The CEO's Secret Assistant

Chapter Four

What My Mother Hid

By the time we reached the address Ethan had given him, he was nowhere in sight.

The building was an old private legal office wedged between two newer ones in Midtown the kind of place I'd have walked past a hundred times without noticing.

Damian checked his phone again. "He said he'd be here."

"Maybe he changed his mind."

"Ethan doesn't do that."

"You sound very sure about a guy you just admitted you're not sure you trust."

He gave me a look. "You really enjoy pointing out my contradictions."

"Someone has to."

We waited another five minutes before Ethan came out the side entrance, not alone — a man in a security uniform trailed behind him with a thin cardboard box.

Damian was already walking toward them. "Where have you been?"

Ethan just handed him the box. "Inside."

"That's helpful."

"You wanted the records."

Damian opened it. Old folders, photographs, a handful of storage drives. "Where did you get these?"

Ethan glanced at me before answering. "Private archive. Legal department."

"Why weren't they in the company files?"

"Someone pulled them."

Damian's face hardened. "Who?"

"I don't know." Ethan looked at me instead of him. "But I think Daniel Hart knew they were missing."

I stepped closer. "Why?"

He pulled a photograph out and passed it over. My father, outside this building, younger than I remembered him but unmistakably him. My fingers closed around the edge of it.

"When was this taken?"

"The week before he disappeared."

I looked at Damian. "You knew about this?"

"No."

Ethan tapped the back of the photo. A date, handwritten, and a short note underneath.

11:43 p.m. Ask Daniel about the second vehicle.

My stomach dropped. "Second vehicle?"

"That's why I called you."

Damian took the photo from my hands. "What second vehicle."

Ethan didn't answer that one. He turned to the guard instead. "Tell them what you told me."

The man shifted his weight. "Marcus Bell. I was head of security here, four years back."

"You were on shift the night Daniel disappeared."

"I was."

"Then why isn't your name in the police report?"

Marcus looked at the floor. "Because nobody asked me for a statement."

"That's not possible."

"It happened." He took a breath. "I remember Daniel coming in. Parked downstairs, eleven forty three. About seven minutes later, another car pulled in."

"Ethan?" I asked.

Marcus nodded at him. "Yeah."

Ethan didn't flinch.

"They went in together?" Damian asked.

"Not exactly. Daniel went in first. Mr. Reed came after."

"And the second vehicle."

"That was maybe twenty minutes later."

My pulse climbed. "Who was in it?"

"Couldn't see."

"Why not?"

"It stopped right where the camera doesn't cover."

Damian stepped closer to him. "How do you know there was someone in it, then?"

"Driver got out." A pause. "Then someone else in passenger side."

"Who."

"Don't know." He shook his head. "But they went inside."

Damian and I looked at each other.

"What happened after that?" Damian asked.

"About thirty minutes on, Mr. Reed comes back out."

"Alone?"

"Yeah."

"And Daniel?"

"Never saw him again."

My throat closed a little. "But he went in."

"He did."

"Then where did he go?"

Marcus didn't have an answer for that one.

Damian's voice went flat. "You should have reported this."

"I tried."

"To who?"

A long beat before Marcus said it. "Mr. Reed."

The room went silent in a way that had weight to it. I looked at Ethan. He looked just as blindsided as Damian did.

"You took his statement?" Damian asked.

Ethan nodded, slow. "I did."

"And?"

"Sent it to legal."

"Then why wasn't it anywhere in the investigation?"

His face had gone serious in a way I hadn't seen yet. "I don't know."

That was the answer none of us wanted.

We left with the box, but the whole drive back I couldn't put down the thought of a second car, a driver, a passenger nobody could name one more piece somebody had decided didn't matter.

Damian barely spoke on the drive. I sat with the photograph in my lap, looking at it every few minutes like it might have changed. My father, standing outside that building, no idea his whole life was about to come apart.

"You're thinking about your mother," Damian said, out of nowhere.

"How'd you know that?"

"You've been staring at that photo for twenty minutes."

"Maybe I'm thinking about something else."

"You're not."

I sighed. "She knows something."

"You said she wouldn't tell you."

"She won't."

"Ask her again."

"You don't know my mother."

"No."

"She's spent four years telling me to stop asking. The second I bring up my father, she changes the subject."

He was quiet a second. "Why?"

"Fear." I looked down at my hands. "After he disappeared, reporters wouldn't leave us alone. People showing up at the house. Some wanted interviews. Some wanted information. Some just wanted to gawk at the family of the man who'd apparently stolen millions." I swallowed. "My mother stopped trusting people after that. So did I."

His hands tightened slightly on the wheel. "I understand."

"Do you?"

"More than you'd think."

He didn't explain, and for once I didn't push.

We pulled up outside my mother's building a little before six.

"You don't have to come in," I said.

"I know."

"Then why are you still here."

"Because if she knows something, I want to hear it too."

"You really don't trust anyone."

"Not lately."

We went up together. My mother opened the door on the second knock, and her expression changed the second she saw him not because she knew his face. Because she knew the name.

"Damian Blackwood." Quiet.

