I was still staring at it when a shadow crossed my doorway.
Tobias stood there.
“Mr. Moretti would like to see you.”
I slipped the photograph back into the envelope.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
His eyes dropped to my hand.
I could have hidden it. Instead, I handed it to him.
Tobias read the message without expression, but something in his posture changed.
“Come with me.”
This time, the private elevator felt less like madness and more like entering a storm shelter.
Lorenzo was on the phone when we arrived. He ended the call the moment he saw my face.
Tobias handed him the envelope.
Lorenzo studied the photograph, then the writing.
He did not look surprised.
That frightened me more than anything.
“You expected this?” I asked.
“No.”
“But you recognize something.”
His silence answered before he did.
“The handwriting,” he said.
My stomach tightened. “Whose is it?”
He placed the photograph on his desk.
“A woman named Mara Voss.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“Who is she?”
“Someone I trusted once.”
The way he said it suggested trust, for him, was not easily given or lightly lost.
“What does she want with me?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Yet,” I repeated.
He looked at Tobias. “Find out how this reached her desk.”
Tobias nodded and left.
When the door closed, the room felt too large.
I folded my arms, not from anger but to hold myself together.
“I need to know what I’ve stepped into.”
Lorenzo’s gaze moved to the photograph.
“You stepped into dinner with your family.”
“And someone photographed us.”
“Yes.”
“Because of you?”
“Most likely.”
I waited.
He exhaled quietly.
“My reputation is useful,” he said. “People fill silence with stories. Some are exaggerated. Some are convenient.”
“And some?”
His eyes returned to mine.
“Some are old.”
Outside the windows, Seattle wore the same rain as yesterday, but from up here the city looked like a secret kept under glass.
“My father built parts of his business with men I would never invite into my home,” Lorenzo said. “When I took over, I spent years cutting those ties. Not everyone appreciated being removed from profitable arrangements.”
“Mara Voss?”
“She helped me do it.”
I sank into the chair across from him.
“She was your partner?”
“In business.”
The clarification came too quickly.
I noticed.
He noticed that I noticed.
“And personally,” he added after a moment. “Briefly.”
There it was again—the mystery becoming less attractive because it made me feel foolish.