Page 271 of Kentrell

He was vague, but he wasn’t lying.

“I help people get rid of things they don’t want in their lives.”

That day, I brushed it off. Called him full of it.

Thinking it was just him being arrogant.

And now, sitting here… I knew exactly what it was.

“Because I didn’t marry into the kind of family that buries secrets six feet.”

That line. That one.

It cracked something wide open inside me.

Because now I understood.

Not just the files. Not just the man.

But themission.

Malcolm Anderson hadn’t just known about Kentrell. Hesenthim.

To me.

To my office.

To mylife.

He hired Kentrell to kill me.

And the man I fell in love with—the one who held me, kissed me, made me feelsafe—he came into my life with a target on my back and blood money in his pocket.

“Zoe?!”

My mother’s voice came through the phone again—louder this time. Panicked.

I couldn’t answer her.

Couldn’t even look at the screen.

I was staring at the last page in the folder. A blurry printout of a camera still taken outside my office building.Me, walking to my car. Purse on my shoulder. Headphones in. The timestamp circled in red ink.

“Zoe, what’s going on? You’re scaring me.”

My throat tightened. My lips parted, but no sound came out.

This couldn’t be real.

It couldn’t.

Kentrell wouldn’t?—

My eyes shot back to the folder. To the handwriting. To the deliberate, clinical phrasing.

Possible strike.

No direct security coverage.

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