LOVE Me BEFORE DAWN

The Key Marked 317

Episode 7

Adrian said nothing for so long that Elena thought he might walk back into the ballroom and leave her there.

"Her name was Nadia Brooks," he said at last.

Elena waited.

"She was a financial journalist. Six years ago, she contacted me and said the story about your father didn't add up." He stared at the city lights beyond the terrace. "I refused to speak to her. My father had just died, and I thought she was trying to profit from our grief."

"And then?"

"Then she stopped. Her articles disappeared, and so did she. I never asked why." His jaw tightened. "I've wondered about it every day since Daniel found that record."

It wasn't the whole truth. She could tell from the way he kept his hands in his pockets. But it was the first time she had seen him admit regret.

"Thank you," she said.

"Don't. It's nothing to be thanked for."

He escorted her back inside, and they finished the evening smiling for cameras. In the car afterward, neither of them spoke until the driver turned onto her street.

"What are your plans tomorrow?" Adrian asked.

"Working for you, Mr. Vale."

"Elena."

She sighed. "I'm going to find what my father's key opens."

"Then I'm coming with you."

"No, you aren't."

"Someone threatened your mother. Someone has been watching you. Richard practically warned you at the gala."

"And you've been asking me to trust you for a week while keeping secrets of your own." She faced him. "I signed your contract, but I didn't sign away my independence. This is my father's key. I'll find the lock."

For a moment, his expression hardened. Then, to her surprise, he exhaled slowly.

"What if I only drive?"

"Drive?"

"You lead. You decide where we go and what we open. I stay in the car if you ask me to." His gaze held hers. "You said I couldn't interfere with your investigation. I'm not interfering. I'm asking to be useful."

She studied him, looking for the trap.

There wasn't one.

"Nine o'clock," she said.

---

The key had a tiny set of letters stamped near the loop: HSS.

It took Elena two nights of searching to realise it stood for Harbor Street Storage, a small facility on the edge of the old shipping district. Adrian drove her there without comment, parking beneath a flickering light beside a row of faded orange doors.

The manager, a heavyset man with a newspaper folded under his arm, barely looked up.

"Unit 317? Rented under Carter. Paid in advance for fifteen years." He shrugged. "Nobody's touched it since the first month. You family?"

"His daughter."

He slid a logbook toward her. She signed her name beneath her father's faded handwriting, and her fingers shook for a moment.

The unit was at the end of a narrow corridor. The padlock opened on the first try.

Inside, the air smelled of dust and cold metal. There was nothing in the room except a wooden shelf and a single grey box, sealed with tape that had yellowed with age.

Elena lifted it down carefully and set it on the concrete floor.

"Do you want me to wait outside?" Adrian asked.

"No. Stay."

She peeled back the tape.

The first thing she found was a stack of financial records, bound with rubber bands that crumbled at her touch. Pages of figures, ledgers, transfer summaries. Under them lay a photograph, curled at the corners, showing three men at a long table. She recognised her father at once.

Under the photograph was a sealed envelope. On the front, in her father's handwriting, were five words.

For Elena, when she's ready.

Her throat closed.

"He knew," she whispered. "He knew I'd come."

Adrian crouched beside her but didn't touch the envelope. "Elena, are you certain you want to open this here?"

"I don't know."

A metallic clang echoed from the corridor.

Adrian went still.

"Did you hear that?"

Elena nodded. She slid the envelope into her coat and started to rise.

The door slammed open.

A man in a dark jacket stood there, his face hidden by a cap. He didn't say a word. He lunged for the box.

Elena grabbed one side of it. He yanked the other. Papers scattered across the floor.

"Let go!" she shouted.

Adrian struck him hard from behind, and the man staggered into the shelf. A fist caught Adrian across the cheek, and he fell back against the wall. The man seized the box, but Elena threw herself at his arm and clung on. His elbow caught her ribs, and she cried out.

"Elena!"

Adrian was already moving. He drove his shoulder into the man's chest and slammed him into the door frame. The box slipped from the man's grip and hit the floor, spilling its contents across the concrete.

The stranger glared at them. For one heartbeat, Elena saw only his eyes, cold and calculating. Then he turned and ran. His footsteps vanished down the corridor, and a car engine roared outside.

The silence afterward felt louder than the fight.

"Are you hurt?" Adrian asked, breathing hard. There was a cut on his lip, and his sleeve was torn.

"I'm fine." She wasn't, entirely. "You?"

"I've had worse board meetings."

She laughed, shakily, then pressed her hand against her ribs. "He wasn't a thief. He came for this box."

"Someone knew we were coming."

"Or someone has been waiting fifteen years for me to come."

She knelt to gather the papers. Most were routine financial pages, dull and meaningless. But near the bottom of the pile lay a single document, stamped CONFIDENTIAL. It was a transfer authorisation covering an enormous sum, and below it were two signatures.

One belonged to her father.

The other made her stop breathing.

Elena looked up slowly.

"Adrian," she said. "Whose signature is this?"

He took the page from her. His face drained of colour as he read the name beneath the date.

Alexander Vale.

His father.

"That's impossible," Adrian said hoarsely.

But the ink was clear, and so was the date.

Elena stared at him as the truth settled between them like a stone. The scandal that had destroyed her father's name hadn't come only from outside the Vale family.

Someone inside it had been involved.

TO BE CONTINUED...