My mother’s name.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard. The folder required a separate password. I tried her birthday. Nothing. Her maiden name. Nothing. The date she married my father. Still nothing.
To decrypt the password would take time—time we didn’t have.
“What would obsessive, controlling Grey use as a password for files about my mother?”
“You asking me? Something about his love for her, or her betrayal, perhaps?” Nina answered.
I looked around his desk. There was nothing but one picture frame of Grey in front of the Eiffel Tower, wearinga green T-shirt with Paris, the Eiffel Tower, and coordinates on it.
My mother had owned that exact same T-shirt.
I grabbed the frame, opened it, and took out the folded photo. And sure enough, there was my mother right next to Grey, equally smiley as Grey, wearing the same green shirt Grey did.
“Fuck me.”
Nina showed up behind me. “What?”
“That’s my mom,” I whispered, barely able to comprehend it myself.
“Try Paris,” Nina said before moving back to her guard position. “Or Eiffel Tower.”
I tried “Paris,” which didn’t work, then “Paris” followed by the coordinates on the T-shirt—a complete shot in the dark.
The folder unlocked.
“Oh my God,” I breathed, horror washing over me.
The contents revealed Grey’s decades-long obsession with my mother with surveillance photos spanning years—my mother shopping, at charity events, playing with us as children. Journal entries detailing his thoughts about her. Meticulous maps of her movements. Most disturbing were intimate photos—my mother in private moments with my father—which was just plain gross. Photos that could only have been taken with hidden cameras in their bedroom.
“This is beyond sick,” I whispered, feeling the need to throw up. “He was completely obsessed with her.”
“And you by proxy?” Nina, who had crossed the room and now stood next to the window, glanced over her shoulder, concern in her eyes. “What did you find?”
“Grey’s fixation on my mother. It’s…disturbing.” I continued copying everything, then noticed another folder labeled with my own name.
The contents were equally horrifying. But the very first thing in my file was two numbers and a date.
A date a week after my Nonno died, when I was eight.
A day I hadn’t thought about in years. But a day I would probably never forget.
“We need to wrap up,” Nina said.
I flew over the rest of the document. Surveillance dating back to my childhood. Psychological profiles crafted by professionals who’d never met me. School reports. Hacked medical records, including details of a shoulder injury I’d sustained at thirteen. There were even files detailing my dating history, complete with photos of me with friends and casual hookups.
My hands shook as I copied everything. “God, he’s gross.”
The extent of Grey’s surveillance was staggering. He’d been watching me for years, collecting data, building a profile. There were notes about my skills, my personality, everything. And it all started on that one day.
I scrolled back to the beginning, copied the first number, and searched for it.
Two directories appeared. I opened the first one. It looked similar to the records we’d found in the Paraskia Syndicate’s database earlier. I opened the first file, and it was acase report of how the Paraskia Syndicate took out an underground fighting ring in Moscow and found a bunch of children who were forced to fight and held in basements like animals.
Holy shit.
“How is this even possible?” I muttered.
