CHAPTER 4: Reason #4
1797 Words
Nobody in the garage said a word.
The television kept reporting on the murder, the anchor’s voice flat and clinical, but every single person in that garage had frozen. Wrenches sat abandoned on workbenches. Half finished engines sat exposed, forgotten. Even the easy laughter from a few minutes earlier had vanished completely, swallowed up by whatever was happening on that screen.
I looked away from the television and over at Morrette. His jaw had gone tight, a muscle ticking there like he was grinding down words he refused to say.
Marcus Hale, one of the mechanics, reached over and lowered the volume before walking toward him. “Boss.”
Morrette lifted his eyes to him. Marcus did not say anything else. He only gave a small nod, barely more than a tilt of his head. Somehow, that was enough. Something passed between them that I was clearly not supposed to understand.
Morrette wiped the grease from his hands with an old towel, movements slow and deliberate, and then turned to face me. “I will have someone drive you home.”
I frowned first. “What?” He continues, “I have something to do.” Those words astir up frustration and irritation within me. “Because of the news?” I asked him
“No,” He answered too fast, and I caught it immediately. “You just admitted it,” I said. “I admitted nothing,” he replied back. I crossed my arms. “You all reacted the same way. Every single one of you.”
“You are imagining things,” he answered, but I knew that they must all be hiding something from me. “There it is,” I said, tilting my head. “Now you are lying.”
For the first time since I had met him, something flickered across his face that actually looked like surprise. “You noticed?” he asked. “I notice everything,” I said, holding his gaze steady.
His eyes stayed locked on mine for a few long seconds, long enough that my pulse picked up in a way I did not want to admit. Then he sighed, and something in his expression softened just slightly. “I believe that.”
I left the garage more confused than when I had walked in. The whole drive back to Star Global, my mind refused to settle down. It kept circling the same details over and over. The claw marks I had seen. The dead silence that had fallen over that garage like a held breath. Marcus calling him Boss, like Morrette commanded something far bigger than a row of motorcycles and toolboxes.
Who exactly was he? A mechanic? Or something else entirely, something hiding just beneath the surface I had only begun to scratch?
The questions would not leave me alone. By the time I reached the office, Clara was already waiting near the elevator, tablet in hand. “Miss Star, the board members are waiting.”
I nodded, pushing the questions down where they belonged for now. “Let us go.” Business first. Questions later. That had always been my rule, and breaking it never ended well.
The afternoon meeting was supposed to be simple. Approve next month’s advertising budget. Review the expansion plans. Sign a stack of contracts and move on with my day.
Instead, the conference room erupted into chaos before I had even taken my seat.
“Our stock has dropped three percent since this morning.”
“Why?”
“A media article.”
The screen at the front of the room flickered, and a headline filled the space, bold and ugly. WORLD’S TOP MODEL SECRETLY DATING MYSTERIOUS BIKER?
Underneath it, a handful of blurry photographs appeared. One showed me standing beside Morrette outside the garage. Another caught us mid conversation near his damaged motorcycle, close enough that our shoulders were nearly touching.
My stomach dropped. Someone had been watching us. The directors immediately started talking over each other, voices climbing on top of one another.
“This could affect Aurora’s decision.”
“Who leaked these photos?”
“Should we deny everything?”
I stayed quiet, my hands folded in my lap, my face carefully still. Inside, my heart was slamming against my ribs, but not because of the headline itself. Because those pictures should not have existed at all.
No reporters had been anywhere near that garage. I would have noticed. So who took them? And why did the thought of someone watching Morrette send a colder chill through me than the thought of someone watching me?
I closed the file in front of me slowly. “Find the source.” The room suddenly fell silent. “I do not care how much it costs,” I said, my voice flat and even. “I want to know who took those pictures.” Every director nodded in unison. The meeting ended within minutes.
That evening, I visited Dr. Amelia Brooks. Her office always felt like stepping into a different world, quiet, simple, comfortable in a way my own life rarely was. She smiled as I sat down across from her. “You look tired,” she said.
