We’re all here.”Her voice was calm, but it carried weight.“Tell me everything from the start.I’ve read the file, but I want to hear it directly from you.”
Chloe stared at her napkin, folding and unfolding it until the crease blurred.“Can we not do the whole interrogation vibe?”she asked lightly.“I was really hoping for a breadsticks-first approach.”
No one laughed.
Kayne leaned forward, forearms braced on the table.His voice was almost too gentle.“Chloe, we need to lay it out.All of it.”
They already knew this, but she lifted her eyes.“Fine.It all started with Fraiser Talbot.”
Then she told them about the altered photo, how seeing her own face twisted into something intimate and wrong had made her stomach flip.The first near-miss outside the gym.The second one, worse.The break-in.Her beloved plants destroyed.
She didn’t embellish, nor dramatize.She’d gotten very good at minimizing.But saying it out loud, stringing the incidents together instead of compartmentalizing them as she had been doing, it sounded bad.Reallyawful.
She’d told herself it was coincidence or rotten luck.That the universe was being dramatic again.
Now she looked around the table.Kayne’s mouth was tight, a muscle jumping near his cheek.Leo had gone still in that way he did when he was cataloging damage.Anja’s eyes were razor-focused, already running scenarios.
It felt terrifyingly big.
“Which brings us to the most recent incident,” Kayne said.
Chloe winced.“The sticky note.‘You won’t see me until it’s too late,’” she recited quietly.“It was in my office, under my keyboard.Someone got close enough, not just to my workspace, but to me.”
Anja nodded once.“He’s confident now.Comfortable.He’s testing proximity.”
“Why are you so sure it’s ahe?”Leo wanted to know.
Chloe didn’t look at him because she knew exactly where his mind went.Danica.Blood and complications she wasn’t ready to touch.
“I’m just going with statistics,” Anja expounded calmly.“Stalkers aren’t exclusively male, but it is disproportionately so.Roughly seventy to eighty percent.”
“So what do I do?”Chloe asked before Leo could voice his concerns about her sister.“Move?Hide?Stop coming to work?”
“No,” Kayne said immediately.“You keep living your life with us beside you.”
“And you follow every instruction we give you,” Anja added.“This isn’t paranoia.It’s survival.”
Leo squeezed her shoulder.“I know you hate feeling controlled, but this is different.This is someone stepping up toward harm.”
