Two Little Secrets From My Boss

Chapter 190

Maya’s POV

I return to my room after midnight, slipping through the quiet house like the ghost I've become. The hallways are dark, everyone sleeping. The family I've infiltrated, oblivious to the enemy living among them.

My door closes with a soft click. I lean against it, eyes closed, still feeling Archie's hands on my skin. Still tasting his confession—I love you—like poison on my tongue.

Then I hear it, clear and sharp in the silence.

‘You're forgetting me.’

Lora's voice. Not memory this time—accusation. Real enough that I open my eyes expecting to see her standing there. But the room is empty, just me and the ghost that lives in my head.

"I'm not forgetting you." The words come out loud, defensive. I'm arguing with an empty room like a madwoman. "I'm still working the plan, still gathering evidence."

‘For six years? It takes six years to gather evidence?’

"I'm being thorough." I move to the bed, sit on the edge. My hands are shaking. "I need everything to be airtight. Need proof that it will stick. Need—"

‘You need him.’ Lora's voice cuts through my excuses. ‘That's what you need. You've been 'close' to this family for months now. You have enough. You've always had enough. You're stalling because you fell in love.’

My chest constricts. "That's not—"

‘You're choosing him over me, over the promise you made, over justice.’

"I'm not choosing anyone." But the lie tastes obvious even to me. "Everything with Archie is covered. Maintaining access. Staying close to the family so I can…"

‘So you can what? Keep fucking him while pretending it means nothing? Keep collecting evidence you never actually plan to use?’

I press my fists against my eyes, trying to force back tears that won't be stopped.

‘You've become exactly what I warned you against.’ Lora's voice is relentless, unforgiving. ‘Weak. Compromised. Choosing temporary comfort over the justice I deserve. Choosing your feelings over finishing what you started.’

"Stop." The word comes out broken. "Please stop."

‘I died alone, Maya. Destroyed by people who never faced consequences. And you promised me, you swore that you'd make them answer for it. But here you are: in love with their head of security, living in their house, playing pretend at being someone you're not.’

My hands shake when I reach for my laptop, pull it into my lap with fingers that barely function. I enter the password, navigate through layers of encryption to the files I've been building for six years.

The evidence is nearly complete. Financial records connecting specific Hale family transactions to Gerald's operations during the period Lora died.

Not just Gerald acting alone—proof that money flowed through legitimate Hale accounts.

That someone in the family knew, or should have known, what Gerald was doing. That complicity runs deeper than one rogue business associate.

Communication logs showing who knew what when. Emails. Text messages. Meeting notes from the period when Gerald's schemes were unraveling and Lora got caught in the collapse. Evidence that questions were raised and then buried. That warnings were ignored.

Timeline documentation piecing together exactly how Lora ended up destroyed by people who walked away clean. How she trusted Gerald's promises about investment opportunities.

How she put her savings, money she'd scraped together working three jobs, into something that was designed to fail from the start.

How when it collapsed, she lost everything. How the stress and the debt and the betrayal drove her to the pills that stopped her heart.

I have most of it. Years of careful collection. Professional-level intelligence gathering that cost me pieces of myself I can't get back.

But I'm still missing three things. One final financial transfer I need to trace—the one that would show definitively where Lora's money actually went.

Testimony from someone still alive who was there when Gerald's scheme collapsed.

Confirmation of the chain of command that led to Lora's death—who gave orders, who looked away, who decided some casualties were acceptable.

I'm close. So close. Maybe three more pieces and I'd have everything needed to expose what happened.

To make them answer, to prove Lora's death wasn't just tragic bad luck but the direct result of criminal negligence people chose not to pursue.

I stare at the screen, at years of accumulated evidence and mission that's consumed my entire adult life.

And I realize Lora's voice is right. I have been stalling.

Every day with Archie is another day I delay completing the mission. Every moment of vulnerability is another betrayal of the promise I made holding Lora's cold hand six years ago. Every time I let him touch me, let him see me, let him believe we might have a future—I'm choosing him over her.

I'm choosing the man I love over the sister who sacrificed everything for me. The guilt rises like flood water threatening to drown me.

I need a deadline. Something concrete. Something that forces me to act instead of endlessly delaying because I'm too compromised to finish what I started.

Two weeks.

I'll give myself two weeks to get the final pieces. The financial transfer. The testimony. The chain of command.

I'll compile everything into something undeniable. Something that will destroy the Hale family's reputation, expose their complicity, make them answer for what happened to Lora.

Then I'll release it. Walk away. Disappear before the explosion destroys everyone in range.

Before Archie learns the truth, before I have to see his face when he realizes everything between us was built on lies. Before I have to watch him hate me.

The deadline sits in my mind like a countdown—inevitable, approaching.

Then what?

I destroy the family I've accidentally come to care about? The twins who trust me? Daphne who's fighting for her daughter's life while I systematically betray her? Xander who welcomed me into his home?

I watch Archie's face when he learns everything—every touch, every confession, every moment of vulnerability—was manipulation disguised as intimacy?

I lose the only person who's made me feel human since Lora died? The man who looks at me like I'm something precious rather than the poison I actually am?

I close the laptop, press my fists against my eyes hard enough to see stars.

Two weeks. Finish the mission or abandon it completely. Commit to revenge or commit to the life I've accidentally built here. Choose Lora or choose Archie.

Because I can't have both. Can't make the Hales pay for their complicity while simultaneously loving someone who's sworn to protect them. Can't expose everything without destroying Archie in the process.

The choice feels impossible, but I've set the deadline now, made it real by speaking it into existence.

I have fourteen days to get the final pieces of evidence or accept that I've already made my choice by waiting this long.

That falling in love was always going to be choosing him over her. That maybe, just maybe, Lora wouldn't have wanted me to destroy myself in pursuit of justice she's not alive to see.

But Lora's voice disagrees—sharp and clear in my head.

‘Two weeks is just more stalling. You already know what you have to do. You're just afraid to do it.’

I lie back on my bed, stare at the ceiling. I feel tears track down my temples into my hair.

I don't know which choice would hurt more—finishing the mission and losing everything I've accidentally built with Archie, or abandoning the mission and betraying the promise I made to Lora six years ago.

Either way, I lose someone I love, become the villain in someone's story, destroy something that can't be repaired.

Two weeks. The clock is already ticking.