Two Little Secrets From My Boss

Chapter 230

Maya’s POV

The burner phone rings at eleven-thirty PM, the vibration against the wooden floor of my closet loud enough to make me flinch. I retrieve it quickly, heart already racing, and answer without speaking.

"Maya." The patron's voice fills my ear, but it sounds different tonight. Not the cold, threatening tone I've grown accustomed to. This is almost... gentle. Concerned. "We need to talk."

I move to my window, keeping my voice low. "I'm listening."

"I understand what's happening." He pauses, and I hear something that might be a sigh. "You're getting attached. It's natural, human. You've spent months embedded in their lives, caring for their children, becoming part of their world. I knew this was a risk when I sent you in."

The acknowledgment catches me off guard. I expect accusations, threats about my stalling. Instead, he sounds almost sympathetic.

"But you need to remember why you're there," he continues. "Who you came for. Who you promised."

Lora's face flashes in my mind. My sister, twenty-seven years old, dead because of people who faced no consequences. Dead because I wasn't there to protect her.

"I remember," I whisper.

"Do you? Because it looks like you're forgetting. You found those emails three days ago—the ones showing someone else threatened Lora. You haven't sent them to me, haven't followed up. You're stalling, Maya, and I need to understand why."

My throat tightens. "I'm not stalling, I'm being careful. Security's gotten tighter. Xander's suspicious. If I push too hard now…"

"That's exactly why we need to move." His voice firms slightly, takes on an edge of urgency. “I'm setting a deadline. Seventy-two hours.”

He then adds quickly, sensing my panic.

"For your safety. The longer you stay without delivering results, the more dangerous this becomes for you. People are asking questions. Security's tightening, like you said. Archie's watching you differently. Xander triggered that drawer alarm specifically because he suspects someone's been in his office."

He's right, I know he's right. The walls are closing in from every direction.

"If you're exposed before finishing the mission, you go down. Federal charges for the threatening notes about the children. Criminal trespass. Corporate espionage."

The patron continues.

"Xander Hale has the resources to bury you so deep you'll never see daylight again. And Lora's death remains unavenged. All of this—six years of work, everything you've sacrificed, becomes meaningless."

The words land like physical blows. I lean my forehead against the cool window glass, trying to steady my breathing.

"The deadline protects you, gives you a window to complete what you started and disappear before the inevitable exposure."

He says, voice softening again.

"Get the final evidence. Document the financial connections. Then I extract you safely. New identity, new city, new life. You disappear before they can prosecute. Before Archie learns the truth. Before the Hales destroy you."

"Seventy-two hours," I repeat numbly.

"I'm trying to keep you safe, Maya. Don't make me regret trusting you with this."

The line goes dead.

I stand at my window, phone clutched in my shaking hand, staring out at the main house. As if on cue, lights flicker on in what I know is Hope's nursery. Through the second-floor window, I can see movement. Shadows passing back and forth.

It's late for a feeding, but Hope's on a strict medication schedule now. Every six hours, regardless of the time. I watched Daphne and Xander earlier today, both of them hovering over Hope's bassinet as they administered the first dose, terrified they'd somehow get it wrong.

Hope's diagnosis has changed something between them. I saw it when they came home from the hospital—the way Daphne held Xander's hand in the car, how he carried Hope inside while Daphne kept her hand on his back, and the physical connection they haven't had since the delivery.

They're suffering. Their six-week-old daughter has a failing heart, will need multiple surgeries, will spend her childhood fighting battles most kids never face. And they're facing it together instead of letting it tear them apart like the hospital choice did.

Through the window, I see Xander's silhouette move closer to Daphne's. His hand comes to rest on her shoulder as she holds Hope. The gesture is tender, protective. They stand like that for a long moment, three shadows merged into one.

They're already devastated. Already drowning in fear for their daughter. And I'm about to add to their pain.

About to expose whatever evidence I find, destroy Xander's reputation, implicate him in Lora's death. Take their world—already fractured by Hope's diagnosis—and shatter it completely.

I don't want to do this anymore.

The thought arrives with startling clarity. I don't want to finish the mission. Don't want to hurt these people who've shown me nothing but kindness.

Don't want to watch Archie's face when he learns I've been lying since the moment we met. Don't want Nina asking why I had to leave. Don't want to be the thing that destroys this family when they're already fighting for their daughter's life.

But the patron's words echo in my mind: Lora deserves justice.

My sister, who raised me after our parents died. Who sacrificed everything to give me a normal life. Who died because someone used her as leverage against Xander Hale and faced no consequences for it.

Don't I owe her this? Don't I owe her six years of promises kept, even if keeping them destroys me in the process?

I turn away from the window and cross to my desk. Pull out paper and a pen. My hands shake as I write, but the words come clearly.

"My name is Maya Morrison. I came to the Hale estate six years after my sister Lora Morrison died. I was recruited by someone claiming to have information about her death—information connecting Xander Hale to the circumstances that killed her.”

“I sent the threatening notes about the twins. I've been accessing Xander's private files without permission. Everything I've done here has been part of a mission to gather evidence that would expose what happened to Lora and make someone pay for her death."

I continue writing for three pages: every detail, every lie, every moment of infiltration. The patron's existence, the evidence I've gathered, the ways I've manipulated people who trusted me.

When I finish, I read it over once. Then fold it carefully and hide it in the back of my closet, behind the box of winter clothes I'll never need in this climate.

Insurance. If I'm exposed before I can explain, at least someone will hear the truth from me first. Will understand I wasn't just a malicious intruder but someone trying to honor a promise to her dead sister.

I sit on the edge of my bed and stare at my phone. Seventy-two hours. Three days to decide whether to finish what I started or abandon six years of promises.

Three days to choose between the sister I loved and the family I accidentally came to care about.

Three days to decide who I am: the girl who made a promise at Lora's hospital bedside, or the woman who fell in love with the enemy.

The lights in Hope's nursery finally go dark. Xander and Daphne returning to bed, probably holding each other the way Archie held me last night, finding comfort in physical presence while everything else feels uncertain.

I lie back and close my eyes, but sleep won't come.

Seventy-two hours.

The countdown has started, and I still don't know which choice I can survive making.