In His Bed

Chapter 12: The Message

Aria

The message arrived on my phone at 11:47 on a Tuesday night, from a number I didn't recognize, and the first line was enough to send ice through my whole body before I'd even read the rest.

I know what happened at the gala. I have proof. Keep both your phones on. Instructions to follow.

Beneath the text sat a single photograph, grainy, clearly taken from a distance with a long lens, timestamped the night of the gala. It showed Stan and me on a private balcony I hadn't remembered existed until that exact moment, close together, his hand at the small of my back, my face tilted up toward his in a way that left absolutely nothing about the evening to interpretation.

My hands were shaking by the time I got Stan on the phone.

"Someone has a photo," I said, before he'd even finished saying hello. "From the balcony. The gala. They're saying they have proof, and they want something, and I don't know what, they haven't said what yet, they just said instructions are coming."

"Send it to me." His voice had gone instantly sharp, focused, the same controlled urgency I remembered from the conference room, except stripped now of any professional distance. "Now, Aria. Send me everything."

I forwarded the message with hands that hadn't fully stopped shaking, and heard him go quiet on the other end of the line as he read it.

"This is a professional job," he said finally, low. "That lens, that angle, that balcony wasn't visible from anywhere the public was allowed. Whoever took this had access nobody should have had."

"Someone on the gala staff?"

"Maybe. Or someone who paid the staff." A long pause, and I could hear him thinking, calculating, running through possibilities with the same precision he brought to a hostile negotiation. "I'm coming over."

"Stan, it's midnight."

"I'm coming over," he repeated, in a tone that left no room for argument, and hung up before I could tell him not to bother.

He arrived eighteen minutes later, coat thrown on over what looked like pajama pants, hair unbrushed, phone already in his hand mid call to someone about pulling security footage from the venue.

"I've got someone looking into the venue's staff roster tonight," he said, barely through my door before he started talking. "If it was an inside job, we'll know who had balcony access within twenty four hours."

"And if it wasn't?"

"Then we widen the search." He set his phone down long enough to actually look at me, and something in his expression softened at whatever he found on my face. "Hey. Look at me. We're going to figure this out."

"They know, Stan. Whoever this is, they know about us, they have proof, and they're going to want something for staying quiet, and I don't even know what they could possibly want that would be worth handing over."

"Money, probably. That's usually the answer with people like this." His jaw tightened. "Or something worse. Leverage over the company. Leverage over my father's board seat. I don't know yet, and I'm not going to speculate past what we actually know."

"What do we actually know?"

"That someone was watching us that night, closely enough to plan this in advance. That they've been sitting on this for over a week before making contact, which means they were waiting for something, timing, maybe, or confirmation that this was worth the risk." He ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. "And that they're not finished. Instructions to follow means this isn't a one time ask. This is the opening move."

I sank onto my couch, the adrenaline of the last hour finally starting to curdle into something closer to exhaustion. "I can't do this alone."

"You're not going to." Stan sat down beside me, close, deliberate, and reached for my hand the same way he had in his office weeks ago, giving me every chance to pull away and clearly relieved when I didn't. "Whatever this is, whoever's behind it, we handle it together. That's not negotiable. Not this."

"Your board is going to find out."

"Maybe. Eventually." Something hard and unflinching settled into his voice. "But they're going to find out on our terms, when we're ready, not because someone with a camera and a grudge decided our timeline for us."

"You don't sound scared."

"I am scared." He said it plainly, without the deflection I half expected. "I'm scared for you, and I'm scared for what this could cost the company, and I'm scared of who might be behind it. But I'm not going to let that fear make the decisions for us. We're going to be smart about this. Methodical. The two of us."

I looked down at our joined hands, at the specific steadiness of his grip, and felt something in my chest settle even as the rest of me stayed braced for whatever came next.

"Together," I said quietly, testing the shape of the word.

"Together," Stan confirmed, and squeezed my hand once, like a promise neither of us was ready to say out loud yet. "Starting right now. Whoever sent this message just made a mistake underestimating what happens when both of us are paying attention."

My phone buzzed on the coffee table between us, the screen lighting up with the same unknown number, and both of us went very still, staring at the new message that had just arrived.

Instructions attached. You have forty eight hours.