I Thought My Coworker Was Flirting With Someone Else Until She Pulled Me Aside and Told Me the Truth
Chapter 13
Two years later, Hannah and I were married.
We didn’t tell the company until after the wedding.
Not because it was forbidden.
Because we wanted one part of our lives to belong only to us.
The ceremony was small.
Family.
Friends.
A few coworkers who had become close.
Sarah attended.
Hannah’s brother attended too.
His debt had been cleared after the investigation.
He hugged his sister for a long time.
“You saved me,” he whispered.
She shook her head.
“No.”
She looked at me.
“We saved each other.”
I smiled.
Years earlier, she had pulled me into a stairwell because she thought someone was trying to frame me.
Now she was standing beside me as my wife.
Life was strange.
A year into our marriage, we went back to the old diner near the office.
The same one where Hannah had once sat across from me after work.
She looked at the table.
“This is where I almost told you everything.”
“You didn’t.”
“I was scared.”
“You were always scared.”
She smiled.
“So were you.”
I laughed.
“True.”
She reached across the table.
“Do you still remember the party?”
“Daniel.”
She nodded.
“You looked miserable.”
“I was jealous.”
“You were.”
“I thought you liked him.”
“I never did.”
“Then why was your hand on his arm?”
“To keep him talking.”
“And the laughing?”
“He was telling me something stupid.”
I laughed.
“Fair.”
She smiled.
“Would you have come after me if I hadn’t pulled you aside?”
“Yes.”
“Even if you thought I was with him?”
“I don’t know.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I probably would have suffered quietly.”
She laughed.
“That sounds like you.”
The waitress brought coffee.
Hannah watched me.
“Do you ever think about how close we came to losing everything?”
“Yes.”
“What scares you most?”
I thought.
“Not the money.”
“Then what?”
“Knowing how easily people can manipulate fear.”
She nodded.
“That changed me too.”
“Me too.”
She looked out the window.
“Do you miss the old company?”
“No.”
“What about the old you?”
I smiled.
“No.”
She squeezed my hand.
“Good.”
Then our phones buzzed at the same time.
A new message.
From Sarah.
There is one more file.
I looked at Hannah.
She groaned.
“Here we go again.”
We opened it.
A scanned letter.
My father’s handwriting.
If Daniel and Hannah are together, the final system can be destroyed.
We stared.
Below it:
The final system was never at Mercer & Lane.
Hannah looked at me.
“Then where?”
The last line gave the answer.
In the Mercer family home.
We drove there that night.
The house had been abandoned for years.
Inside, we found a hidden room.
Not servers.
Not money.
Hundreds of handwritten files.
Photographs.
And a single box labeled:
FOR THE TWO PEOPLE WHO CHOSE EACH OTHER.
Hannah opened it.
Inside was one final message.
The last secret is not about Orion.
It is about why you found each other.
I looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
She shook her head.
“Keep reading.”
