The CEO's Secret Assistant

Chapter Three

The Signature

I barely slept.

Every time I closed my eyes, the message was there again. Your father looked too. Look what happened to him.I'd read it enough times that I could probably recite it, and none of the repetition made it less frightening.

By morning I'd talked myself into not telling anyone. Then I walked through the doors of Blackwood International and realized how stupid that plan actually was.

I checked behind me in the elevator. In the lobby. Down the hallway to my desk. Nothing looked wrong just people rushing around with coffee, half asleep, talking about meetings, completely unaware I'd spent the night wondering if I'd been followed home.

I was reaching for my laptop when Damian stepped out of his office.

"You look tired."

"Good morning to you too."

He stopped at my desk. "Did you sleep?"

"A little."

He looked at me for a second too long. "That's a lie."

"You always this observant?"

"When someone works for me, yes."

I almost told him I wasn't really working for him that I was using the job to dig into my father, and he was using me to dig into the same company, and neither of us had said that part out loud yet. But the message on my phone felt more urgent than any of it.

"I got something last night," I said.

His expression shifted immediately. "What."

I showed him. He read it without a word, then handed the phone back.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I didn't know if I could trust you."

"You could've told me anyway."

"Why."

"Because whoever sent that knows about your investigation."

"They know about yours too."

His eyes didn't move off mine. "Exactly."

He tipped his head toward his office. "Inside."

I followed him in and shut the door. He picked up his phone.

"Ethan. My office. Now."

I went stiff without meaning to. He noticed.

"Relax."

"Trying."

"Don't accuse him of anything."

"Wasn't planning to."

"Good." He glanced at me. "I need to know what he knows before we decide what he doesn't."

Ethan Reed walked in twenty minutes later dark suit, leather folder, the unhurried expression of someone with no idea he was about to become a suspect.

"You wanted me?" To Damian. Then his eyes found mine. "Morning."

"Morning." I kept my voice flat.

He looked between us. "Should I be worried?"

Damian leaned back. "What do you know about Northstar Holdings?"

Nothing changed on Ethan's face, but the pause lasted just long enough.

"Why?"

"Answer it."

A sigh. "Yes."

I looked at Damian. He didn't look surprised.

"How are you connected to them?"

Ethan set his folder down. "Legal work. Years back."

"What kind."

"Corporate registration. Ownership documents. A few sealed records."

My stomach dropped. "Did you request access to Northstar's sealed records three days before Daniel Hart disappeared?"

His eyes cut to me, narrowing slightly. "How did you find that?"

"Not an answer."

Damian glanced at me but didn't stop me.

Ethan rubbed his jaw. "Yes. I requested them."

"Why."

"I was looking into Northstar."

"For Blackwood?"

"Yes."

"Then why didn't Damian know?"

Ethan looked at him now instead of me. "Because your father told me not to tell you."

The room went quiet in a way that had weight to it. Damian's face hardened.

"My father."

"He thought someone inside the company was leaking." Ethan pulled an old memo from the folder. "He asked me to look into Northstar quietly."

I reached for it. He held on a beat longer than necessary.

"Before you jump to conclusions, Amelia I wasn't working with Daniel against Blackwood."

"I didn't say you were."

"You were thinking it."

"Maybe."

He let go of the page. The memo was from Richard Blackwood. Short, but clear enough.

*Find out who controls Northstar. Do not involve Daniel Hart until we know who else is watching.*

I looked up at Damian. "Did you know about this?"

"No."

Ethan exhaled. "Because your father was already suspicious of Daniel."

"Suspicious of him how?"

"Not that he was stealing. He thought Daniel knew something."

I stared down at the memo. Four years I'd believed my father had gone through this completely alone. Now it turned out people inside the building had been circling the same thing the whole time.

"Why didn't you say anything after he disappeared?" I asked.

Something shifted in Ethan's expression. "Because by then, whoever we were looking into knew we were looking."

"That's not an answer."

"It is once you understand what came next." He looked at Damian. "Your father told me to destroy the records."

Damian stood. "Did you?"

"No."

"Then where are they?"

A pause, longer this time. "I don't know."

I watched his face. He wasn't lying, or at least I didn't think he was which was the whole problem with this investigation. Every answer just opened another one.

Damian walked to the window. "You told my father something had gone wrong. Two days before Daniel disappeared."

"Yes."

"What."

"Someone had accessed the original Northstar files."

"Who."

"I never found out."

Damian turned around. "And you never told me."

"You were barely holding the company together. Your father was dying. The board wanted him gone." Ethan's voice dropped. "If I'd told you someone inside the company was working against us, you'd have gone after them yourself."

"Maybe I should have."

"You were twenty five, Damian."

"You don't get to decide what I was ready for."

