LOVE Me BEFORE DAWN

The First Real Betrayal

Episode 14

The footsteps in the corridor stopped at the study door.

Elena spun around with her father's note clutched to her chest. Adrian stood in the doorway in a rumpled shirt, one hand braced against the frame.

"I heard the safe," he said. "I couldn't sleep either."

Her shoulders dropped. "You scared me."

"I'm sorry." He glanced at the open box, then at her face. "What's wrong?"

She held out the note. He read it standing under the lamp, and she watched the words land. When he reached the line about Richard, his eyes closed briefly.

"He was afraid of my uncle for years," Adrian said quietly. "And I sat at the man's table every Christmas."

"You didn't know."

"I should have." He handed it back with great care. "Elena, I need to ask you something, and I want you to hear all of it before you answer."

She braced herself. "Go on."

"Don't confront Richard. Not yet." He raised a hand before she could speak. "I'm not giving an order. Your conditions are still the conditions. I'm asking. If you accuse him now, he'll burn whatever is left. Daniel needs time to trace Martin Hale and the money behind Project Lantern. Give us two weeks."

"Two weeks of smiling at him across a boardroom."

"Two weeks of staying alive while we build something he can't talk his way out of."

She looked at the note in her hands. *Be braver than I was.* Waiting felt like the opposite of brave. But a man with a smile had destroyed her father by being quicker than the truth.

"Two weeks," she said. "Not a day more. And you tell me everything Daniel finds. Everything."

"Everything," Adrian said. "You have my word."

She believed him. That was what made the next part so hard.

---

On Wednesday afternoon, Elena found Julian Park in the small conference room, surrounded by paper.

"Perfect timing," he said. "Come and see. These match the transfer summaries perfectly. Whoever falsified this knew exactly how an auditor would check it."

She stepped closer. The pages were yellowed and soft at the edges, bound with the same crumbling rubber bands she had cut off in unit 317.

"Where did you get these?"

"Adrian had Daniel bring them over on Tuesday." Julian glanced up and frowned at her expression. "Was that not...? He said you'd approved."

"No," Elena said. "He didn't mention it."

Julian's smile slipped. "I'm sorry. I assumed."

"It's not your fault."

She left the room, went straight to the parking garage, and drove to Adrian's house with her hands tight on the wheel.

The box sat in the safe where it belonged. She entered the code with shaking fingers and lifted the lid.

The photograph was there. The unsigned note was there. So was the transfer authorisation with her father's signature and Alexander Vale's beneath it.

The ledgers were gone. A shallow, empty space lay where the stack had been.

---

Adrian found her in the study at seven, still in her coat.

"Elena. Daniel said you left the office early."

"Where are my father's ledgers?"

The color left his face, though his voice stayed steady. "With Park. I was going to tell you."

"When?"

"Tonight. After the first review was done."

"The first review." She laughed, and it sounded awful. "You went into the safe, the one only we can open, and you took my father's things while I was sleeping down the hall."

"I took copies to the forensic team. The originals..."

"Are gone from the box. I looked."

He stopped. "The originals are in Daniel's vault. Chain of custody."

"Don't use that word." Her voice cracked. "You promised me everything. Three days ago, standing in this room, you promised."

"I know what I said."

"Then why?"

"Because if those pages stay in your hands, they become evidence tampered with by Thomas Carter's daughter." He took a step toward her, urgent now. "Richard's lawyers would say you altered them, that you planted a document to clear your father. If the forensic work starts with Daniel's team, your name isn't anywhere on it. I did it to protect you."

"You decided what I could handle."

"I decided what I could shield you from."

"That's the same thing!" She was shaking. "Don't you see it? My father hid things to protect us, and it killed him. Your family hid things to protect the name, and it cost them everything. Now you're hiding things to protect me." Her voice broke. "That's how this stayed buried for years, Adrian. A whole chain of people deciding someone else couldn't bear the truth."

He flinched, as if she had struck him.

"That isn't fair."

"Isn't it?"

"I asked for your trust and I broke it," he said hoarsely. "Tell me how to fix it."

"Give me everything. Daniel's notes, his reports, every file he's built. I want to read it myself."

For a long moment he didn't move. Then he crossed to the desk, unlocked the bottom drawer, and drew out a thick black folder.

"It's all here."

She took it. It was heavier than she expected.

"I'm going to read this tonight," she said. "Alone."

"Elena..."

"Please don't."

He let her go.

---

She read in the guest suite with the lamp turned low, cross-legged on the bed. The early pages were what she expected: transaction summaries, access logs, the date Daniel had found the record of her father's meeting with Richard. Her anger softened slightly as she turned them. Adrian had kept careful notes. Some of them were even kind.

Then she reached the back of the folder.

A single page lay beneath the rest, stapled to a cream-colored engagement letter. The letterhead read *Mercer Investigations.* It was addressed to Adrian, signed by Daniel, and the subject line was typed in plain capitals.

*RE: CARTER, THOMAS — SCOPE OF REVIEW AND ANY SURVIVING FAMILY.*

Elena's eyes dropped to the date at the top.

It was seven weeks before the morning she had spilled coffee on him.

She read the first paragraph twice. It described a confidential review of Thomas Carter's dismissal, to be carried out discreetly, with particular attention to *the whereabouts and circumstances of his widow and daughter.*

The paper shook in her hands.

Adrian had told her he began investigating after the board dinner. He had looked her in the eye and said he'd found the record only days ago. He had hired her, argued with her, and signed a contract with her.

And all that time, he had already known exactly who she was.

TO BE CONTINUED...

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