James’s POV
I’d seen setups before.
You grow up with the O’Connor name, you learn quickly that your reputation doesn’t belong to you. It’s currency. It’s target practice. It’s bait.
But this wasn’t a headline.
This wasn’t a public leak.
It was a message — direct, deliberate, perfectly timed to rattle Melinda before one of the most important moments of her career.
And the worst part?
I couldn’t tell if it was about me…
Or her.
I called Ronan the next morning.
He’d been my private contact for years — former intelligence consultant, now operating in the gray space between corporate security and “the things no one else can touch.”
“Someone sent my partner a photo,” I said. “Of me. From Berlin. With a woman. And a child I didn’t know existed.”
I sent him a scan of the photo and the
