Love In Crimson

Chapter 13- Discovery (2)

The next day came like every other day. Ace was preparing for work. On the other hand, Natalia was silently calculating her plan- Entering Ace's study.

Natalia stood barefoot outside her bedroom door , listening carefully to the distant sound of a car engine fading beyond the gates confirming that Ace had left the house.

Natalia wanted to be sure that he's even out of the estate, so she counted.Five minutes, ten, fifteen, and at twenty, she finally moved.

The marble floor was cold beneath her feet as she walked the passages of the house. The oversized shirt and pants she wore brushed against her thighs, and every tiny sound made her heart trip painfully against her ribs.

This was insane. If Ace caught her inside his study….no, he can't. Natalia made sure to lock the main entrance door. If at all he decides to come back before evening, which has never happened,she will know.

She refused to finish the thought. The library had already changed everything for her. She still remembered the exact moment her stomach dropped when she found some old files of the Orchid Group. Her uncle’s company. Except the legal documents she found hadn’t carried her uncle’s name. They carried her father’s. Her dead father.

The memory still made her chest tighten. Because it made no sense. Her uncle had spent years claiming Orchid Group belonged to him ever since she could remember. He controlled everything from the properties, the accounts down to the business shares.

Natalia had never questioned it. She was literally still a toddler when she lost her parents. She never had the opportunity to talk with her parents or grandparents,talk less of asking them questions as an adult, but now?, she couldn’t stop asking herself.

Why was her father’s name connected to the company? Could her father and his brother be business partners? Why did Ace have those documents hidden away? And more importantly, Why had Ace agreed to marry her?, or better still, why did Ace and her uncle reach a conclusion about marriage.

The study doors stood at the end of the corridor. Large black oak doors. One thing had always confused Natalia, Ace always left his study open. That somehow made them more intimidating.

Natalia paused outside them anyway. The scent of Ace’s dark cologne and his early morning coffee scent still lingered there when she stepped inside slowly.

Her eyes swept across the walls lined with racks. The desk sat near the center of the room, immaculate except for a laptop, several stacked documents, and a crystal glass half-filled with coffee.

One thing that Natalia noticed about Ace is that he left things too organized. That alone made snooping prove difficult for Natalia before she even started.

He likes things to be the way he arranged them, if she mis-arranges anything, there's a high chance that Ace will find out. But Natalia was still willing to go on with her plan anyway.

Natalia shut the doors carefully behind her, not fully, just enough to leave a narrow gap and crossed toward the desk. Every nerve in her body screamed at her to leave.

But curiosity was a cruel thing especially when mixed with fear and uncertainty of the man who just showed up from somewhere and married her.

She started with the obvious drawers first. There were contracts documents, reports, financial statements……Nothing useful to what she has in mind.

She moved to the shelves next, scanning folder titles quickly while trying not to panic at every creak of the mansion around her.

Halfway through the third shelf, something caught her attention.

A tiny blinking red light. Her brows furrowed. It was tucked carefully behind a row of black hardcover books. Natalia slowly pulled the books aside which revealed a keypad.

It was built directly into the wall. Her breath caught. “What the hell…”. She stared at it for several seconds before pressing lightly against the surrounding paneling. Nothing moved.

A hidden safe? Of course Ace had hidden safes. Natalia now realized why Ace is carefree with his study.

The realization should not have surprised her, but it still sent unease curling through her stomach. She glanced over her shoulder instinctively, suddenly feeling watched despite knowing she was alone.

Her fingers hovered over the keypad. She wanted to at least try something but what could she do. The first thing that came to her head was Ace's birth year but she didn't even know it! “Oh good heavens”, Natalia sighed, hitting her forehead with her palm. If only her phone had not spoilt, an information like that can be accessed through the internet.

With the rage of the curiosity in her, Natalia now focused on the keypad, imputing different numbers. She tried modifying the house lock password but it didn't work.

“f**k”, Natalia became pissed. She didn't think she'll find anything useful in the shelves and racks except for this locked safe.

Natalia kept on trying. The keypad emitted a sharper beep this time, and Natalia immediately withdrew her hand. She wasn't definitely going to risk a lockout, right.

She stepped back from the shelf slowly, exhaling through her nose. She decided to look through other things. She continued searching.

The desk yielded results this time. Natalia found a brown folder buried beneath a stack of investment reports. There was no title on the cover like every other folder she has seen in the library and the study, which immediately made it suspicious.

