Love and Wealth

The secret

I was sitting at my desk with my computer in front of me as an email just entered and showed up on my screen. My heart beat immediately and I was so anxious of what the message could entail and I started reading the contents.

This should not be here, I thought; this is a file—I shouldn't see it. I was not supposed to see something like this and was never meant to find it, but there it was, flashing across my screen like a bomb waiting to go off.

It had Nathaniel's name coupled with deposits that were made into some offshore accounts.

There was nothing first, then a closer look showed an image sharply in focus.

Names of recipients—not just a few run-of-the-mill business relations, but they were involved with some kind of nefarious organization, gunrunning. My stomach twisted as it suddenly hit me. Nathaniel Sterling was being blackmailed.

They were no longer his mere opponents; they were now his masters who did everything possible to keep him under their feet.

It was a small, quiet room all of a sudden. I managed to close the file, my hands shaking, and deleted the email. My head did one spin, but that needed masking for the time until I had thought about what to do.

The truth had been Nathaniel's all along—a truth that would ruin him and that I held in my hands now.

Do I confront him? Do I just act like I never saw anything?

I made myself breathe, to stay calm. Not easy when you knew your boss was tangled in something as dangerous as this. If this gets out.

"Peace."

But I jumped as his voice sounded, and he stood in the doorway to his office watching me with the same unreadable expression always carried on his face. Had he noticed my reaction? Had he figured out what I had seen?

"Yes, sir?" I called, working hard not to let my voice go unsteady.

"I need you to schedule a meeting with the CFO and review again those quarterly reports for any discrepancies. I want them on my desk by tomorrow morning."

"Yes, sir," I said gratefully, at the opportunity to do something-anything. "I'll get right on it."

My boss looked at me for a short time and then turned, walking into his office as he closed the door behind him.

As soon as he left, I breathed in and out and touched my chest.

I needed to keep cool. I couldn't let him find out that finally, I had found something huge. Nathaniel was not the type of man who impressed me to be the type tolerating loose ends, least of all from someone working as closely with him as I was.

But by now I knew too much—had stumbled upon something that could bring his empire crashing down and might cost people their lives. Mine included.

---

It was finally reeling home into my head. Even as the door opened, it was already heavy with my grandmother's cooking fumes. She stood at the stove stirring something in a pot, crooning to herself.

"How was work, dear?" she said, beaming down at me as she turned my way.

"It was fine," I said, lobbing my bag onto the table. "Just a really long day."

How was I going to tell her that? How could I ever have put that burden on her? What would I have said, anyway? "Listen, Grandma, my boss happens to be connected with some criminal organization, but don't you worry about it; I am going to keep quiet."

No, this was my problem now, and I had to take it into my hands.

"You look tired," Grandma said, her hands drying on a towel. "You sit down and eat something. Peace, you work so hard.

I just weakly smiled and sat down. "Thanks, Grandma. I'm just going to get something to eat."

But the thing was, I wasn't hungry. My stomach still tumbled in knots. I couldn't get the details of that file out of my head, running them over and over again in my mind. There was so much more to this story. Nathaniel just couldn't be in on something like this and not have a reason.

Can he? Why has he kept that to himself? Why hasn't he taken any step about this?" I muttered to myself.

But what if he wasn't the victim here? What if he was part of it? The thought ran cold in my blood.

That night, I couldn't eat a bit, and my mind kept on racing around the matter since it had weighed heavily on my heart.

I could only wish to be a detective to enable me to solve the issue at hand, yet I was just a girl picked from the trenches to work as the secretary to a billionaire.

As a matter of fact, that feeling-that day, there was always somebody watching me-followed into work the following day. Every email and all those glances in Nathaniel's direction pulled at my heart.

I was just about to submit the quarterly reports when Lucas came once again into my cubicle. His warmth-as it was-only served to relax me just a little, and that was about it.

"Hey, Peace," he said, leaning over onto the partition. "You look like you see a ghost. You alright?

I would blink, and try to resurface to the land of living. "Yeh, I am fine. Just.y'know, busy."

Lucas arched an eyebrow. "Busy or stressed? Because you certainly don't look like someone who gets ruffled so easily."

I chuckled. "Just first-week nerves, maybe. Trying to get into the swing of things."

He merely gazed at me for a protracted moment, as though he did not quite believe me, but then nodded again. "If you need anything, I'm around. Don't hesitate to ask."

"Thanks, Lucas. I appreciate that."

I was under a spell of guilt as he walked away. He seemed like a nice enough guy—a person one could trust. But there was nothing I could do by bringing him into this. Whoever I told might end up in as much danger as I was.

*I just need to keep my mouth shut. Cool.*

Deep down inside, however, I knew it was never going to be so simple.

I was hiding s

omething too big, too dangerous. Something would have to give sooner or later.