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SAVANNAH

T he twins didn’t go down easy. Cal lost one of his socks in the couch cushions and then convinced Leo it was eaten by a monster. Leo retaliated by dumping an entire glass of milk across the kitchen floor, which the dog started lapping up immediately.

Cal refused to brush his teeth unless I let him wear his astronaut helmet. Leo insisted on a lullaby from Thea, then decided he didn’t like the one she picked. And by the time I finally got them into bed, I felt like I’d been run over by a very small, very determined army.

The apartment was still humming with their energy, the hallway lights dimmed, and the faint sound of the dishwasher ticking through its cycle kept me company.

I padded barefoot into the living room, my oversized sweatshirt hanging off one shoulder.

My hair was damp from the shower I’d managed to sneak in just before bedtime.

Dropping onto the couch, I pulled the laptop onto my knees.

The cushions sank beneath me, trying to remind me that home was for relaxing, not work, but I had to get a few things done tonight.

My body ached in that bone-deep way that only came from parenting.

I opened the laptop’s lid, blinked past the start-up glare, and leaned my head back against the cushion.

I worked through my inbox in a steady rhythm, clicking through follow-ups from the shoot and clearing low-priority notes flagged by Justine.

Most of it was busywork—brand taglines that needed sign-offs, calendar updates from Vanessa’s office, a recycled press concept I’d already rejected twice.

I was halfway through reviewing a vendor brief when I reached for my phone on the side table to give myself a bit of a distraction before I finished up.

I checked my phone and found three missed calls, each one from Dad. There were no voicemails or texts. A silent demand for attention lingered behind the missed calls—reminding me he was still upset about Dominic.

I stared at the screen, considering whether to press the call button.

I knew calling him back would lead to a conversation I wasn’t ready for—or an argument, more accurately.

The tension squatted between my shoulder blades, but I let the moment pass and set my phone back down.

Whatever he wanted to say, it could wait until morning.

If it had been urgent, he would’ve said so.

Or he would’ve tried again. But three calls and zero messages meant he was sending a deliberate message.

My inbox was still open, staring at me and mocking how far behind I was with this task, but then one email in my drafts folder stood out:

Subject: URGENT: Updated Brand Narrative Memo – Final Draft

My name was listed on the thread. At first, I assumed it was part of a thread I’d forgotten I’d started—some automated reminder or approval request that landed in my inbox. But when I opened the memo, I realized it was already marked as final and routed to legal, with my name tied to the top.

I opened the attachment, heart skipping once as I scanned the content.

The document was wrong. Not just off in tone—but stripped.

The key points I’d built into the draft were gone.

Strategic phrasing had been softened into meaningless platitudes.

Dates and phrasing I’d triple-checked were all rewritten.

It felt like someone had dragged a red pen through my voice and replaced it with something soulless.

But it was the signature line that hit hardest. It said I’d approved it. And I hadn’t.

I clicked out of the PDF and checked the version history on my shared files.

The original was still in my drafts folder—untouched.

The version I was looking at had been uploaded from someone else’s credentials.

Not mine. Whoever had done this had lifted my name, swapped in the new memo, and moved it forward through official channels.

I sat back slowly, the air tightening in my chest. Someone hadn’t hacked my inbox—they hadn’t needed to. They’d accessed the internal document system and made the changes from inside. And the only thing linking me to the altered file…was my name.

I hovered over the forward button, then added legal and compliance to the chain. I typed a short message to Isla, outlining the edits and flagging them as unauthorized. Just in case this turned into something bigger.

Before I hit send, I glanced down the hall. The boys’ door was shut. The apartment was finally quiet, but I needed some advice on this.

“Thea?” I called softly.

A moment later, she appeared in the doorway of her room, rubbing her eyes, her hair pulled into a messy topknot. “Everything okay?”

I turned the screen toward her. “Look at this. Someone changed my memo. The final version went out with my name on it, but it’s not what I wrote.

