Following someone through Manhattan without looking like a stalker was harder than movies made it seem.
Daniel Morrison walked like he was late for something important, his long stride eating up blocks while I scrambled to keep pace half a block behind. Every few steps he'd pull out his phone, stare at it like it had personally offended him, then shove it back into his coat pocket without responding to whatever was bothering him.
By the time he disappeared into Hendrick's—a bar that probably charged more for one drink than I made in tips all day—I'd already talked myself out of this plan twice.
The smart move was to go home. Heat up leftover Thai food. Wait for tomorrow night's dinner and let him come to me.
But I'd been playing it safe for three years, and what did I have to show for it? A studio apartment with water stains on the ceiling and a savings account that couldn't cover a real emergency.
Time to stop being safe.
The bouncer barely looked at my fake ID before waving me through. Inside, Hendrick's was all dark wood and brass, the kind of place where Wall Street types went to complain about their six-figure salaries. The air was thick with cigar smoke and the particular smell of money—leather and expensive cologne mixed with something that might have been desperation.
Daniel sat at the far end of the bar, shoulders hunched over a glass of what looked like top-shelf scotch. His tie hung loose around his neck, and there was something about the way he held himself that screamed he'd rather be anywhere else.
I ordered a vodka tonic I couldn't afford and claimed a stool three spots down. Close enough to seem coincidental. Far enough away to seem uninterested.
The vodka burned, but not as much as watching Daniel down his second whiskey like it was water.
"Rough day?" the bartender asked him, already reaching for the bottle.
"Something like that." Daniel's voice was rougher than it had been this morning, with that particular edge alcohol gave to honest thoughts. "You ever work for your family, Mike?"
The bartender—whose name tag actually said "Steve"—just nodded and kept polishing glasses. Smart man. Let the customer do the talking.
"It's complicated," Daniel continued, staring at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. "On paper, everything looks perfect. Profitable company, solid reputation, happy clients. But lately I keep finding things that don't add up."
My pulse quickened. This was exactly what I'd hoped for.
"Like what?" Steve asked, pouring Daniel's third drink.
"Files that disappear overnight. Clients who suddenly won't return phone calls. Employees who get fired for asking too many questions." Daniel took a sip and grimaced. "And when I try to get answers, I'm told it's above my pay grade. Funny thing is, supposedly I'm being groomed to take over the company."
"Maybe your old man's protecting you from something," Steve suggested.
"Yeah. That's what I'm afraid of."
Perfect. Time to make my entrance.
I "accidentally" knocked over my drink with my elbow, sending glass and ice cascading across the bar. The crash was loud enough to make half the room turn and stare, including Daniel.
"Oh God, I'm so sorry!" I jumped up from my stool, making sure my voice carried just the right amount of mortified embarrassment. "I'm such a disaster tonight."
Steve appeared with a towel, looking resigned to cleaning up after drunk customers. "No worries, miss. Part of the job."
"Please let me pay for that," I said, digging through my purse with hands I made sure trembled just slightly. "This has been the worst day ever."
"Bad breakup?" Daniel's voice came from behind me.
I turned, letting my face show just a flicker of recognition before settling into surprised relief. "Oh, hi. You're from the coffee shop, right? I demolished your morning with my coffee catastrophe."
"Emma." His smile was softer than it had been this morning, probably helped by three glasses of Macallan. "And you didn't demolish anything. If anything, you made my morning more interesting."
"By creating a caffeine disaster zone?"
"By reminding me that sometimes accidents lead to good things." He gestured to the empty stool next to him. "Want to sit? You look like you could use some company."
I hesitated for exactly the right amount of time—long enough to seem genuinely uncertain, short enough to seem grateful for the offer.
"Actually, yeah. That sounds really nice."
Daniel ordered me a replacement vodka tonic and himself another scotch. His movements were loose and easy, the sharp tension from this morning completely gone. Whatever was in those expensive bottles, it was doing its job.
"So," he said once Steve moved on to other customers, "what's got you drinking alone on a Tuesday night? Work stress? Family drama?"
"Ex-boyfriend drama," I said, letting just a hint of bitterness creep into my voice. "Apparently I have commitment issues."
Not technically a lie. Jason had said exactly that when I'd broken up with him six months ago.
