Chapter 11: CaseOpen
762 Words
My blood ran cold, like freezing.
“Marcus broke into the penthouse?” The security guard nodded too quickly. Alexander’s face went dark right away, pure fury.
“When?” he demanded.
“About forty minutes ago, sir,” Alexander muttered under his breath. Next to me, Damian’s expression went hard, like stone.
“Okay, but how the hell did he slip past security?”
“We’re still checking it.”
Yeah, that answer was not good enough. Alexander was already moving. “Take me there.”
The ride back toward Manhattan felt endless, seriously. Nobody talked, nobody had to because one question kept looping inside my head, over and over, again.
Why?
Why would Marcus risk literally everything to get into Alexander’s penthouse?. It didn’t fit, it didn’t click, unless… he wasn’t chasing money.
He was looking for information, yeah. The thought made me feel kind of uneasy. The penthouse looked normal when we arrived, almost too normal. No broken windows, no damaged doors either, nothing that would scream intrusion, not even a little bit, but Alexander’s security team was everywhere, all of them were searching, questioning, checking cameras, every angle covered.
Alexander didn’t waste time. He went straight for his private office. I followed, of course.
The moment he stepped inside, he stopped dead. My stomach tightened so fast it felt like a hook. “What is it?”
I asked, though my voice came out smaller than I meant. His gaze swept across the room, then drifted toward the open filing cabinet. The top drawer had been emptied. Documents were just scattered everywhere, as somebody got bored midway.
Alexander’s jaw clenched, “He was searching for something.”
Damian nodded grimly, like he already knew the ending.
“Looks that way.” I tried to act normal, but I slowly looked around the room, and then something caught my attention, not softly either.
A photograph, lying on the floor. I froze. It was old. A picture from Italy, my heart skipped a beat, then another before I could reach it. Alexander picked it up first. His eyes narrowed, sharp, then he turned it over. The back was blank, just an ordinary photograph, because if he had looked at the front….He would have seen me standing beside Leonardo Moretti five years ago.
A memory I desperately wished to keep underground. I took the photo right away, “I’ll throw this away.”
Alexander barely paid attention; his focus stayed on the office. In the mess that is Marcus. Still, my heart kept pounding, like it couldn’t slow down.
Because I suddenly realized that Marcus wasn’t actually hunting for financial papers. He was searching for something tied to Italy, and if that was correct, then this whole nightmare was only starting, not ending.
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Later that night, Alexander stood by himself on the balcony. The city lights showed up in the glass behind him. For a moment, he looked tired like a man carrying too much weight, not like CEO kind of thing, but like a betrayal kind of weight… and i was sorry for him.
I slid outside quietly, and he didn’t look back.
“I trusted him.”
Those words caught me off guard, I swear. Alexander stared at the skyline,
“I trusted him with everything.” Pain flashed in the sound of his voice. I realized then, this wasn’t just about being betrayed; it was grief because losing a friend hurts differently, somehow.
I moved next to him, and neither of us said a thing. The silence felt kind of strangely comfy, like it was something familiar. Until Alexander’s phone rang… out of nowhere. He didn’t even look surprised at first, but his expression shifted the second he answered, like his face forgot the old settings.
“What?”
There was a long pause. Then, another one, and it dragged. My stomach tightened. I could feel it, in real time, “What happened?” I asked once he finished the call.
His face had gone totally still, too still. Not calm, not normal. Just… dangerous, honestly.
“The police.”
“Police, about?”
Alexander looked right at me, and for some reason, the look in his eyes, it really terrified me.
“They’ve reopened Leonardo Moretti's case.”
For a moment, the world felt like it stopped moving because deep down I knew exactly what that meant. And somehow, I had this horrible feeling Marcus was counting on it.
[Author Notes]: Sorry for the shortest chapter of this book....Next will be longer. Ciao, Love u ;)
- Writer
