Chapter 6 - Brendan Came Back Wearing Someone Else's Orders

I stared at the photograph until the elevator doors closed.

Jared reached for my phone, then stopped before touching it. "May I?"

That one question almost undid me.

I handed it over.

He studied the image. "Taken recently."

"The newspaper box beside the door gets emptied at seven. It's still full."

Miles leaned over his shoulder. "Red leash."

I nodded.

Brendan used to keep a red leash by our apartment door even when we didn't own a dog.

When I once asked why, he told me it was from an old security job.

Now I wondered what kind.

Jared sent the image to Naomi without forwarding my number. "We'll trace metadata if there's any left."

I took the phone back. "I want to go to the apartment."

"No."

The word came too quickly.

I looked at him.

He closed his eyes for one second. "I think that's dangerous. But it's your decision."

"Better."

Miles hid another smile.

We went with two security people I selected after being shown their names, photos, and employment history. Jared came too, which I hadn't asked for, but I didn't object.

My building looked ordinary in the morning light. That felt obscene.

Nothing had been broken. No forced entry. No shattered lock.

Brendan had used a key.

I had changed the locks twice after leaving him.

Inside, the apartment smelled like coffee.

A fresh cup sat on the kitchen counter.

My hands started shaking.

Jared noticed but didn't touch me.

On the table lay the red leash.

Under it was a manila envelope.

Inside were photographs of Victor Saye entering three buildings over the past month, copies of Kensington invoices, and one picture of Sophie Kensington stepping from a van in New Jersey.

Alive.

Adrian nearly collapsed when we video-called him.

The photograph had been taken four days earlier outside an abandoned dog-training facility in Kearny.

"Brendan is helping us?" Miles asked.

"No," I said.

I knew that man too well.

Brendan never gave information without creating a debt.

A note inside the envelope proved it.

WILLA — TELL KENSINGTON I WANT FIVE MILLION AND IMMUNITY. IN RETURN, HE GETS SOPHIE AND VICTOR. YOU GET TO WALK AWAY FROM ALL OF THIS. ONE MEETING. ALONE.

Jared read it twice.

"Absolutely not."

"You don't get to decide."

"Then let me phrase it correctly. If you meet him alone, I believe he'll take you."

That was harder to reject because it was an argument, not an order.

"He might know where Sophie is."

"He might be the reason Sophie is there."

Naomi called with metadata results. The photograph outside my apartment had been scrubbed, but the file naming structure matched images exported from a specific surveillance platform used by three private security firms in New York.

One of them was Cole Risk Management.

Brendan's company.

Jared stared at the invoice copies. "He's been working for Bellandi."

"Or Victor," Miles said.

"Or both," Naomi replied over speaker.

I picked up the red leash.

There was dried mud on the metal clasp and a faint white residue.

Jared's security woman, Elena Park, bagged it for testing.

Then I noticed something else.

One photograph showed Brendan standing near the Kearny training facility with Victor.

Behind them was a painted sign shaped like a black dog.

I knew it.

"I've been there," I said.

Everyone turned.

"When?" Jared asked.

"Three years ago. Brendan took me there once. He said a friend needed help evaluating a fearful shepherd."

My memory rearranged itself.

There had been kennels underground.

A locked office.

Men who stopped talking when I entered.

And Victor Saye, though at the time Brendan introduced him only as Vic.

I sat down.

"I met him."

Jared crouched several feet away. "Victor?"

"Yes. I didn't know his last name."

A worse memory followed.

That night, the shepherd had refused to enter one specific kennel. Brendan became angry and dragged him toward it.

I had stepped between them.

Victor had watched me for a long time and then said, She doesn't scare easily.

Brendan answered, She learns.

I felt sick.

Jared's face turned cold.

"Willa, this didn't start three weeks ago."

I knew.

Brendan hadn't discovered my usefulness recently.

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He had been reporting it for years.

Elena searched my apartment carefully enough to notice one more detail: Brendan had opened the drawer where I kept old photographs but had taken nothing. He wanted me to know he could enter, touch the most private parts of my life, and leave without stealing a thing. That was his style. Damage without evidence. I showed Jared the drawer and explained why it frightened me more than a broken window would have. He did not tell me I was overreacting. He only asked what would make the apartment feel usable again. I said new locks, an alarm I controlled, and time. Not a guard in the kitchen. Not cameras I could not access. Elena wrote those requirements down exactly. For the first time since finding the coffee cup, the room felt like mine again, even while strangers processed it for evidence.