“I have been busy,” Dr. Amelia replied. “You always say that,” I told her, but to me, it was a lie only I am aware of. She waited, patient as always, giving me room to fill the silence on my own terms. Eventually, I did. “I met someone,” I admitted.
Her eyebrow lifted. “A man?” I nodded my head. “Unfortunately.” She laughed softly. “Tell me about him.”
“He is annoying,” I said, and even I could hear how unconvincing that sounded. “Anything else?” she asks again. “He argues with me, he is not impressed by me.” The words tasted strange coming out of my mouth, almost embarrassing.
She smiled again, gentler this time. “You sound frustrated.”
“I am,” I instantly replied. “Because he does not like you?” she said, trying to comprehend my story in details. “No,” I answered again. “Because you do not understand him,” she said.
I looked away, out the window, unwilling to answer that one directly. Maybe she was right. And maybe that possibility bothered me far more than I wanted to admit, even to myself.
Before I left, she handed me another prescription, her expression turning serious. “You have been relying on your medication more than usual.”
“Melissa.” Her voice softened, but there was a warning underneath it. “Pills can quiet fear. They cannot heal it.” I took the prescription without answering, folding it into my pocket like I could fold away the truth in it too.
Night had already fallen by the time I got home. The city lights stretched out beyond my apartment windows in every direction, usually one of my favorite views in the world.
Tonight, I could not stop thinking about those photographs. Someone had followed me. Someone knew exactly where Morrette worked, and how close I had gotten to him in just a matter of days.
I opened my notebook, the one I never let anyone see, and turned to a fresh page. *Reason Number Four: You bring trouble wherever you go.*
I stared at that sentence for almost a full minute before I finally whispered out loud, to no one, “Or maybe I brought the trouble.”
My phone buzzed against the table, sharp and sudden in the silence. Unknown Number. I hesitated before answering. “Hello?”
There was no reply first. Only breathing on the other end. Slow. Steady. Deliberate. Then a man’s voice, low and unfamiliar, slid through the line. “Miss Star. You have started asking questions.”
Every muscle in my body locked up at once. “Who is this?” I asked. “You should stop looking into people that do not concern you,” he said, and that very much sounded like a threat.
The call disconnected before I could say another word. I called back immediately, my fingers shaking against the screen. The number no longer existed, like it had never been real at all.
My hands trembled. I reached for my medicine, stopped myself halfway, then reached for it again anyway.
After swallowing the pill, I forced myself to breathe. One. Two. Three. Slowly, the panic loosened its grip on my chest. But the fear stayed right where it was.
The next morning, I arrived at Blackwood Holdings earlier than usual, exhaustion pressing behind my eyes.
Lucien greeted me with his familiar easy smile. “You do not look like you slept.” I looked at the Chairman, before agreeing with him for once. “I did not.”
“What happened?” he asked. Without a word, I handed him my phone, the article and the anonymous message both still open on the screen. He read through it in silence, and I watched his smile fade completely, replaced by something far more serious.
For the first time since I had known him, I saw real concern in his eyes. “This is not a coincidence,” he said quietly. He stood and walked toward the window, hands clasped behind his back. “I will have my people investigate.”
“You have people for that?” I asked, surprised. “I have lived a long time in this business world.” He turned back toward me, something heavy settling behind his gaze. “There are enemies you can defeat with money. And there are enemies who do not care how much money you have.”
Before I could respond, his office door burst open without warning. A young assistant rushed in, completely out of breath, papers clutched to his chest. “Chairman!” Lucien’s brow furrowed. “What is it?”
“The warehouse where yesterday’s murder happened,” the assistant gasped, struggling to catch his breath. “It caught fire less than an hour ago.”
My stomach dropped. “Every piece of evidence,” he continued, voice shaking, “has been destroyed.” The room fell Into complete silence.
I slowly turned to look at Lucien, waiting for him to say something, anything. But he was not looking at the assistant anymore. He was looking at me, like he already understood something I had not caught up to yet. Like he already knew, with total certainty, that fire had not been meant to erase the truth at all.
It had been meant as a warning, sent straight to whoever went looking for it next, and right now, that person was me.
- Writer