"Ouch." Daniel winced like he'd felt the rejection personally. "What kind of commitment issues? The 'I'm not ready for marriage' kind or the 'I'm secretly seeing three other people' kind?"
"The 'you're obsessed with things that happened years ago and you need to let go and move on with your life' kind," I said, taking a careful sip of my drink.
Also not technically a lie.
Daniel was quiet for a moment, swirling the ice in his glass. "That's rough. But maybe... and I'm not defending him, because I don't know the situation... but maybe he wasn't entirely wrong?"
I looked at him sharply. "You think I should just forget about the past? Pretend bad things never happened?"
"No, that's not what I mean." Daniel held up his hands in surrender. "I just think sometimes we get so focused on old wounds that we miss new opportunities."
"Spoken like someone who's never had their world completely destroyed by someone else's choices."
The words came out harsher than I'd intended, with more real emotion than I wanted to show. But they had the desired effect—Daniel's expression shifted into something softer, more sympathetic.
"Actually," he said quietly, "I have."
He stared down into his whiskey like it held answers to questions he hadn't figured out how to ask yet.
"My mom died when I was twelve. Car accident. For the longest time, I was furious about it. Angry at the other driver, angry at the paramedics who couldn't get there fast enough, angry at God for letting it happen."
His voice got quieter, and I found myself leaning closer to hear him.
"My dad kept telling me that anger was poison. That holding onto it would only hurt me, that I needed to focus on the future instead of the past. And I hated him for saying that, because it felt like he was asking me to forget her."
"Did you? Forget her?"
"No. But I stopped being angry about losing her and started being grateful I had her at all, even if it was only for twelve years."
There was something raw in his voice that made my chest tighten in a way that had nothing to do with my mission. This wasn't the pampered rich boy I'd expected. This was someone who understood loss.
Someone who might understand me, if circumstances were different.
"What if it wasn't an accident?" I asked quietly. "What if someone deliberately hurt the people you loved?"
Daniel looked at me with those warm brown eyes, and for a second I forgot this was supposed to be an act.
"Then I guess you have to decide what matters more—making them pay, or making sure they can't hurt anyone else."
"What if those are the same thing?"
"Then you're lucky. Most of the time, they're not."
We sat in comfortable silence, listening to the jazz trio in the corner play something that sounded like heartbreak set to music. Daniel kept glancing at me like he was trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces.
"Can I ask you something?" he said finally.
"Sure."
"This morning, when you dropped that coffee pot—you looked terrified. Not embarrassed, not clumsy. Scared."
My heart started doing double-time against my ribs. "What do you mean?"
"I mean you went completely white, like someone had just told you your worst nightmare was real. And your hands were shaking so hard you could barely function." He turned to face me fully. "What were you so afraid of?"
Dangerous territory. If Daniel started connecting dots, if he remembered exactly what Vincent had been discussing when I'd had my little accident...
"I guess I was just worried about getting fired," I said, forcing my voice to stay steady. "Jobs aren't exactly easy to come by these days."
Daniel studied my face like he was reading fine print on a contract. "Is that really all it was?"
"What else could it be?"
"I don't know. But I've seen scared before, Emma. That wasn't about job security."
The way he said my name sent an unexpected shiver down my spine. Like it mattered to him. Like I mattered to him.
This was getting too real, too fast.
"You know what I am scared of?" I said, leaning closer so he could smell my perfume—something I'd chosen specifically because men seemed to like it. "I'm scared of waking up in twenty years and realizing I never took any real chances. That I played it safe and ended up with a safe, boring, meaningless life."
It wasn't entirely a lie. The best lies never were.
"That's not going to happen to you," Daniel said with surprising conviction.
"How can you possibly know that?"
"Because you're here." He gestured around the dimly lit bar. "You came out tonight instead of staying home wallowing. You're talking to a virtual stranger instead of hiding behind your coffee counter. That tells me you're not the type to settle for safe and boring."
"Maybe I'm just drunk and making bad decisions."
"Maybe. Or maybe you're braver than you give yourself credit for."
The air between us felt charged, like the moment before lightning strikes. Daniel was looking at me like I was the most fascinating thing he'd encountered in months, and the scary part was that it felt real. Not like he was trying to get something from me, but like he genuinely wanted to know who I was.
