Chapter six
398 Words
Aria left the boardroom without another word. The elevator ride down felt longer than it should have — her reflection in the mirrored walls calm, but her pulse racing beneath the surface.
Thirty-two minutes erased.
Someone inside Chen Group had the power to rewrite time.
The doors slid open with a soft chime. The lobby buzzed with movement — employees talking, phones ringing, a courier passing by with a stack of files. Ordinary noise, hiding something dangerous beneath.
“Ms. Lin.”
She turned. Liam had followed her, his tie loosened, his expression unreadable. “You shouldn’t go alone,” he said.
Aria’s lips curved faintly. “You think I need protection now?”
“I think whoever sent that message knows more than we do. And they’re watching.”
He handed her a tablet — security access. “If you’re serious about finding who erased the footage, you’ll need this. It’s a backdoor to the archive logs.”
She took it without hesitation. “And what will you tell your people when they find out I’m inside your system?”
“That you work for me.” His tone was flat, but his eyes said something else — maybe guilt, maybe trust he hadn’t earned yet.
Aria stepped closer, close enough that her reflection merged with his on the glass wall beside them. “If you’re lying again, Liam, I won’t hesitate this time.”
“I know,” he said softly.
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Two hours later, Aria sat in her apartment, lights dim, the city humming beyond her window. Rain drummed on the balcony as she opened the tablet. Chen Group’s security system came to life — rows of footage, timestamps, and access codes.
She searched for the missing thirty-two minutes.
Found the gap.
And then something odd — a secondary access request, logged from an internal user ID.
Name: E. Voss.
Her heart stopped. Ethan.
He had been there. The night before the footage disappeared.
Aria leaned back slowly, her mind spinning. Had he erased the files to protect himself — or to hide something worse?
The tablet buzzed again. A new message popped up, this time not on her phone but directly through the Chen network.
Unknown: Stop digging, Aria. You’re chasing ghosts.
She stared at the screen, rainlight flickering across her face.
Then she typed back one word.
Aria: Good. Ghosts don’t scare me.
- Writer
