“Source?” I prod.
“Unknown for now.”
“Find out.”
“We are trying,” she insists.
I study the photographs again, my focus moving from Maggie outside the shelter to the diner, then to her apartment building. A cold feeling gathers in my chest as the pattern becomes impossible to ignore. None of this is random. Someone has been watching her intentionally, carefully enough to build a routine.Whether the Italians see Maggie as leverage against me or simply someone worth monitoring, the result is the same. She’s now a risk.
My thumb slides along the edge of a photograph before I force myself to place it back onto the desk.
“How exposed is she?”
Sasha exchanges a glance with Luka.
“Not publicly connected to you yet,” she says carefully. “But anyone watching the shelter could have seen Ivy there.”
A pulse begins hammering low in my neck before I force the thought aside just as quickly. Every photograph centers on Maggie, from the diner to her apartment building to the shelter. It looks like pressure tactics, more than anything else, meant to intimidate, observe, and remind someone they’re being watched.
I turn toward the windows again, resting one hand against my jaw while staring down at the river. Workers continue loading cargo below. Forklifts move between containers, and ship horns echo faintly through the harbor.
Everything outside continues as normal, as if nothing has changed. Yet someone has been watching the woman who spent last night in my bed, and a dark feeling moves beneath my skin at the realization.
No one touches what belongs to me.
The thought arrives too naturally, fast enough that my hand closes into a fist before I realize it.
“Does she know?” I ask.
“No,” Sasha answers.
“Keep it that way,” I instruct.
Luka studies me carefully. “You still want her at the house tonight?”
The question irritates me instantly. “Yes.”
“She could remain there until we identify who took the photographs,” Luka suggests.
“No.”
Maggie values freedom too much. The moment she feels trapped, she’ll push back. I know that and I’m not prepared to watch her walk away. The truth sinks in my stomach, irritating enough on its own without the more complicated part being true.
Sasha taps one finger lightly against another photograph. “This one concerns me the most.”
I look down. Maggie is kneeling beside Ivy outside the shelter while Winston sits in Maggie’s lap, and my daughter laughs hard enough that her head tips backward.
The image cuts deeper than it should because Ivy looks happy, open, and safe. I’ve spent years protecting her from every ugly piece of my world. Yet somehow Maggie walked into our lives with dog hair on her clothes, sarcasm in her mouth, and enough Southern charm to make my daughter smile more often.
I don’t know what to do with that.
“What are you thinking?” Luka asks quietly.
I keep my attention on the photograph. “Whoever took these underestimated how badly this could end for them.”
Neither of them speaks after that. Which is the right move. The rage moving through me sits too close to the surface already.
I gather the photographs into one stack. “Increase eyes around the shelter.”
