Loving My Husband's Murderer

2-The Impossible Assignment

Vincent's file on Adrian was nothing but lies. My husband never took any money from him. In fact, Adrian was never in debt, let alone to the extent of Vincent's claim of seven million dollars. But my eyes couldn't find themselves wavering from the signature of my husband. It looked exactly how Adrian used to sign his name. The same two dots under his signature and the same unmistakable curve of 'A'.

"You're telling me Adrian never took a single penny from Vincent?" Sebastian, Vincent's personal assistant and my childhood friend, asked me, making me look at him and shake my head.

"Adrian wasn't under any debt, Seb. And even if he wanted money, he could've asked it from my father. He could've taken a loan from the bank. Why would he even approach a filth like Vincent Black?"

I said, throwing the file on the couch and leaning back, gripping my hair in frustration.

"But I remember seeing your husband at Blackcrest, at least, thrice with my own eyes. Though I am not sure if he was there for money or not, Adrian and Vincent had a history together." Sebastian said, making me let out a sigh.

"It was for a land dispute." I spoke tiredly, closing my eyes.

"Land dispute?"

"Mhm. Adrian was thinking of building a mall. So he visited several sites to find a good location. And he even got one. But the broker cheated him. He took the advance payment from him, gave false satisfaction of arranging a good land, and then sold it to Vincent for a higher bid without informing Adrian. He started the construction without knowing how the broker had cheated him. And midway, Vincent asked him to clear the land. That was the reason why you saw Adrian at Vincent's office." I explained it to him, and Sebastian stared at me for a long minute before shaking his head.

"And you believe Vincent killed your husband for the land." It wasn't a question. Sebastian knew exactly what I was thinking of.

I let out a humorless laugh, shaking my head. The photo frame kept on my bed stand stared at me with blankness. Adrian was holding me on my back, my head was leaning on his shoulder, and both of us were wearing birthday hats. It was my birthday. Exactly twenty-two days before Vincent killed him, killed our happiness, and killed our perfectly happy home.

"I know Vincent killed him, Seb. I am not sure about the reason. But I know he killed my husband." I said, wiping the hot tears that suddenly filled my eyes. My voice trembled as I kept staring at our last happy picture together.

"You don't know what I saw in his cabin today. A man was kneeling in front of me. Badly bruised, beaten-up, terrified, and whatnot. And there was no remorse, no sympathy in his eyes. The man you call your boss, Seb, is a freaking monster. He is a sadistic person who takes pleasure in others' pain," I said, and Sebastian smiled at me.

"Oh, Delilah, I know what kind of man Vincent exactly is." He said softly, shaking his head. "I am his personal assistant, after all. What you saw today is an everyday routine for me. You just need to be strong, my dear."

I bit my lips, nodding my head.

"Seb, Vincent is a very smart man. You need to be extremely careful when meeting me. If he gets to know you are with me, he will kill you too," I said, holding his hand tightly, and Sebastian smiled at me, shaking my head.

"I have been working for him for the last six years, Lil. The one thing Vincent taught me himself was the art of deception. Don't worry about me." That being said, he gently squeezed my hand, making me feel relaxed for a second.

After all, betrayal comes from the people you least expect.

Sebastian was my first blow to Vincent's destruction.

_______________

The next day at the office wasn't something I expected. To begin with, I was provided a very posh-looking cabin. A huge table, three chairs, a bookshelf, and loads of files were piled up on the table. But it wasn't the files that troubled me. It wasn't the workload I knew was going to be dumped on me that was a problem, either.

It was the wall.

The wall that connected my cabin to another cabin was a glass wall.

And what annoyed me was the cabin on the other side of the wall.

It was Vincent's office.

I could easily see him working there. But what was troublesome in that moment wasn't me seeing him all day; it was him keeping an eye on me the entire time. Every time I looked up, I saw him staring at me. Assessing me. Trying to uncover my secrets.

I was deep in turmoil when my laptop pinged with a message. An email.

Assignment number: 1043

Addressed to: Delilah Sinclair, Loan Collection Department

Company Name: BlackThorne Ltd.

Debt Amount: 4 million USD

Debt Taken on: 15/05/2020

Expected recovery: 2 million USD

Expected time for recovery: A week

Past recoveries: None

My eyes widened as I stared at the screen of my laptop and then glared back at the man on the other side of the wall, already staring at me with a sadistic look in his eyes. He expected me to recover two million dollars in two weeks from a company that hadn't paid a single penny back in the past six years.

Knowing Vincent's ways of working, if a company hadn't been paying a single penny for the past six years, it was an impossible debt recovery. He deliberately assigned such a tough task to me in the first week of my joining.

But I am Delilah Sinclair. And I don't lose to the same enemy twice.

Never.

I quickly mailed the document Vincent had sent to my team and summoned a meeting. It wouldn't be a lie if I said that the case only had dead ends. The company was going bankrupt, and they had no way of repaying the loan.

An hour turned into two, and two turned into several. I was busy browsing about the company, finding any clue, any way of recovering such a huge amount, when I noticed someone staring at me.

Through the wall.

The moment I looked up, my brown eyes met a pair of cold and steely silver orbs. There was no emotion in his metallic eyes. Only coldness. Like an entire season of winter was trapped in his eyes.

I held his gaze for a minute, but when his stare didn't waver, I looked away. Not that staring at him made me feel anything; his cold gaze reminded me of the possible cruelty that he might have shown to my husband. My Adrian.

I resumed working, but somehow his gaze was still centered on me. His predatory gaze refused to look away from me, and his stare was making it nearly impossible for me to stay unfazed. It felt like somebody was stripping away the layers of deception I had built around me.

Finally, when his eyes got my patience, I pulled the drawer open, removed a stack of sticky notes and a black marker, and wrote on it hastily.

'Do you need anything?'

With that, I stuck the note on the glass wall so that he could read it too. After all, it was his idea to spy on me through the glass wall.

He wasn't expecting me to question him staring at me. After all, he was a man used to being feared by people, not questioned by them. And I was doing exactly what he was not used to.

When he raised his eyebrows in answer, I wrote another message on the sticky note and stuck it on the wall again.

'Then quit staring at me. It's irritating.'

His lips curled up in a sarcastic smile when he read the message and looked back to his laptop, working again as if he wasn't staring at me a moment ago. Rolling my eyes, I got back to my work too, only for a message to ping on my laptop again.

To: Delilah Sinclair

Subject: Sticky Notes

Miss Sinclair,

Please let me reassure you that I neither have the time or the intention of admiring my employees through the walls. I was noticing your lack of diligence towards the work. Kindly start working on the collection assignment. I expect results and not sticky notes on my wall. Get rid of them. Now.

Vincent Black

Blackcrest International

My eyes narrowed at the email. When I looked up again, he was no longer staring at me, instead he was speaking to someone through his laptop, making it look like an online meeting. Removing my gaze from him, I focused back on the task at hand.

And that's when I noticed something bizarre in the file. And suddenly the pieces began falling into place.

What I found wasn't just suspicious, it was a well-built weave of lies.