It would be so easy to let myself believe this was real. So dangerous to let myself want it to be real.
"I should probably head home," I said, sliding off the barstool. "Work tomorrow."
"Let me get these drinks," Daniel said, already pulling out his wallet.
"You don't have to—"
"I want to." He dropped what looked like sixty dollars on the bar, easily twice what we owed. "Besides, breakup drinks should be someone else's problem."
I pulled out my phone to check the time, then made an annoyed face at the screen.
"Damn. My phone's about to die, and I need to call my roommate for a ride. She's supposed to pick me up, but with my luck tonight she probably forgot." I looked at Daniel with what I hoped was the right amount of embarrassment. "This is going to sound crazy, but could I borrow your phone? Just to call her?"
"Of course." Daniel handed over his iPhone without a second's hesitation.
I dialed the number for Tony's Pizza down the street and had a brief, confusing conversation with a teenager about needing someone to come get me. While I talked, I quickly scrolled through Daniel's recent messages and call history, memorizing everything I could.
Vincent Morrison - multiple calls today, including one twenty minutes ago that Daniel hadn't answered.
Tom Chen - a text thread that made my heart skip. Tom was my cousin Mike's son, and the messages were about "Dad's concerns" about Morrison & Associates.
Catherine Walsh - someone Daniel had been texting regularly, but the messages seemed professional.
Marcus Rodriguez - casual conversation about work schedules and lunch plans.
And buried in his notes app, a file labeled "Discrepancies" with what looked like a list of suspicious financial transactions.
"Thanks," I said, handing the phone back before I could look too eager. "She'll be here in fifteen minutes."
"I'll wait with you."
"You really don't have to."
"I want to," he said for the third time tonight, and something about the way he said it made my stomach flip in a way that had nothing to do with alcohol.
We walked outside together, and Daniel helped me with my coat like we were on an actual date instead of an elaborate intelligence-gathering operation. When his fingers brushed against my neck as he adjusted my scarf, I had to remind myself to breathe normally.
"Emma," he said as we stood on the sidewalk, "this is going to sound crazy, but I feel like we've met before. Not at the coffee shop—before that."
Ice water replaced the blood in my veins. "I don't think so. I'm pretty good with faces."
"Yeah, you're probably right. It's just..." He shook his head, looking frustrated with himself. "There's something familiar about you. Your voice, maybe, or the way you move. It's like trying to remember a dream."
A taxi pulled up to the curb—pure coincidence, but I grabbed the opportunity like a lifeline.
"That's my ride," I said, even though I'd never called for a cab.
"Text me when you get home safe?" Daniel called as I opened the door.
"I don't have your number."
He rattled off ten digits, and I typed them into my phone. Or at least, I typed something into my phone—actually the number for Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant.
"Got it," I said. "Thanks for tonight, Daniel. For listening."
"Anytime."
The cab pulled away, and I watched Daniel in the side mirror until he disappeared into the crowd. Only then did I let myself slump back in the cracked vinyl seat.
"Where to, miss?" the driver asked.
I gave him my address and tried to process everything that had just happened. The evening had been a massive success—I'd learned more about Daniel's suspicions regarding his father than I'd dared hope for. I had names, insight into his character, and confirmation that he was already investigating Vincent's business practices.
But there was a problem.
Daniel Morrison was supposed to be a target, not a person. He wasn't supposed to have his own pain, his own moral struggles, his own way of making me forget why I was really there.
My phone buzzed.
"Hope you made it home safely. Thanks for trusting me with your breakup story. Sleep well. - Daniel"
I stared at the message, my stomach dropping as I realized what had happened. In my hurry to escape before his memory got any sharper, I'd given him the wrong number. Which meant when he tried to text me, he'd texted Golden Dragon instead.
Which meant he'd know I'd lied.
Which meant tomorrow's dinner was going to be a very different conversation than I'd planned.
I typed back quickly: "Home safe. Thanks for the drinks and the company."
But as I hit send, I was already calculating damage control. How would I explain the wrong number? How could I turn this mistake into an advantage?
Because if there was one thing I'd learned in three years of planning revenge, it was that every setback could become an opportunity if you were creative enough.
The question was: what would Daniel Morrison do when he realized the girl from the coffee shop had lied to him?
I guess I'd find out tomorrow night.
**End of Chapter 2**