I Thought My Coworker Was Flirting With Someone Else Until She Pulled Me Aside and Told Me the Truth
Chapter 7
My father’s old house had been empty for years.
I hadn’t been back since his funeral.
The place smelled like dust and old wood.
Hannah followed me inside.
The key opened a small cabinet in the study.
Inside was a metal box.
My hands shook.
I opened it.
There were photographs.
Letters.
A cassette tape.
And a small notebook.
The first page had my father’s handwriting.
If my son ever finds this, Elias Mercer is still alive.
I stared at the sentence.
Hannah stood beside me.
My father had written that years ago.
Before I even joined the company.
He had known.
The notebook contained names.
Dates.
Payments.
Private meetings.
Then I found something unexpected.
My father’s last entry.
Hannah Miller has the evidence.
I froze.
I looked at her.
“Your father knew me?”
She shook her head.
“I’ve never heard that name.”
“It’s written here.”
She read the page.
Her face changed.
“That isn’t me.”
“Then who is Hannah Miller?”
She didn’t know.
We searched the rest of the notebook.
An address.
A date.
A photograph.
A young woman standing beside my father.
She looked familiar.
Hannah stared.
“That looks like my mother.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
She took the photograph.
“My mother was named Rebecca Miller.”
The photograph showed Rebecca beside Michael Carter.
And Elias.
All three standing outside Mercer & Lane.
The date was eighteen years earlier.
I felt dizzy.
Our families had been connected long before we met.
Hannah sat down.
“My mother died when I was twelve.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
I stared at the photograph.
“Same story.”
She looked at me.
“Your father?”
“Heart attack.”
Neither of us spoke.
The pattern was obvious.
People connected to the investigation kept dying.
My father.
Her mother.
Others listed in the notebook.
Hannah looked at the cassette.
“Play it.”
The old recorder still worked.
My father’s voice filled the room.
“If you’re hearing this, I’m probably gone.”
Hannah covered her mouth.
He continued.
“Elias has built something much larger than a corruption scheme.”
“He has information on everyone.”
“He uses it to control people.”
“But there is one weakness.”
I leaned closer.
“The system was designed by two people.”
“Me…”
He paused.
“And Rebecca Miller.”
Hannah started crying.
My father continued.
“Rebecca discovered how to destroy it.”
“But she hid the final access code.”
“Not in a computer.”
“Not in a file.”
“In the memories of her daughter.”
Hannah froze.
“What?”
My father’s voice continued.
“Elias will eventually come for Hannah.”
“When he does, she must trust the right person.”
The recording ended.
We stared at each other.
“You’re the key,” I whispered.
Hannah shook her head.
“I don’t remember anything.”
“Maybe you do.”
She closed her eyes.
Then said,
“My mother used to teach me a strange game.”
“What kind?”
“Numbers.”
“How?”
“She’d ask me to remember sequences.”
I looked at the notebook.
The dates.
Numbers.
Addresses.
She began recalling them.
A street.
A room.
A code.
A location beneath the company’s original building.
“There’s something underground,” she whispered.
We went back that night.
The original Mercer & Lane headquarters had been renovated years ago.
But the basement remained.
Behind a storage wall was a steel door.
Hannah entered the sequence.
The lock opened.
Inside was a hidden archive.
Boxes.
Servers.
Photographs.
Recordings.
Everything.
Then we found the system.
A massive database.
Thousands of files.
People’s secrets.
Financial records.
Private agreements.
Medical information.
Everything.
Hannah stared.
“Elias built this.”
“Yes.”
Then we found a file with my name.
MICHAEL CARTER — SON: DANIEL CARTER
I opened it.
Inside was a recording.
Elias speaking.
“His father was one of the only men who could destroy me.”
“He passed that weakness to his son.”
Hannah looked at me.
“The son isn’t a weakness.”
Elias continued.
“He is the bait.”
My stomach dropped.
For the first time, I understood.
I hadn’t been hired to catch the corruption.
I had been hired to become the person who could be framed for it.
And Hannah had been placed beside me because Elias knew she would eventually try to save me.
He had predicted our choices.
He had planned around them.
Then the archive lights switched on.
Someone had entered.
A voice echoed through the room.
“You finally found it.”
Daniel Price.
Our vice president.
He smiled.
And behind him stood Elias Mercer.