"You've heard of him?"

"Everyone has." She stepped back. "Come in."

We sat in the living room. My mother kept glancing at Damian like she was still deciding whether he was safe to have in the room.

"We found something," I said.

She was already shaking her head. "Amelia, don't."

"You haven't even heard it."

"I don't need to." Her voice was harder than I was used to. "You promised me you'd stop."

"I never promised that."

"Then promise now."

"No."

She looked suddenly exhausted. "You're just like him."

Something in my chest pulled tight. "Like Dad?"

She didn't answer that. Damian stayed quiet beside me letting me have it, I realized.

"Mom. What happened to him. The truth."

"The truth is your father was afraid."

"Of what."

She rubbed her hands together, not looking at either of us. "I don't know."

"You do."

"Amelia "

"You've known something this whole time."

"Not enough to help you."

"Then give me what you have."

She sat with that a long time before she finally stood and disappeared into her bedroom. When she came back she was holding an old envelope, and she set it on the table like it might do something on its own.

"He sent this to me."

My breath caught. "When?"

"After."

"You said you never heard from him again."

"I lied."

That landed harder than I expected it to.

"Why?"

"Because I was scared." She pushed the envelope closer. "He came here. Three weeks after everyone thought he was gone."

Damian's face changed. "Three weeks."

She nodded. "For a few hours."

My hands started shaking without my permission. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"He told me not to."

"Where was he?"

"I don't know."

"Mom."

"I swear, I don't know." Her eyes were wet now. "He looked different. Thinner. Tired. Kept checking the windows like somebody was outside." She opened the envelope, pulled out a folded letter. "He said someone inside Blackwood knew where he was."

I looked at Damian. His face had gone unreadable.

"Did he say who?"

"He told me not to trust anyone connected to Blackwood." Her eyes moved to Damian. "Anyone."

The room went very still. He didn't move. I couldn't tell if he was offended or just processing.

"Did he mention Northstar?"

She hesitated, and the hesitation told me everything before she said a word.

"Mom."

Her eyes closed. "He said the money was never stolen."

Damian leaned in. "What did he say exactly."

"That someone was moving money through Blackwood's accounts, somewhere else."

My heart was going too fast. "Where."

"He didn't know." She looked at the letter still in her hand. "But he said whoever was doing it had help inside the company."

"Did he name anyone?" Damian asked.

"No." She shook her head. "But he said one more thing."

"What."

She looked straight at me this time. "If anyone came asking about him, I was supposed to tell them you weren't involved."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know."

"There has to be something else."

She looked back at Damian. "He told me to keep you away from Blackwood."

My stomach fell. "Why."

"Because he said you were being watched."

"By who."

"He didn't say."

The room felt smaller than it had a minute ago. Damian stood, slow.

"Mrs. Hart. Is there anything else your husband left with you?"

"No." A beat. "One thing."

She went back to the bedroom and came out this time with a small silver key, and pressed it into my palm.

"He said you'd know what it was for, when it was time."

I turned it over. Small, old, scratched down one side. "Where does this go?"

"I don't know."

Damian took one look at it. "I do."

"Where?"

"Your father's study."

My heart stopped for a second. I hadn't set foot in that room in years.

We drove out to the old house that evening. It had sat mostly empty since he disappeared my mother avoided it unless there was no way around it.

The study looked exactly the way I remembered. His books, still lined up. Dust across the desk, thin and undisturbed. I stood in the doorway longer than I meant to, suddenly not sure I wanted to go in.

Damian waited behind me. "You okay?"

"I don't know."

"You don't have to do this tonight."

"Yes. I do."

He nodded and let me go first.

We checked the desk. Nothing. The shelves. Nothing. I was starting to think my mother had gotten it wrong when I noticed a small lock under the bottom drawer.

The key fit. The drawer clicked open.

Inside was a black metal box.

"That's it," I whispered.

Damian moved closer but didn't touch it. "Open it."

My hands weren't steady as I lifted the lid. Documents, old photographs, a small flash drive. A folded piece of paper sitting on top of everything.

I opened it.

Four words, in his handwriting.

*Trust no Blackwood.*

My stomach sank. I looked at Damian. He hadn't moved.

"That's comforting."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "Wasn't going to say anything."

"Good."

I picked up the drive. "What if this is what he meant?"

"Then we find out."

I plugged it into my laptop. One audio file. I clicked it.

Static, first. Then a voice I hadn't heard in four years.

My father's voice.

My hand went to my mouth.

"Amelia."

I froze completely.

Damian was watching me now, not the screen.

"If you're hearing this, they found you before I could come back."

My eyes stung.

"There are things I couldn't tell your mother. Couldn't tell you either, not then. If Damian Blackwood is standing next to you right now, listen carefully."

Damian went rigid beside me.

"His father wasn't the one who betrayed me."

The recording crackled, static swallowing half a second of silence.

"The one who betrayed me was the man Damian trusts most."

The file ended.

Neither of us said anything for a long moment. I turned toward him slowly.

He was staring at the laptop screen, all the color gone out of his face.

We both already knew exactly whose name that was.