How to Tame a Silver Fox – Episode 18
The photograph changed Chris instantly. The man who had teased Harper about bedtime disappeared, replaced by the nightclub owner who had looked ready to break a dealer with his bare hands.
“Inside,” he ordered, scanning the street. This time Harper obeyed because the threat was no longer an argument about independence. Someone had followed them before Bryan’s message appeared.
Chris locked the door and checked every ground-floor window. Harper placed the photograph on the kitchen counter, disturbed by the intimacy of the image. Whoever took it had watched her watching Chris.
“You said Bryan was the reason you came,” she said. “Was that true?”
“It was one reason.” Chris took out his phone, but Harper blocked his path before he could call Mark.
“No more conversations about me that don’t include me.” She held his gaze. “Put him on speaker.”
Chris hesitated, then made the call. Mark answered on the second ring with the impatience of a man expecting bad news.
“Someone left a photograph at the house,” Chris said. “Same message style as the club incidents.”
Harper seized on the unfamiliar phrase. “What club incidents?” Her father went silent.
Mark finally explained that someone had been pressuring him and Chris over a business dispute. Anonymous messages had escalated into vandalism at Chris’s nightclub, but neither man believed Harper was involved until Bryan began contacting her.
“You thought Bryan was working for them?” Harper asked. The betrayal felt larger than secrecy; her father had allowed her to believe an abusive ex was the entire danger.
“We didn’t know,” Mark said. “I sent Chris because he’s the only person I trust to keep you safe.”
“You could have trusted me with the truth.” Harper’s voice cracked. She had spent years mistaking Mark’s distance for indifference while he managed her life from afar.
Mark promised to explain in person, but Harper had heard promises like that before. She ended the call before he could offer another.
Chris did not defend him. “You deserved to know,” he said. The admission cost him loyalty to his oldest friend.
Harper looked at the photograph again. “Are you in danger too?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.” The familiar evasion earned him a sharp look. Chris exhaled. “Yes. But whoever sent this wants me to react, and I won’t do it blindly.”
Harper turned the photograph toward the light and noticed a reflection in the windshield—a partial face beside the photographer. She recognized the expensive college ring on the hand holding the camera. It belonged to someone who had been inside her party.
