"Caro." Peter's voice cut through the quiet of the office — not raised, but edged enough that her stomach tightened before she even looked up.
She'd barely sat down with her coffee when he'd called her in. Whatever this was, it hadn't waited for breakfast.
He turned the tablet toward her.
Headlines filled the screen. Most were harmless, gossip about the marriage, speculation about the gala. But one sat at the top, larger than the rest, with a photo Caro recognized instantly: her, leaning toward Larson, captured mid-sentence, her expression sharp in a way that read very differently without context.
Shey's New Wife Caught Threatening Investors. Is She Running Her Own Game?
"I can explain that," Caro said immediately.
"I know what happened," Peter said. "I was standing next to you." His tone wasn't accusing, if anything, it was tighter than that, controlled in the specific way he got when something was actually bothering him. "What I want to know is who took this photo. And who decided this was the angle worth publishing."
Caro blinked. "You're not, you don't think I did something wrong?"
"You handled Larson better than I would have." A pause. "But someone close enough to hear that conversation chose to frame it as a threat instead of a defense. That's not bad luck, Caro. That's a choice. Someone made it on purpose."
Relief loosened something in her chest, followed almost immediately by a colder thought. "You think someone's targeting me specifically."
"I think," Peter said slowly, "that two days ago you found something in my house that you weren't supposed to find. And less than forty-eight hours later, someone is building a public narrative that paints you as dangerous, unstable, or both." His eyes met hers, and for once there was no calculation in them, just something close to concern, quickly suppressed. "I don't believe in coincidence. You know that."
"You think the library and this—" she gestured at the screen "—are connected?"
"I think it's worth considering." He set the tablet down. "Which means from now on, every conversation you have outside this house, assume someone's listening. Every room you're alone in, assume someone's watching. Not because you've done anything." His voice dropped slightly. "Because of what you almost found out."
Caro absorbed that, the cold settling deeper. "You said it wasn't her. The woman from the letters."
"It isn't." Peter's jaw tightened. "But the people who would care if certain things became public, they don't need the truth to hurt you, Caro. They just need a story believable enough that nobody asks for the truth at all." He gestured at the headline. "This is that story. Someone's testing whether it sticks."
"Then I need to make sure it doesn't."
"How?"
Caro picked up the tablet, scrolling through the comments beneath the article, hundreds of them, most cruel, some pitiful, a few oddly specific in ways that suggested the people writing them knew more than a stranger reasonably should. She skimmed past most of it, the words blurring into noise, until one comment stopped her cold.
It had been posted within minutes of the photo going live, from an account with no other posts, no followers, no profile picture, just a blank avatar and a single line: Ask her about the Larson numbers. She knows more than she's saying.
Caro went very still.
"Peter." She turned the tablet toward him. "Whoever posted this photo knew about Larson's compliance issue. Before it became public. That's not something a random photographer would know to mention."
Peter read it twice. When he looked up, something in his expression had sharpened into focus. "That information existed in exactly two places," he said slowly. "Your discovery in my files. And Larson's own systems."
"Which means whoever's doing this either has access to your files," Caro said, "or access to his."
"Or both." Peter was quiet for a moment. "Caro, when you found that discrepancy. Did you tell anyone? Mention it to staff, even in passing?"
She thought back. "No. I didn't even tell you until the gala." Then she paused. "Wait. The folder. The one with the discrepancy, you kept it separate, on top of the others. On your desk."
"In my office," Peter said. "Which means anyone with access to my office in the last four days—"
"—could have seen exactly what I found," Caro finished. "And used it before either of us did anything with it."
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The implication sat heavy between them: someone close enough to Peter's own office, with access to his private files, had taken a piece of information meant to protect Caro and turned it into a weapon aimed at her instead.
"That's a very short list of people," Peter said quietly. "And I don't like any of the names on it."
"Isabella," Caro said. It wasn't a question.
Peter didn't answer immediately — which, Caro had learned, was usually an answer in itself.
"She has access to parts of this house," he said finally. "More than she should, for reasons that predate you. I haven't had cause to question that access. Until now."
"Then question it," Caro said. "Because whoever did this isn't just trying to embarrass me. They posted that comment within minutes of the photo going up — which means they were watching, waiting for the story to break, ready to push it further the second it did." She met his eyes. "That's not someone testing the waters, Peter. That's someone who already has a plan, and this is step one."
Something shifted in Peter's expression, not quite approval, but close to it. The look of someone realizing the person across from him had already mapped out three moves of a chess game he was still on.
"You've thought about this more than I have," he said.
"I've spent two weeks learning that nothing in this house happens by accident." She held his gaze. "Including, apparently, me."
He didn't respond to that, not directly. But he reached over and turned the tablet face-down on the desk, the gesture oddly final, like he was setting aside the headline so he could look at her instead.
"Whatever this is," he said, "whoever's behind it, they've made a mistake."
"What mistake?"
"They assumed," Peter said, "that you'd be easy to scare." A pause. "I don't think they've been paying close enough attention."
Caro held his gaze, something steadying in her chest despite everything. "Then maybe it's time someone paid closer attention to them."
For the first time since the headline had appeared on his screen, Peter almost smiled.
"Tomorrow," he said. "We start with Isabella's access logs. Quietly." He stood, gathering the tablet. "And Caro, whatever you find in those logs, whatever name comes up. You tell me first. Before you do anything with it."
"Like the Larson file."
"Like the Larson file," he agreed. "Except this time, I'd like to actually use the information before someone else does."
Caro nodded but as he turned to leave, the unease that had been sitting under her ribs since the library tightened another notch.
She must never find out about this.
Someone in this house already knew about the letters, the photographs, the sister who signed her name and nothing else. And now that same someone or someone working for them, had just demonstrated exactly how fast they could turn a stolen secret into a public weapon.
Caro didn't know yet what they were protecting, or from whom.
But she knew, with cold certainty, that whatever it was, the countdown on it had already started. And she'd just become part of it.