Page 7 of Forced By an Obsessive Bratva Stalker

He paused. “I’m not entirely sure.”

“Is she a staff member in the industry?”

“No,” he said. “She came in with a visitor’s badge.”

I met his gaze. “Who’d she come to visit?”

“A staff member named Frank Donovan.”

“What’s her relationship with him?”

“They’re mutuals on all social media platforms,” he answered. “I had our IT team pull up screenshots of their conversations over the last couple of months. It’s all in the file I sent to your computer.”

I leaned back in my chair without a word.

“Based on what I found, she’d contacted him to help her get access to Meridian Solutions for her research assignment on financial corruption.”

I raised my brows. “Financial corruption.”

“That’s what she told him in their conversation,” he said. “I did a little digging, and her story checks out.” A pause. “She wasn’t lying.”

“Why Meridian Solutions?”

“That’s a question only she can answer.”

I glanced back at her photograph.

The curious blond wasn’t a spy; she was just a regular girl who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She saw something she wasn’t supposed to see. The punishment for that was severe.

“Who did she call right after she left the site?” I asked him. “Did she go to the police?”

“She didn’t,” he answered. “I have men watching her as we speak, and so far, nothing out of the ordinary has happened.” A pause. “She’s afraid, and I believe she knows better than to go to the cops.”

It wouldn’t matter if she did anyway. We owned more than a quarter of the police in the city of Chicago.

“What do you want me to do with her?”

I thought for a second. “Keep a close eye on her. Monitor her every move, but don’t engage.”

“What about the guy, Frank Donovan?”

I thought for a second, trying to figure out what to do with him. By now, it was obvious already that these two delinquents had no idea what they were mixed up in.

“Watch him too.”

He gave a curt nod, then turned around and began heading out.

“And Yuri…”

He stopped in his tracks, glancing back at me.

“Remember to keep me updated every hour.”

“Yes, Boss.”

With that, he left my office and closed the door behind him.

I picked up her photograph again and continued staring at it for no justifiable reason. I knew I should set it down and focus on more important stuff. But I couldn’t. I didn’t want to.