Chapter 4 - The Man Behind the Cameras
Tessa learned that someone was watching her at 11:47 on Saturday night.
She had just finished her shift at the diner.
The kitchen smelled like grease and bleach. Her feet hurt. Her injured hand had begun throbbing again because she had ignored the doctor’s instruction to rest it.
She stepped outside.
A black SUV waited across the street.
The windows were tinted.
Tessa stopped.
The vehicle had not been there when she arrived.
She told herself not to panic.
Then a man moved inside the driver’s seat.
Tessa turned toward the bus stop.
The SUV started.
Her pulse quickened.
She walked faster.
The vehicle followed.
“Tessa.”
She spun around.
Paul stood ten feet behind her.
She nearly screamed.
“What are you doing here?”
“Giving you a ride.”
“I didn’t ask for one.”
“No.”
The SUV across the street suddenly drove away.
Tessa looked from the disappearing taillights to Paul.
“What is happening?”
Paul opened the passenger door of a second vehicle parked behind the diner.
“Get in.”
“No.”
“Tessa.”
“Tell me what’s happening.”
Paul looked tired.
“The boss will explain.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“He sent me because someone may be watching you.”
Her stomach dropped.
“Who?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Why would anyone watch me?”
Paul did not answer quickly enough.
Tessa understood.
“Because of the Costas?”
Paul’s silence confirmed it.
Tessa backed away.
“No.”
“You shouldn’t walk home.”
“I’m not getting into that car.”
“Tessa—”
“I had nothing to do with any of this.”
“I know.”
“I clean his house.”
“I know.”
“I help his mother.”
“I know.”
“That doesn’t make me part of whatever Damian does.”
Paul’s expression changed slightly at her use of Damian’s first name.
“That distinction may not matter to the people watching you.”
Tessa felt anger replace fear.
“That’s his problem.”
“Tonight, it’s yours.”
She hated that he was right.
Ten minutes later, she sat in the back seat.
Paul drove.
Tessa looked out the window.
They passed the turn toward her apartment.
“You missed it.”
“You’re not going home.”
“What?”
“The estate.”
“No.”
“Boss’s orders.”
“Turn around.”
Paul kept driving.
“Paul.”
“He believes your apartment may be compromised.”
“My apartment is not a battlefield.”
“No,” Paul said quietly. “But it can become one.”
That silenced her.
At the estate, Damian waited in his office.
Not the surveillance bunker.
Tessa wondered whether that was intentional.
He stood beside the windows, sleeves rolled to his forearms, tie gone, city lights behind him.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Tessa closed the door.
“You had no right.”
“I know.”
She had prepared herself for denial.
His answer disarmed her.
“You know?”
“Yes.”
“You had me followed.”
“I had you protected.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“Do you hear how insane that sounds?”
“Yes.”
Tessa stared.
“Stop agreeing with me.”
Damian almost smiled.
She pointed toward him.
“And don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Look amused.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
The almost-smile vanished.
Good.
Tessa folded her arms.
“Who was in the SUV?”
“We don’t know.”
“Why were they watching me?”
“Because you’re close to my mother.”
“I’m her maid.”
“You matter to her.”
“That still does not explain why strangers care.”
Damian walked toward the desk.
He picked up a photograph.
Placed it between them.
The man from the SUV stood outside the diner two nights earlier.
“His name is Victor Salerno.”
Tessa looked at Damian.
“Should that mean something to me?”
“No.”
“But it means something to you.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
“His family and mine have been enemies for years.”
Family.
Such a harmless word for something that clearly was not.
Tessa stared at the photograph.
“You’re in organized crime.”
Damian said nothing.
Her laugh was short and humorless.
“Of course you are.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“The hundred cameras should have been a clue.”
“Tessa.”
“You carry a gun in your own house.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You noticed?”
“I clean rooms. I notice things.”
Damian looked away.
For the first time, he seemed uncomfortable.
“You should have told me.”
“You would have quit.”
“Maybe.”
“My mother would have suffered.”
“That was my decision.”
“Yes.”
The word came quietly.
Tessa looked at him.
“Yes,” he repeated. “It should have been.”
The anger in her chest shifted.
