YOU’RE MINE, Miss Intern.

Chapter nine

The extra hours made the building look different after dark.

During the day it was noise and watching, after seven it was glass and the low sound of machines. Ann learned Mikel’s pace by the third night, he did not fill silence nor did he explain a page twice. If she found something, she put a clip on it and waited. If she was wrong, he said so in one line and moved on. If she was right, he said nothing at all, which was how she knew.

Wednesday’s vendor packet was more than the others. Rhea had handed it over with two fingers, like the cardboard might stain her. “He asked for this set. You do not wander through it looking for a prize, you check what he marked.”

Ann checked what he marked then she checked what he had not. The first mismatch was small. A delivery date that did not match the gate log. Then an invoice paid to a name that was almost the name on the contract, but not quite. One letter off, easy to miss if you wanted to miss it.

Ann wrote it down on a spare sheet then she printed the two pages that proved it and slid the originals back into the packet.

At eight, Mikel was on a call with the door half open. Ann stood, packet in one hand, her copy in the other, and waited until he finished.

He looked at the papers, then at her face. “That is not what I marked.”

“I know.”

“Then why is it in your hand?”

Ann set the two pages on his desk. “Because the vendor from the site visit is not billing under the same company that signed. The money is leaving, the work is late and someone inside here approved both.”

Mikel read without rushing. A new stillness settled over him…not irritation, but attention stripped of warmth. “Who else has seen this?”

“No one.”

“Good.” He closed the pages. “You will not mention it on the forty second floor. You will not print another copy and you will not ask finance a clever question that makes you look awake.”

Ann held her ground. “If I take this to Rhea first, she will tell me to drop it.”

“She should.”

“And you?”

Mikel’s eyes lifted. “I am telling you the same thing until I know who approved the second name. Curiosity is how people get removed from buildings like this.”

“I already found it.”

“Then you have done enough.”

It should have felt like being protected instead it felt like being shut. Ann went back to her side of the desk and finished the marked pages because that was the contract. At nine he told her to go. She kept her handwritten sheet folded in the lining of her bag, because leaving the only proof on his desk felt like handing over her own eyes.

Thursday morning she took the problem to Rhea anyway. Rhea listened for twenty seconds and then put her pen down with force. “No.”

“It’s not a rounding error.” Ann said.

“I did not ask what it is. I said no. You do not go digging in vendor files like you have a title that can survive the dirt.”

“Mikel already has the pages.” Ann shot back. Rhea’s face changed. “You took it upstairs.”

“Yes.”

“Of course you did.” Rhea lowered her voice until it scraped. “Listen to me. There are messes in this company that eat interns for sport. You have a sick mother, a new contract, and a floor that already thinks you stay late for the wrong reason. Drop it.”

Ann stood there feeling tense.“If I drop it, it still exists.”

“Then let it exist somewhere that is not your desk.”

Ann went back to work, telling herself she had done what she could. At lunch, her drawer stuck. She blamed the cheap wood and pulled harder then she noticed hanging files had been shifted. The spare clips she kept in the left corner were now in the right. The printed Hartwell notes had been moved out of order.

Ann sat without moving for a while. People lost things here all the time, they also pretended they had not touched what was not theirs.

Evan paused at the corner of her desk with a cup in his hand. “Looking for something?”

“No.”

“You lost your composure. That usually means yes.” He smiled, easy, useless. “If the extra hours thing has you drowning, I can take a packet off you. People saw the contract language go through admin. You’re official now, congrats.”

Ann shut the drawer. “I don’t need help.”

“Sure.” Evan glanced at the executive elevator like it was a private joke. “Just saying, the official still looks like a target if the wrong file goes missing.” afterwards he walked off.

Ann opened her bag, the handwritten sheet was still there, she hated how much safer it made her feel.

The afternoon crawled. Mikel had not yet sent for her, Rhea kept her on copy and calls and a run to records that felt like being sent out of the way. At five thirty the floor became empty. Ann waited until Rhea took a call, then went up.

Mikel’s assistant was packing her bag. “He’s in, you can go through.”

He was at the desk with the vendor packet open, the two pages Ann had given him on top. “I told you to leave it,” he said, without looking up.

“Someone was at my desk.”

Now he looked up while Ann stayed standing. “The files weren’t stolen, they were moved and looked through, and Evan made sure I knew he’d noticed me noticing.”

Mikel was quiet long enough for the city to blink behind him. “Did you leave anything in that drawer?” Ann answered the first two questions with a firm “No.” When he asked, “On the shared drive?” she replied, “No.” Mikel looked at her and said, “Then go home.” Ann frowned. “That is not an answer.”

Mikel stood. The movement was deliberate but still sudden. “It is the only answer you get tonight. If someone on this floor is touching your desk, I will handle it. You will not play detective between copy jobs.”

Ann felt the anger rise and held it in her mouth until it came out usable. “You used the word official yesterday so the building would stop writing its own story. Today you want me blind inside the story.”

“I want you employed.”

“Then look at my desk in the morning.”

A change crossed his face. “I will,” he said. “Now leave before the night staff starts counting how long you stand in here.”

Ann left. She told herself she would come in early and put the drawer back the way she liked it, as if order could prove she had not imagined the hands.

Friday she came in at seven twenty. The desk looked ordinary, that was the first wrong thing, it was too neat. The hanging files sat in a straight line she never made. The Hartwell notes were gone from the front and back again in the middle.

Ann opened the bottom drawer. The paper copies she had slipped behind the extra pens, the ones she had printed before he told her not to print another copy, were not there.

Ann shut the drawer with care. Rhea arrived at seven forty and stopped when she saw Ann’s face. “What.”

Ann kept her voice flat. “The vendor pages are gone.”

Rhea closed her eyes. “I told you.”

“I told him first.”

Rhea set her bag down slowly. “Then you listen to me now. You do not accuse anyone, you do not ask Evan a question, you do not look like a girl who lost a secret. You go upstairs and you say only what you can prove.”

Mikel was already there, wearing his jacket with the calendar open in front of him. The vendor packet stayed on the side of his desk, smaller than she remembered. He looked up when she entered, and from the way his expression changed, she knew he understood before she said a word.“Say it.”

“The copies from my desk are gone,” Ann said. “So is the order I left them in. Someone inside this building knows I saw that file and they did not wait for you to handle it.”

Mikel stared at her for a long moment then he picked up the phone. “Rhea,” he said. “Cole sits outside my office temporarily starting Monday until I say otherwise.”

Ann did not move. “That will make the talking worse.”

“Yes,” Mikel said. “It will also make it harder to put a hand in your drawer without going through mine.”

He looked at the empty place on his desk where certainty should have been. “Go downstairs and pack what you need. Do not look for the pages, they are not going to be where you left them.”

As soon as Ann turned to the door Mikel called her. His voice was stripped, almost tired. “You were right,” he said. “The file should not exist. Which means someone needed it not to.”