It’s been edited—gutted, really—and passed along to legal like I signed off on it.

But I didn’t. And when I went back to my drafts, the original was still there, untouched.

Whoever did this used internal access and submitted the final version through someone else’s login.

I only found out because I happened to check the attachments in my shared folder. ”

She padded over and sat beside me, scanning the document with a frown. “I don’t even know what I’m looking at, but this doesn’t sound like you.”

“Because it’s not.” I didn’t even try to soften it. My chest felt too raw. It wasn’t just that someone had altered my work—it was that they did it so confidently, as if I wouldn’t notice.

Thea leaned closer, her brow furrowing. “Why would they make these changes?”

“I don’t know.” I pressed my lips together as I stopped to think about it.

The only reason those specific changes would be made is to make adjustments to the PR cycle for campaigns surrounding the merger.

It didn’t make sense why anyone would be messing with the PDF either, when everyone would be able to see the changes that’d been made.

It wasn’t even my signature. “I’m gonna send it to legal,” I told her.

“You should,” she said, still reading. “Because this feels targeted.” She covered her mouth and yawned, then stood and stretched her arms high over her head.

I hated that she was right, but whatever this was seemed serious. If I didn’t turn it in, it’d be pinned back on me, and I wasn’t going to take the heat from that mess. “You heading to bed?”

Thea groaned and started shuffling toward the hall. “Yeah. But wake me if anything else happens, okay?”

“Will do.” I offered a tired smile before turning my laptop back around. Thea gave me a look—half concern, half warning— but didn’t press. As soon as her door clicked shut behind her, the quiet crept in again.

I stared at the screen for another minute before sending it on to legal. I needed a distraction, something brainless, but I didn’t want to pick up my phone and be reminded of my father’s opinions. So, I opened a new tab and scrolled through social media, liking a few posts without thinking.

I skimmed past a carousel of engagement photos, paused on a reel of a beachside proposal, then scrolled through a makeup tutorial someone had reposted for the third time. It was background noise. Nothing important. But it kept my mind from spiraling—until it didn’t.

Then a single post buried beneath engagement photos and promotional reels caught me off guard. A headline that looked innocent enough at first glance, but which sent a current of unease racing along my spine. I clicked without thinking, already knowing it wouldn’t end well.

A gossip blog I recognized from last week’s trending tab had swiped a picture from the photoshoot. The headline was benign— Merger Watch: PR Strategist Linked to CEO —but the photo underneath made my mouth go dry. I clicked the link to open the full article and felt my anxiety spike.

It was me and Dominic at the shoot. His hand was on my back. My laugh was caught mid-frame. There was nothing explicit about the image, but it was intimate enough that anyone could read into it. And the caption underneath was even worse. It read: Mommy’s secret might derail her dating dreams .

I scrolled down. Each swipe came with more torture than the last. My breath caught as the next photo came onto my screen, and it stopped my heart.

It was me, outside the apartment building. I recognized the coat I’d been wearing, the tote bag I always carried on school days. The angle wasn’t very good, but it was clear enough. And what disturbed me most wasn’t that someone had been watching long enough to capture it—it was the image.

Cal was in my arms. His face was tucked into my shoulder, his legs wrapped loosely around my waist. He’d been tired that day, I remembered, cranky from skipping his nap.

I had no idea anyone was following me or taking a picture.

His face was partially obscured by my hair, but if Dominic saw this, it was over.

Anyone with two eyes in their head could see Cal was my son.

I slammed the laptop shut. My pulse pounded in my ears, hands frozen over the device like I could somehow reverse what I saw.

But the screen had gone black, and the silence that followed felt deafening.

That photo was out there circulating, spreading, inching its way toward the very secret I had built my entire life around keeping safe.

Too late …

The words pulsed through my mind like the sound of a canon being fired. There was no way to undo what had been posted, no way to rewind the exposure. The damage was already unfolding—and it was completely out of my control.