SECRET TRUTH

Chapter 3:Five Years Of Silence

POV: Ava Chen

I made Ethan's coffee the same way every morning for five years.

Two shots of espresso, one splash of oat milk, no sugar. Dark roast. Hot, never iced. Exactly 145 degrees Fahrenheit.

He never said thank you.

He never said anything, actually. Not after that first day when he gave me the task about Sophia and I ran to the hospital without finishing my first shift. I had thought for sure he would fire me. I thought I had destroyed everything before it even started.

But when I came back the next day, frightened and apologizing, he just looked at me over his desk and said, "Your mother?"

I nodded.

"Is she okay?"

I couldn't lie to him when he asked like that. Something about the way he looked at me made lying impossible. So I told him the truth. I told him she had cancer. I told him we didn't have money for treatment. I told him I was afraid of losing her.

He listened to all of it without saying a word. Then he said, "Do your job. Take care of your mother. And forget about the Sophia task."

That was it. He never mentioned it again.

But he started noticing me after that day.

Not in a loving way. Not in a way that meant anything. He just stopped pretending I was invisible. He would ask me questions about my life. He would remember small things I said. Once, I remarked that my mother loved gardening, and the next day he brought her a plant. He didn't make a big deal about it. He just gave it to me and said, "She might like this."

And I made a terrible mistake.

I fell in love with him.

Not the powerful Ethan Blackwell that everyone at the company feared. I fell in love with the broken man I saw when he thought nobody was watching. The man who stared out his window like he was sinking. The man who sometimes forgot to eat lunch because he was too busy worried about something. The man who had a scar on his shoulder blade that he never talked about but touched when he was stressed, like it was related to something painful.

Five years of watching him.

Five years of fixing his coffee and managing his life and listening to his problems without him ever asking me directly what was wrong with mine. Five years of being so close to him and so far away at the same time.

I was dying inside, and he had no idea.

The worst part was that I wasn't even angry at him. That's what made it so awful. He wasn't being mean. He was just being Ethan—distant, professional, stuck in his own head about Sophia and business and whatever ghost from his past kept him awake at night.

But everything changed the day Mom's doctor called.

I was at my desk, typing an email, when my phone buzzed. It was Dr. Morrison's office. They needed me to come in immediately. Mom's cancer had come back. The medicine wasn't working. We had six months, maybe less.

Six months.

I read the message three times, hoping I was misunderstanding something. But the words stayed the same. My mother was dying, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I don't remember walking into Ethan's office. I don't remember sitting down in the chair across from his desk. I just remember looking at him and feeling like the world was ending.

"Your mother?" he asked. He always knew. I don't know how, but he always knew.

I couldn't speak. I couldn't cry. I could only nod.

Ethan stood up and came around to my side of the desk. For a second, I thought he was going to touch me. I thought maybe, after five years, something was going to change between us. But he didn't touch me. He just stood there, close enough that I could feel his warmth, and he said the words that would change everything: "I can help you."

"How?" I whispered.

"There's a new treatment. Experimental. Not accepted yet, but available privately. It takes a lot of money, but it works. Or at least, it has a chance of working."

"How much money?"

"Enough that you can't pay it alone," he said. "But enough that I can pay it for you."

I looked up at him. "Why would you do that?"

He looked away. "Because I can't lose you too."

The words hung in the air between us like a confession. Like he had just said something he didn't mean to say. His face changed, and he turned away from me.

"There are conditions," he said softly.

"What conditions?"

"I'll pay for everything. All the treatment. All the doctor bills. All of it. But you have to stay. You have to keep working for me. You can't leave. Not for five years. You sign a deal, and you stay here no matter what."

I should have been thrilled. This was the answer to everything. This was saving my mother's life. This was a miracle.

But something about the way he said it felt wrong. Something about the urgency in his voice told me he wasn't doing this just for my mother.

"Ethan, why are you really doing this?" I asked.

He turned to face me, and his look was unreadable. "Because Sophia is planning something. Something big. And I need someone I trust watching my back. I need someone who won't hurt me. I need someone who has as much to lose as I do."

"What is she planning?"

"I don't know yet," he said. "But I will. And when I do, I need to know you're on my side."

Before I could answer, my phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number: Stop working for him. You don't know what you're getting into. - A friend I showed Ethan the message.

His face went pale, and he muttered something I barely heard: "She knows. Sophia already knows about you."

Then he looked at me with an intensity that frightened me: "Whatever you decide, Ava, know this—once you sign that contract, there's no going back. Sophia will make sure of it. She'll do everything in her power to destroy you."

My phone buzzed again. Another text from the same unknown number: I have proof about what Ethan did to his last helper. Do you want to know what really happened to her?