Two Little Secrets From My Boss

Chapter 223

Maya’s POV

I move through the house hallways at two-thirty in the morning, each footstep measured, practiced.

Six months of infiltration have taught me exactly which floorboards creak, which doors squeak on their hinges, where the security cameras have blind spots. I know this house better than the family who lives in it knows I exist.

Xander's office door opens soundlessly. I slip inside, close it behind me with the barest click. His computer sits on the desk, screen dark, waiting. Three attempts to crack his password months ago.

Now I know it by heart: N1n4L1s4H0p3—the girls' names, the numbers substituting for letters. Sentimental, predictable, and exactly the kind of thing a father would choose.

The desktop loads. Folders upon folders of files I've already searched dozens of times over the past months: financial records, board meeting notes, correspondence. Business deals and acquisition proposals and the mundane digital debris of a man running an empire.

My hands rest on the keyboard, but I don't move them.

What's the point? The thought arrives unbidden, unwelcome. I've been doing this for six years.

Six years of planning, positioning myself, gathering intelligence. Six years of telling myself I was close, that the next file would hold the proof I needed, that eventually I'd find the smoking gun connecting Xander Hale to Lora's death.

And I've found nothing.

No damning emails admitting guilt. No financial transfers to pay off whoever killed her. No communications showing he ordered it or knew it was coming or did anything except exist in the same world where my sister died.

Just business records, family photos buried in personal folders—Nina and Lisa's birthday parties, Daphne pregnant with the twins, vacation snapshots from places I'll never visit.

The ordinary digital footprint of someone living a life I came here to destroy.

I stare at the screen and feel the weight of six years crushing my chest. What have I accomplished? I've lied to people who trusted me. Fell in love with a man I'll have to betray.

Sent threatening notes about children—children—to create chaos in a family that's only ever shown me kindness. For what? For a promise I made to my dead sister while grief made me stupid and desperate?

My eyes burn. I blink hard, forcing the tears back. Lora deserves justice. She deserves someone who doesn't give up, who keeps fighting even when the fight feels pointless. I owe her that much.

But the blankness stretches. I sit in front of Xander's computer in the middle of the night, surrounded by evidence that proves nothing except that I've wasted years chasing a ghost.

Then a folder name catches my eye.

It's tucked in a subdirectory I haven't explored thoroughly, buried three levels deep in legal documents. "Morrison - Legal Review."

Morrison. Lora's last name.

My paralysis breaks. I click it open with hands that suddenly won't stop shaking.

Inside are emails, dozens of them, all dated from six years ago. The timestamps make my breath catch—these are from the weeks right before Lora died. Before everything ended.

I scan the first one. It's from an unknown sender, the address a string of random numbers and letters that suggests a burner account. The message is brief, professional, threatening:

"Mr. Hale, I need information regarding your company's security protocols. Specifically, access codes and personnel schedules for the main facility. I'm sure you understand the importance of cooperation. Certain details about your past could prove... problematic if they became public knowledge."

Xander's response is immediate and cold: "I don't respond to threats. Whatever you think you know, it's not worth compromising my company's security. This conversation is over."

The unknown sender's next email is less professional: "Perhaps you need motivation. I have associates. One of them knows someone close to you. Lora Morrison. Lovely girl. It would be unfortunate if anything happened to her."

My vision blurs. I have to read it twice to make sure I'm seeing correctly. Someone threatened Lora. Used her as leverage to force Xander's compliance.

Xander's response: "Leave her alone. Lora has nothing to do with this. Whatever you want, find another way to get it. I'm not giving you access to my company, and if you touch her, I'll make sure you regret it."

Three more emails follow. The unknown sender escalating. Xander refusing, each message more forceful. Telling them to back off. Saying he'd increased security around his associates. Warning them that he had resources they didn't want to face.

The last email is from the unknown sender, dated two days before Lora died: "You've made your choice, Mr. Hale. Remember that when consequences arrive."

Then nothing. No more correspondence. Just a gap in the timeline where my sister's life ended.

I stare at the screen, hands trembling so badly I can barely hold my phone steady to photograph the emails. This doesn't prove Xander killed Lora. If anything, it suggests someone else had a motive.

Someone who wanted leverage over Xander and used Lora to get it. Someone who threatened her to force his hand, and when that didn't work…

My stomach turns. When threats didn't work, they followed through. Made good on the promise. Killed her to prove they weren't bluffing, or punished Xander for refusing to cooperate, or both.

I save the emails to my encrypted drive with fingers that won't stop shaking. Copy them twice to make sure they're backed up.

I need to show these to the patron, get his interpretation. Maybe there's context I'm missing. Maybe this actually proves Xander's guilt in a way I don't understand yet.

But doubt gnaws at me like something hungry.

What if I've been hunting the wrong person all along? What if the patron's narrative, the story he fed me six years ago when I was drowning in grief and rage, isn't the whole truth?

What if Xander isn't the villain in Lora's story but another victim of whoever really orchestrated her death?

I close the files carefully, methodically erasing my digital tracks. Clear the browser history, reset the screen to how it looked when I arrived. Everything professional, practiced, the routine I've perfected over months of infiltration.

Back in my room, I sit on the edge of my bed and stare at the encrypted photos on my phone. The emails that suggest Xander was a victim too. That he tried to protect Lora.

That someone else, someone with enough power and resources to threaten a billionaire and follow through, orchestrated everything.

The patron has to know about this.

He has resources I don't, connections that reach places I can't access, information I'm not privy to. He's been guiding this mission for six years. Leading me, supporting me, giving me purpose when grief made everything else meaningless.

I have to trust him, have to believe he knows something I don't, that there's an explanation for these emails that still points to Xander's guilt.

I have to.

Because if I'm wrong, if I've spent six years destroying innocent people, threatening children, lying to someone I love, all because I believed a story that wasn't true, then I've become something Lora would hate. Something I hate.

I lie back on my bed and stare at the ceiling, phone clutched in my hand, doubt spreading through my chest like poison.

The patron will explain. He'll make sense of this. He has to.