Chapter 2
Exhausted and agitated, Harvey spied Donna approaching his office and dropped his head. He'd texted her three times after she'd gotten home last night and even he had to admit his 6am reminder that Louis had a deposition today was suspicious. Although not nearly as obvious as getting Ray to pick her up would have been.
He'd had the phone in hand before narrowly avoiding a collision with his paranoia.
As far as he could tell, he was playing by the right rules. There'd been no more cryptic messages or threats. Donna was fine, and no one seemed to have noticed his detour this morning.
All he had to do was relax and follow the script he'd been rehearsing.
The door opened and his eyes lifted, his shoulders square but not tense as Donna sauntered into his office. "We need to talk."
"You're damn right we do." She closed the glass swiftly behind her. "Jessica knew about Godheart. She knew about everything. So, you need to drop this." Her hips weaved across his carpet as she waved a folder. "Nobody can find out about this, Harvey, and I mean no one."
The narrative he'd wanted to create was on point, but the context was horseshit, and the urge to protect his mentor threw him off book. "Bullshit Jessica knew."
She slapped her information down by his phone and planted her hand on her hip.
"Then why do I have this? And before you ask where it came from, think about if you really want to know, because you're in enough shit as it is."
He snatched up the folder, his stomach bottoming out as he read Donna's handwriting scribbled across a single post-it.
Meet me on the roof in five minutes.
Fuck.
Goddamn fucking Benjamin. When he'd called the IT engineer in at 5am to sweep his office, he'd threatened imminent death if the man breathed a word about his suspicion someone had been listening into his conversion with Donna the night before. And when Benjamin had found a listening device under his phone, the man had begrudgingly shuffled out in silence, following his instruction to leave should the technician find anything.
He'd deliberately left the listening device active underneath his phone so he could coerce Donna into admitting he should let the case go. In all fairness, the story she'd concocted about Jessica was so good he almost believed it — far more convincing than the approach he would've taken.
But now Donna knew he'd gone behind her back, and he could tell by the fire in her gaze she was pissed.
"Are we agreed?" She prompted him to say something before he blew their cover.
He tossed the file down, adding a touch of aggression to his voice for show. "We're agreed. Now leave me alone."
His snappy tone fit with his normal reaction when he got news he didn't want to hear, and she'd be proud of their performance if she knew what the hell was going on. But she'd get her answers after their little charade was over.
Stalking across his office, she left the room with a deep breath, catching the eye of his secretary. Not wanting to draw suspicion, she raised her shoulders with a shrug. "I wouldn't go in there unless you have a tampon."
Carrying on with her intended trajectory, she slipped into the stairwell where Benjamin had lured her almost the second she arrived.
Fortunately for Harvey, her bite was bigger than his bark, and the head of IT had cornered her in a panic. The way he'd prattled on about system upgrades and firewalls, he clearly thought she knew what was going on.
It had taken some serious bullshitting to learn Harvey's desk had been bugged without her knowledge, even more finessing to assure Benjamin that everything was fine. And, after she'd sat down in her office, she'd quickly reasoned why Harvey would keep the bug active.
Obviously he'd wanted to feed whoever was listening false information, so she'd fabricated the story about Jessica to save Harvey from himself, because the man can bluff, but he was a fucking terrible actor.
She exited onto the roof, moving to the furthest corner and bracing her palms against the cement ledge. Not all of her anger inside Harvey's office had been rehearsed. Something had spooked him last night, enough to warrant him enlisting Benjamin's help, but not hers, which frustrated the hell out of her. He was deliberately keeping her in the dark, and she wanted to know why.
A few minutes passed while she tried to compose her temper, and then she heard the door open and close behind her. As soon as Harvey's feet crunched the gravel near her, she turned her head over her shoulder. "How did you know?"
"Know what?"
His casual avoidance did nothing to soften her annoyance. "That I'm not the only person who's ever bugged your office."
He moved beside her, feeling anxious as he cast his gaze out over the city. The chances of anyone spotting them so high up shouldn't have been a second thought, let alone a first one, but he was more than a little on edge, and he tried his best to deflect her questions."Lucky guess."
The way he avoided looking at her, his jaw clenched with a tight twitch, brought up a vivid memory of him leaning over her dining room table, prepared to fall on his sword for Mike and go to jail. In that moment, she knew something hadn't just spooked him. He was frantic with worry. "What happened last night?"
He shook his head, refusing to involve her more than he already had. "It doesn't matter. All you need to know is that I'm taking care of the situation."
"No, Harvey, that's not all I need to know." She tugged him around to face her. Someone had been in his office and who knows where else. This wasn't some tough case he had to negotiate. He was in danger. And she wasn't going to sit around like some 1950s secretary while he 'took care of it'. "So why don't you start by telling me how they contacted you? Because I know you didn't just—"
"Donna, stop!" He pulled himself free from her grasp with a growl of frustration. "Can you just trust that I can handle this?"
"What did they say to you?"
"Jesus Christ, why do you have to be so goddam stubborn!"
"Because I'm worried and you're scaring me!"
Her voice echoed as loudly as his shout had, and he swiped a defeated palm across his forehead. She would never quit harassing him, because she was as fiercely protective as he was, and she had the upper-hand. He couldn't risk her digging around to uncover what he was hiding, and if he kept her in the dark, she'd go goddamn looking. Which is exactly what he would do.
