The CEO’s Jet Broke Down Again — Her Assistant Whispered, “I Think She Just Wants the Mechanic Back”
Chapter 8
The drive contained thousands of files.
Enough to destroy careers.
Enough to destroy Sterling International.
But not enough to prove who had ordered the jet sabotage.
Ava and Mason worked through the night.
At three seventeen in the morning, Mason found a file labeled with a familiar code.
R-17.
Ava frowned.
“What is that?”
Mason opened it.
The file contained reports on aircraft failures.
Every failed component had been marked in red.
Then he saw the pattern.
“These weren’t random failures.”
“What were they?”
“Tests.”
“Tests for what?”
“How quickly someone could identify them.”
Ava stared.
“Why?”
“To see whether I was still paying attention.”
She looked at him.
“You think this was meant for you?”
Mason nodded.
“But why?”
He opened another document.
The words made both of them go silent.
Subject R-17 remains useful if CEO Sterling becomes emotionally dependent on him.
Ava’s face changed.
“This is about us.”
Mason closed the laptop.
“That’s what they want you to think.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“They knew I would bring you back.”
Mason looked at her.
“And they knew what would happen if I came back.”
Ava whispered,
“What?”
“You’d stop trusting everyone else.”
She understood.
“The company becomes unstable.”
“Exactly.”
Suddenly, the lights flickered.
The building’s alarm sounded.
Mason grabbed Ava’s hand.
They ran downstairs.
Smoke was coming from the server room.
Someone had set another fire.
Mason pulled the emergency door open.
Ava coughed.
“Are the files safe?”
“Backups are encrypted.”
“Can we get them out?”
“Yes.”
He led her toward the secondary server.
A figure moved behind them.
Mason turned.
A man attacked.
Mason blocked him.
They struggled.
Ava shouted for security.
The attacker broke free and ran.
Mason chased him into the parking area.
This time, he caught him.
The man hit the ground.
Mason pulled away his hood.
And stopped.
It was Aaron, the new lead mechanic.
Ava arrived seconds later.
“Aaron?”
He looked terrified.
“I didn’t do it.”
Mason held up the burner phone found in his pocket.
“You were paid.”
Aaron shook his head.
“I was threatened.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
Aaron looked at Ava.
Then whispered,
“Your father.”
Ava stared.
“What?”
“He came to the hangar three months before he died.”
Mason’s eyes narrowed.
“He wasn’t supposed to be there.”
Aaron swallowed.
“He told me someone was watching your family.”
Ava’s breath caught.
“You saw my father?”
Aaron nodded.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Ava’s knees nearly gave way.
Mason caught her.
But the impossible truth had already landed.
Ava’s father had supposedly died two years earlier.
Yet someone claimed to have seen him months after that.
And suddenly, Meridian was no longer just a corporate fraud.
It was hiding something much older.