Not gone.
But changed.
Damian leaned against the desk.
“I kept thinking if I controlled enough variables, nothing could touch the people inside this house.”
“That’s why the cameras?”
“Yes.”
“Do they help?”
“No.”
The honesty startled her.
Damian looked toward the windows.
“My father was murdered in our kitchen when I was eight.”
Tessa said nothing.
“My mother covered me with her body while bullets came through the windows.”
His voice remained calm.
Too calm.
“That is why she panics at loud noises,” Tessa whispered.
Damian nodded.
“She rebuilt everything after he died. The business. The family. Me.”
“What happened to you?”
He looked at her.
“I became useful.”
Tessa felt a strange ache.
Not pity.
Understanding.
People had different ways of surviving loss.
After her sister died, Tessa worked until exhaustion because stopping meant remembering.
Damian built walls.
Real ones.
Electronic ones.
Human ones.
“You don’t trust anyone,” she said.
“No.”
“Not even Paul?”
“I trust his competence.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Damian’s silence was answer enough.
Tessa sat.
For the first time, she saw the office differently.
Not luxurious.
Empty.
No photographs.
No evidence of a life beyond business.
“You watched me for eight days because you thought I wanted something.”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
Damian looked directly at her.
“Now I know you do.”
Tessa stiffened.
“What?”
“Your sister.”
Her breath stopped.
Damian immediately realized he had gone too far.
“How do you know about her?”
“Background investigation.”
“You investigated my dead sister?”
“I investigate everyone.”
Her eyes filled with anger.
“You had no right.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that!”
She stood.
“Her name was Lily.”
Damian said nothing.
“She was twenty-two. She liked terrible reality television and strawberry milkshakes. She wanted to study graphic design.”
Tessa’s voice shook.
“She was not a line in your security report.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Damian took a step toward her.
She raised one hand.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Tessa wiped her eyes.
“I borrowed money because insurance stopped covering one treatment. I knew the odds were bad. Lily knew too. But when someone you love is dying, you don’t make decisions like an accountant.”
Damian looked at the floor.
“I understand that.”
Tessa laughed bitterly.
“Do you?”
He looked toward the door.
Toward the wing where his mother slept.
“Yes.”
Silence settled.
Then Damian said, “How much?”
“What?”
“The debt.”
Her expression hardened.
“No.”
“I can pay it.”
“No.”
“It would take me one phone call.”
“That is exactly why I won’t let you.”
Damian frowned.
“You would rather work seven days a week?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to owe you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Everyone owes you.”
The sentence landed.
Tessa stepped closer.
“You think money fixes everything because money is how you control everything.”
Damian’s voice cooled.
“I’m trying to help.”
“Then let me decide what help looks like.”
For several seconds, they faced each other.
Then Damian nodded.
“All right.”
Tessa blinked.
“All right?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t pay it?”
“Not without your permission.”
Somehow, that mattered.
More than she wanted it to.
The office door opened.
Paul entered without knocking.
“Boss.”
Damian turned.
“What?”
“We identified a second vehicle.”
Paul looked at Tessa.
Then back to Damian.
“They’re not watching her because of your mother.”
Damian’s expression changed.
“Then why?”
Paul placed a photograph on the desk.
It showed Tessa leaving a hospital eight months earlier.
Beside her stood a man.
Her former loan agent.
Paul continued.
“The lenders who financed her sister’s treatment sold the debt.”
“To whom?”
“Salerno-controlled companies.”
Tessa went cold.
Damian looked at the photograph.
Then at her.
“They don’t just know you work for me.”
Paul nodded.
“They own her debt.”
The room became silent.
Tessa finally understood why the SUV had followed her.
She had thought she was invisible.
Instead, somewhere in the machinery of Damian’s world, her desperation had been purchased by people who now knew exactly where she worked.
Damian’s voice became almost frighteningly quiet.
“How much do they want?”
Paul looked at him.
“Not money.”
Tessa’s stomach tightened.
“What do they want?”
Paul answered.
“Access to this house.”
And suddenly, Tessa Miller was no longer an accidental witness to Damian Costa’s dangerous world.
May you like
She had become the doorway his enemies intended to use.
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