Ethan looked away first. Whatever this was between them years of it, longer than I'd known either man existed. I could see it fracturing in real time.

"There's something else." He pulled another paper from the folder. "This is why I didn't want you finding the Northstar files this way."

I took it. A transaction authorization. His signature at the bottom.

E. Reed.

My stomach dropped again. "You signed this."

"Yes."

"So you authorized the transfer."

"No."

"Your name is right there."

"I know." He pointed to the timestamp. "Look at the time."

2:17 a.m.

"I wasn't in the building that night."

"Then how's your signature on it?"

"Someone copied it."

Damian took the page from me. "Can you prove that?"

"Not anymore."

"Convenient."

Ethan looked genuinely stung. "You think I did this?"

"I don't know what I think."

That landed harder than an accusation would have. He gathered his things.

"Then find out before you decide." He left, closing the door behind him a little too carefully.

I looked at Damian. "Do you trust him?"

He didn't answer right away. "I've trusted him most of my life."

"That's not what I asked."

His jaw tightened. "No. Right now I don't know what I trust."

I understood that more than I wanted to say out loud.

We spent the next two hours cross referencing his documents against mine, and the more we found, the less any of it lined up. Ethan's name kept appearing next to people who supposedly had never touched Northstar. Some records had been generated years after the transactions they were meant to document. Timestamps that didn't match anything.

Someone had gone back through the old files and rewritten them badly, like they'd run out of time to make it convincing.

"Whoever did this wanted it to look like Ethan," I said.

Damian studied the screen. "Maybe."

"You don't buy that."

"I think someone wants us to believe it's Ethan."

"Why?"

"Because his name is everywhere."

"That's my point."

"That's what worries me." He pulled another file over. "If he actually did this, why leave a trail this obvious?"

"Unless he's careless."

"He's not."

"Unless he wanted it found."

"Then we're looking exactly where he wants us to."

I sat back. "This is exhausting."

"You can quit."

"No."

"Didn't think so."

I smiled despite myself. "You sound very sure of me."

"You're stubborn."

"You've said that already."

"Because it hasn't stopped being true."

He leaned over the desk for another folder and his hand landed against mine. Barely anything. We both went still anyway.

I looked at his hand. Then at him. Neither of us moved for a second that lasted longer than a second should.

He pulled back first. "Sorry."

"It's fine." I looked down at the papers instead of at him. "You should probably stop standing so close to me."

"Why."

"Because you're distracting."

It was out before I'd thought about it. I would have taken it back if there'd been a way to.

His eyebrows lifted. "I'm distracting."

"The files are distracting."

"That's not what you said."

"You know what I meant."

His mouth curved. "Do I."

"Don't."

He laughed under his breath and went back around the desk. I tried to focus on the documents. My face was warm.Whatever this was ,was exactly the complication I didn't have room for. I was here to clear my father's name, not get distracted by a CEO's hands.

A while later, Damian pulled a handwritten note out of an old box from his father's office, folded into a Northstar report.

"What does it say?"

He read it once, silent, then handed it over. Old ink, half faded.

*If this investigation reaches Northstar, do not trust the first person who claims to have found the evidence. The truth is buried somewhere only Daniel knows.*

I read it twice. "Only Daniel knows."

"That's what it says."

"But if he's gone "

I stopped. Damian didn't finish it either. We both knew what it meant. Maybe my father had taken something with him. Maybe he'd hidden it somewhere no one had thought to check. Maybe he'd told someone, before he vanished.

"We need to find out what he knew," Damian said.

"My mother might know."

"Then ask her."

"She won't tell me."

"Why not."

"Because she thinks digging into this gets me killed."

Something changed in his face. "She might not be wrong."

I didn't love hearing him say it.

"You think I should stop?"

"No." Immediate. "I think you shouldn't do it alone."

"Are you offering?"

"I already am." No arrogance in it this time. Just certainty, plain as anything. My chest went tight in a way I didn't have time to examine.

His phone rang before I could say anything back.

He checked the screen. "Ethan."

He answered. "What did you find." A pause, his expression changing as he listened. "Where." Another pause. "Don't move. I'm coming."

He hung up.

"What happened?"

"He found another copy of the Northstar records."

"Where?"

"He won't say over the phone."

He grabbed his jacket.

"I'm coming with you."

"No."

"You just said I shouldn't do this alone."

"This is different."

"Then I'm definitely coming."

He looked at me long enough that I thought he might actually say no again. "Fine. Stay close to me."

"I can handle myself."

"I know." He held the door. "That's what worries me."

We left together, neither of us noticing the camera mounted at the end of the hall, or the small red light still blinking steadily above us as we passed underneath it.

Someone was watching.

And whoever it was had already been ahead of us for a while.