Chapter 3 - The Woman Who Helped Boston Watch Me
The police did not arrive with sirens.
Detliff would not allow that at the penthouse.
Instead, a detective named Renee Walsh came through the service elevator wearing a gray coat and the expression of a woman who had seen too many rich men mistake privacy for jurisdiction.
She looked at Detliff.
“You Stewart?”
“Yes.”
“You armed?”
“No.”
Marco made a small noise.
Walsh looked at him.
“You?”
Marco said, “Professionally complicated.”
“I hate this already.”
I liked her immediately.
We gave her copies of the photographs, the memory card image, the threatening message, and the payment ledger.
She listened without interrupting.
Then she asked me, “Why do you think Boston Powell was in that diner today?”
“Chance, at first.”
“And now?”
“I think he knew where I was.”
“Who knew you were going there?”
“My driver.”
Detliff spoke.
“He is vetted.”
Walsh raised an eyebrow.
“So was half of Chicago before indictment.”
Detliff looked almost offended.
I smiled.
Walsh asked about my former friend.
I stiffened.
“Mallory?”
“The woman Boston cheated with.”
“Yes.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know.”
That was not entirely true.
I knew she worked in event marketing downtown.
I knew because I had searched her name once at two in the morning and immediately hated myself for doing it.
Walsh found her in less than an hour.
Mallory Price called me before the police reached her.
I nearly did not answer.
Then I remembered the way Boston said Bellucci before anyone accused him.
I picked up.
“Nissa.”
Mallory was crying.
“I need to tell you something.”
“You have had nine months.”
“I know.”
“Then talk.”
She inhaled.
“Boston has been scared for weeks.”
“Of what?”
“His job. People he works for. He keeps saying somebody is going to make him disappear if he doesn’t fix what he started.”
Detliff was across the room.
He could hear only my side.
“What did he start?”
“I don’t know everything.”
“Then tell me what you know.”
Mallory cried harder.
“After you left him, he wanted to prove you were going to come crawling back.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“He checked your old shared accounts. Your mail forwarding. Your nursing renewal.”
My stomach tightened.
“How?”
“He still knew your passwords.”
Shame hit me even though I had done nothing wrong.
I had changed the obvious passwords.
Not an old state-licensing portal I barely used.
Mallory continued.
“He found the boxing ring address in an email.”
I closed my eyes.
“And sold it.”
“At first he said it was just to a corporate investigator.”
“Caleb Vane.”
Silence.
“You know?”
“Yes.”
Mallory started sobbing.
“Nissa, I swear I did not know what it was.”
“What did you know?”
“That Boston was being paid to track your schedule.”
“Did that bother you?”
“Yes.”
“Enough to stop sleeping with him?”
Her silence answered.
I shut my eyes.
“Nissa—”
“Keep going.”
“After the warehouse attack, Boston panicked. He said people died and that wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Detliff was watching my face now.
I looked at him.
“He knew.”
His body went completely still.
Mallory heard me.
“Knew what?”
“Nothing. Keep talking.”
“He tried to quit Marrow. They told him he owed them because he had accessed protected data for them.”
“So they had leverage.”
“Yes.”
“Why did he approach me today?”
“I think he was told to find out whether you’re pregnant.”
My hand went to my belly.
The baby moved beneath my palm.
“How did they suspect?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mallory.”
“I swear.”
Then she whispered, “But Boston saw a prenatal vitamin bottle in your old apartment records.”
“What?”
“He had screenshots from a grocery delivery account.”
I nearly laughed at the absurdity.
A vitamin bottle.
A forgotten password.
That was how danger entered.
“Did he tell the Belluccis?”
“He kept saying he hadn’t.”
That explained the diner line.
He had been defending himself before anyone accused him.
“Where are you?”
Mallory gave an address.
Walsh’s officers reached her first.
Boston did not.
In Mallory’s apartment, they found two things.
A burner phone.
And an envelope Boston had hidden beneath her kitchen sink.
Inside was twenty thousand dollars in cash and a photograph of me at twelve weeks pregnant, leaving an obstetric clinic.
On the back someone had written:
CONFIRM PATERNITY BEFORE ACTION.
Detliff read it and went pale.
Not angry.
Pale.
I looked at him.
“What does action mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
His eyes met mine.
“In my world, it can mean many things.”
“Say the worst one.”
His jaw tightened.
“A rival family does not like uncertain heirs.”
The room became very quiet.
I hated the word heir.
I hated everything it tried to make my daughter before she had even drawn breath.
“She is a baby.”
“I know.”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“She is not a Stewart succession problem. She is not leverage. She is not bloodline.”
Detliff nodded.
“You’re right.”
“You say that quickly.”
“Because you are.”
Walsh watched us.
Then she said, “Good. Now that the family philosophy seminar is over, we have a more immediate problem.”
She held up the burner phone.
“One number called Boston eleven times this week.”
Detliff looked at the screen.
He knew it.
“Who?” I asked.
His face hardened.
“My uncle.”
After Mallory’s call ended, I sat with the guilt I did not want.
Not guilt for Boston.
For her.
That surprised me.
She had betrayed me, but Boston had used the same control on her in a different shape. He decided what she knew, what she deserved to question, and which pieces of his life were safe for her to see.
Detective Walsh must have read something on my face.
“You can be angry at someone and still recognize they were manipulated too.”
“I know.”
“You look like you hate knowing.”
“I do.”
Detliff stood by the window.
“People think power is always obvious.”
Walsh looked at him.
“You would know.”
He almost smiled.
I said, “Boston never had bodyguards.”
“No,” Detliff said. “He had access.”
That line stayed with me.
Access to passwords.
Access to old routines.
May you like
Access to the version of me who still thought familiarity meant safety.
It made me wonder how many dangerous people looked ordinary only because we had already opened the door for them.