She opened it carefully. Photographs slid out first. Natalia immediately had a trauma reflex. A photo had earned her a workplace in the library.

Going through the photos, Natalia's fingers froze. The first picture showed her uncle shaking hands with a man she vaguely recognized from television, a politician involved in financial scandals years ago.

The second photograph confused her. It showed a warehouse, workers, police tape and printed across the back in black ink were three words- Orchid’s manipulation

Natalia frowned. Orchid's manipulation, what could it mean in relation to this photo.

She flipped through the remaining photos faster now.

She saw another photo, a warehouse exterior. The ware house belonged to Ace because it had a name like every other warehouse, Da Silva’s.

Natalia was now at a more confusing point. Amidst photos relating to her uncle, how does the Da Silva warehouse come into the picture. What is the relation? That, she doesn't know.

Then she brushed through other photos. There were workers wearing masks, damaged barrels and someone being loaded into an ambulance.

Her pulse started climbing.What was this? She opened the documents beneath the photographs. The first page was covered in legal terminology she barely understood, but certain phrases jumped out immediately.

Environmental violations, suppressed reports, compensation settlements, falsified safety inspections….

It now seemed as though coals were being arranged on her head because she didn't understand a damn thing. She came into his study to find answers relating to what she saw in the library,not to be confused.

But one thing stood out for Natalia, and it's the fact that Ace had already been involved with Orchid Group before the forced wedding.

Cold realization crawled slowly down her spine. This marriage had nothing to do with family alliances. It might be business between her uncle and Ace ,but not the regular type of business.

It was something ugly, hidden and dangerous. The thought of being caught in the middle of a chaos she didn't sign up for made her stomach twist violently.

A car horn honked somewhere outside the mansion. Natalia nearly dropped the folder. Her head snapped toward the doors and her breathing became shallow.

Did Ace come back. It's not a high possibly but it's still a possibility. Or maybe not. Natalia stood still to hear if a car will drive into the compound. After what felt like a minute,she heard no gate nor car sound.

God, she was still paranoid. Still, she hurriedly placed the photographs back into the folder and started arranging them just as she found them .Her hands shook slightly now. She needed to leave immediately and at least start her work for the day.

But then something else caught her eye. A single sheet partially tucked beneath the folder. Unlike the others, this one looked newer like it was recently printed.

Natalia pulled it free carefully. At the top of the page were the words “TARGETS” Below it sat a list of names that she never heard talk less of knowing the people that bears those names.

And near the bottom she saw her name written fully in block letters - Natalia Wayne. Her blood ran cold. There was a note beside her name. “Unaware of inheritance status.”

Inheritance?, what inheritance. This only confirmed Natalia's thesis, her marriage with Ace is more than it seems.

Suddenly, a loud beep rang out in the study. Natalia didn't know where exactly it was coming from but she knew it was sounding only from the library.

It sounded very loud like an egg incubator alarm. Natalia jerked upright instantly. Her heart stopped. “No….no……no…no”, she muttered under her heavy breathing silently.

She shoved the paper back beneath the folder and hurried to close the drawer, but panic made her clumsy. The folder caught awkwardly against the wood. “Come on,” she whispered frantically.

Who would have thought that Ace had something like an alarm system in his study. Damn that man, he lives alone!!

Natalia finally arranged everything neatly and stepped away from the desk. Fear exploded through her chest. Natalia moved before thinking.

She took one last glance at the overall look of the study in panic mode, trying to make sure she left everything just as it was.

She finally stepped out of the study and somehow,the beep sound stopped. “Phew that was a close one”, she said to herself. Her heart beat still thundered violently against her chest. She really hoped that whatever triggered that alarm, Ace didn't know about it. It's an in-house alarm, right?, she asked herself in a consoling manner.

If at all she's caught, she really doesn't have a logical explanation as to why she's in his study except for cleaning which earned her a punishment the last time. On deeper thoughts, she wondered if she stepped on something or did something that triggered that alarm but she couldn't find any. Or was it the repeated attempts while trying to open the safe, none of it made sense to Natalia.

Pushing those thoughts to the back of her head, she headed downstairs to get water. At least she achieved something, and that is knowing that her marriage to Ace is not as simple as it seems.

Natalia went to the sitting room and plopped herself on the sofa, drowning in her own thoughts. What a very pitiful life she has always lived.

Unbeknownst to her, her every action is being watched by Ace .

In a private building that looks like it was built separately inside the Da Silva Corps headquarters, Ace has been watching Natalia through a camera feed the whole time……