Two Little Secrets From My Boss

Chapter 123

Daphne’s POV

The second note is worse than the first. Maya finds it tucked inside Lisa's lunchbox—a place no stranger should be able to reach, a violation so intimate it makes my vision blur.

She brings it to me with steady hands and a carefully neutral expression, but I can see the tension in her jaw, the way her eyes keep darting toward the playroom where the twins are building block towers.

"I didn't want to alarm the girls," she says quietly, pressing the folded paper into my palm. "But you need to see this now."

The handwriting is the same neat script as before—elegant, unhurried, almost beautiful in its precision. But the words are specific now, surgical.

‘Nina prefers the purple blanket. She won't sleep without it and cries if it's in the wash. Lisa counts everything in threes—steps, bites of food, the tiles on the bathroom floor. They both sleep with their doors open because Nina is afraid of the dark and Lisa likes to hear her sister breathing.’

‘Such sweet girls. So trusting, so unaware of how easily trust can be broken.’

Details only someone watching closely would know. Details that prove whoever is doing this has gotten close enough to observe my daughters' most private habits.

Their rituals, their fears, the small, sacred things I thought were protected within the walls of our home.

I read the note once. Twice. Three times. Then my knees buckle.

Maya catches me before I hit the floor, guiding me to a chair I don't remember being near. Her voice comes from somewhere far away—asking if I'm okay, if I need water, if she should call Xander.

I can't answer. I can't do anything except stare at those words and feel the ground dissolving beneath my feet.

"Mrs. Hale." Maya's hand grips my shoulder. "Daphne. Look at me. I need you to breathe."

"They know." My voice sounds wrong, thin, cracked. "They know about the purple blanket. They know Lisa counts in threes. How do they know that? How could anyone—"

"I don't know. But we're going to find out, and we're going to stop them." Her eyes hold mine with fierce certainty. "Right now, I need you to breathe. Can you do that?"

I breathe—in through the nose, out through the mouth, the way Charlotte taught me. The way I've done a thousand times when the world felt like it was ending.

"I need to find Xander." I push myself to standing on legs that feel made of water. "Where is he? Is he in his study?"

"He's on a call, but…"

"I don't care." I'm already moving, the note clutched in my trembling fingers. "I don't care if he's on the phone with the President. This can't wait."

I find him in his study, barely aware of how I got there. My hands won't stop shaking. The note trembles between my fingers like a living thing—evidence of a threat I can no longer pretend to manage alone.

He's mid-sentence when I push through the door, his phone pressed to his ear, his brow furrowed in concentration.

But he sees my face and everything else stops. The phone is on the desk before I take another breath, the call abandoned without explanation.

"Daphne." He crosses the room in two strides, his hands cupping my cheeks, thumbs brushing away tears I didn't realize were falling. "What happened?”

"Another note." I press the paper against his chest because I can't hold it anymore, can't stand to feel those words burning against my skin.

"Maya found it in Lisa's lunchbox. Inside her lunchbox, Xander. Someone got close enough to—"

My voice breaks. "They know things. Specific things. About the girls' routines, their habits, the blanket Nina needs to sleep."

"Show me."

He unfolds the note. I watch his face as he reads—the color draining from his skin, the muscle jumping in his jaw, the way his eyes go flat and dangerous in a way that would terrify me if I weren't so terrified of everything else.

"I'll kill them." His voice is quiet, deadly. "Whoever is doing this—I will find them, and I will end them."

"We don't even know who they are." I'm crying openly now, sobs tearing from my chest without permission.

"We've had security everywhere, cameras, protocols, and they still got close enough to know that Lisa counts in threes. How do you protect against something you can't see?"

He pulls me into his arms, crushing me against his chest. His heart pounds beneath my ear—faster than normal, betraying the fear he's trying not to show.

"Whatever you need," he says into my hair. "Whoever you need—name it, and I'll make it happen. Private security firms, federal investigators, an army of people whose only job is watching our daughters every second of every day. Whatever it takes, Daphne. I mean it."

"I need…" The words stick in my throat. What I need feels impossible. What I need means admitting I can't do this alone, that the independence I've clung to for years was always an illusion.

"I need to call my parents."

The silence stretches. Xander pulls back to look at me, his expression careful.

"Are you sure? I know things have been... complicated."

"I'm sure." I wipe my face with shaking hands. "My father spent twenty years assessing threats for the government. My mother raised teenagers for three decades—she knows how to protect children. And they're…"

My voice catches again. "They're my parents. They should know their granddaughters are in danger."

He doesn't argue. He just guides me to the leather chair by his desk, presses his phone into my hands, and stands behind me with his palms warm on my shoulders.

The call connects on the third ring. My mother's voice, cautious and surprised: "Hello?"

"Mom." The word feels foreign on my tongue. "It's Daphne."

She took a pause. The weight of years pressing down on both of us.

"Daphne. This is... unexpected. Is everything alright?"

"No. No, everything is not alright." I close my eyes.

"Someone is threatening my daughters. Someone has been watching them, leaving notes about their routines, their habits—things they shouldn't know. Things that mean they've gotten close enough to observe them without anyone noticing."

The silence that follows is different and heavier.

Then my father's voice cuts through, sharp and military and utterly transformed from the distant man I remember: "Tell me everything. Start from the beginning. Don't leave anything out."

I tell him—the first note, the security measures, the second note with its surgical precision. He listens without interrupting, his breathing steady on the other end of the line.

When I finish, there's a brief murmured exchange—my parents conferring in the background—and then my mother's voice, firm in a way I haven't heard since I was seventeen.

"We're on our way. Pack a bag. Your father's already looking at flights."

"Mom, you don't have to—"

"Daphne." Her voice softens. "Someone is threatening my granddaughters. There is no force on this earth that could keep me from coming. We'll be there by morning."

The call ends. I stand in the study, phone clutched to my chest, and finally let myself break.

Fear. Relief. The complicated weight of needing parents I'd convinced myself I'd outgrown.

The shame of asking for help after years of proving I didn't need it. The desperate, childlike longing for someone older and wiser to tell me everything will be okay.

Xander holds me while I sob, his arms are a fortress, his heartbeat is steady beneath my ear.

Somewhere across the country, Robert and Margaret Carter board a plane. Dad’s phone is probably pressed to his ear, old Marine contacts answering calls they haven't received in years.

Help is coming.