Thrusting his hand into his pocket, he pulled out his phone and balanced the weight on his fingers before he looked at her with calm conviction. "I once told you that you'd never have to be afraid, remember?"
She nodded. Over the years, she'd replayed that conversation more than she was willing to admit. Of course, the pinnacle of her focus was usually on the after part, where he'd said he loved her and then walked out. Still, whatever he was alluding to with his firm reassurance, she needed to see it for herself. "Show me."
He unlocked the screen and thumbed open the image of her, then with a deep sigh, he handed the device over. "I meant what I said, Donna. I'm never going to let anything bad happen to you."
Her eyes landed on the photo and a coil of dread pitted in her stomach. Someone had been watching her? And not just lurking around their offices. The picture was taken right outside her block of apartments. They knew where she lived. Her gaze flew to Harvey's furrowed brow and thinly pulled lips. She could see guilt in his expression but also determination in his squared shoulders, and she trusted him to do what he believed was best. The problem was that yielding to these people may protect her in the short-term, but backing off still left Harvey vulnerable. The people threatening them were vipers, with the power to blackmail or exploit him. Or worse.
Despite feeling shaky, she thrust the phone into his palm with forced confidence. "You're not dropping this."
He scowled as he flipped the device into his inner pocket. Not only was she way out of line trying to tell him what to do, her frustrating know-it-all pout didn't hold any weight in the conversation. She clearly didn't know everything or he wouldn't have just blindsided her, and he conveyed his point with heavy sarcasm. "In that case, Donna, why don't you hold the goddamn front door open next time? Make it easy for them."
His snippy quip tested her patience, and she pursed her lips together. She wasn't suggesting they run out waving a red flag, but she also didn't want to be constantly looking over her shoulder for an ever-looming threat. They'd already faced that challenge enough times over the years by protecting Mike's secret identity as a fraud. "The only way to put a stop to them is transparency, Harvey. You don't want to do anything, fine. I understand. But what about Sean Cahill? He might be able to build a case out of your evidence."
He shook his head, adamantly rejecting the suggestion. Whoever had overheard them talking last night had given him a "get out of jail free" card and it was already cashed in. If they caught wind of him sharing the information he'd found, they'd assume he'd fired the first shot and would undoubtedly retaliate. "I am not putting you at risk. End of fucking story."
His feet whipped around, scraping the loose gravel. But before he escaped Donna's reach, she forcefully gripped his arm and swung her heels in front of him. She'd tried to handle him with a silk glove, but he wasn't the only one with an iron fist. If he insisted on walking away, he needed to have a better reason than just pig-headed stubbornness. "If you don't go to Sean, I will."
"Damnit, Donna!
Her thumb clamped his elbow as he jerked himself to wrench free, but his shoes skated on the uneven terrain, and he caught her waist, furious as he'd steadied himself, breathing hard. She had no right to dictate the terms of her safety when she had to know by now she meant everything to him. The realization that had been building inside him for weeks slammed the anger out of him, and her wide eyes softened as she loosened her death-grip.
The moment of charged hesitation rendered him motionless, hovering on the brink of temptation as her lashes fluttered innocently. With a slight shift, pebbles grated beneath his feet, the small crunch mixing with Donna's gasp as he squeezed her waist.
Her body reacted to the swell of his pupils darkening with desire, trembling with adrenaline, and she closed her eyes to compose herself, just for a split second, but she opened them to find him withdrawing, his expression unreadable.
Confusion welled up inside her, but she was no stranger to the hurt that pierced her chest, and history had taught her to swallow the tightening sensation in her throat before it buckled into tears. She'd become a veteran at handling Harvey's turbulent emotions, or lack thereof, so she took a step back and breathed in, swapping one avoidance for another. "It's safe to talk to Cahill," she croaked. "You can meet him in his office, out in the open, just like you would for any other case."
"Donna." His voice was low and strained as he pinched the side of his hip. The desperation to reach out to her was still coiled in his muscles, but he refused to give into the urge. As it was, he couldn't tell if he was being paranoid or she was being reckless. But, if the past had taught him anything, it was that he could trust her level head when his feelings were clouding his judgment.
"Okay, Donna." He sighed, his emotions down-trodden and his voice weary. "I'll go see him."
She nodded, but her smile lacked warmth as she stepped around him, and he shoved his hands into his pockets, needing a moment before he followed her. It wasn't just the look of contempt she'd flashed that held him back. He'd hurt her. And despite what she'd probably concluded over the years, he didn't brush off upsetting her lightly.
When she'd demanded to know how he loved her, he'd thought long and hard about how to answer. Fuck, he'd even practiced a speech in the men's bathroom. One he'd barely started before she'd rolled her eyes and said she was leaving him for Louis.
More often than not, letting his words fly close to the surface led them too near to the sun. But this time, he wasn't just worried about saying the wrong thing. The people watching him — them — targeted Donna, because it would have been obvious from all the bugged conversations they'd overheard that he cares about her.
If they knew he cared about her a lot more than he should, she'd be in even more danger.
He had to keep his distance to protect both of them.
...
...
AN: Thank you for all the reviews, and a big shout out to Southsidesister (darvey_love) for being an insanely talented beta! I've got a fair chunk of this story done so I'll try to keep the updates coming every Tuesday. Lots of love! :) xx