Chương 6
Things I had seen before.
Things I had signed.
Things I had filed away because I believed they belonged to a chapter of our lives that was finished.
My attorney tapped one page.
“This is the part that concerns me.”
I looked at the document.
It was an ownership agreement from six years earlier.
Nothing seemed unusual.
Then I saw the signature.
Aaron’s.
Mine.
And a third signature.
I frowned.
“Who is this?”
My attorney looked at me.
“That is what I was hoping you could tell me.”
I stared at the name.
It was someone I recognized.
But not someone I expected to see there.
Elliot Vance.
Aaron’s former business partner.
My stomach tightened.
“Elliot died.”
“Three years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Then why does his name appear on a transfer agreement dated eight months after his death?”
I picked up the paper.
The room suddenly felt colder.
“That is impossible.”
“That is what I thought.”
I read the page again.
The signature looked real.
The date looked real.
The file stamp looked real.
But something about it felt wrong.
Not fake.
Incomplete.
“Where did you get this?”
“The board archives.”
“Who gave it to you?”
She hesitated.
“Nobody.”
That answer bothered me.
“What do you mean nobody?”
“I mean it was already there.”
I looked at her.
“You’re telling me a document that changes the history of the company was sitting in the archives?”
“Yes.”
“And nobody noticed?”
She did not answer.
She did not have to.
Someone had noticed.
The question was why they had done nothing.
My phone rang.
Daniel.
I answered immediately.
“What happened?”
He did not waste time pretending everything was normal.
“We found something.”
I stood.
“What?”
“An old server.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“When the company moved headquarters, some of the original storage systems were supposed to be destroyed.”
“Supposed to?”
“Yes.”
The word carried weight.
“Daniel.”
“We found one that was never wiped.”
I looked at my attorney.
She was already listening.
“What is on it?”
“We don’t know everything yet.”
“Then why call me?”
A pause.
Then Daniel said, “Because your name is on the first folder.”
The silence afterward felt heavy.
“What folder?”
“I don’t know.”
His voice lowered.
“But the file title is your full name.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
Six years earlier, when Aaron’s company was collapsing, I had not just transferred money.
I had helped negotiate the survival agreement.
I had been careful.
Too careful, according to some people.
I had insisted that the investment protect the company without making Aaron feel like he had failed.
I had created safeguards.
But I had never imagined those safeguards would become necessary against him.
“Where is the server?” I asked.
“At headquarters.”
“Who has access?”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“Me, the IT director, and Aaron.”
That answer stopped me.
“Aaron knows?”
“He knows we found it.”
“What was his reaction?”
Daniel was quiet.
“Daniel.”
“He asked me to stop the review.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course he did.
Not because that proved guilt.
Because Aaron hated uncertainty.
He had built his entire identity around being the person with answers.
A hidden server.
Missing documents.
Questions about ownership.
Those things were not just threats to his company.
They were threats to the version of himself he had spent years protecting.
“What did you tell him?”
“That I couldn’t.”
I opened my eyes.
“You said no to Aaron?”
A strange sound came through the phone.
Almost a laugh.
“Apparently I did.”
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Daniel said something quieter.
“I should have done that years ago.”
The sentence surprised me.
“Daniel.”
“No, listen.”
His voice became more serious.
“I worked with Aaron because I believed in what he built.”
“You still do?”
“I don’t know.”
That honesty was becoming familiar.
People around Aaron were starting to admit things they had avoided.
“I believed he was the smartest person in every room,” Daniel continued.
“He usually was.”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“But smart people can still convince themselves of things that are not true.”
I sat down again.
“Daniel, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying you need to come here.”
I looked at my attorney.
“Why?”
“Because whatever is on that server, I think it was meant for you.”
The drive back to headquarters felt different from the drive away.
Yesterday, I had left feeling like I was escaping.
Today, I was returning because there were questions waiting for me.
That was a different kind of power.
Not control.
Clarity.
The Prescott Technologies building stood exactly as it always had.
Glass walls.
Security gates.
Employees moving quickly through the lobby.
Nothing about the outside suggested anything was wrong.
That was the strange thing about disasters.
Most of them looked ordinary from the outside.
The receptionist recognized me immediately.
Her smile appeared automatically.
Then disappeared when she noticed I was alone.
“Mrs. Prescott.”
I paused.
The title felt strange.
“I’m here to see Daniel Mercer.”
She nodded.
“Of course.”
But before she could call upstairs, someone spoke behind me.
“Alyssa.”
I turned.
Aaron stood near the elevator.
He looked like he had not slept.
His suit was wrinkled.
His hair was slightly messy.
It was the first time in years I had seen him look human before looking successful.
For a second, I remembered the man from our first apartment.
The man who owned two shirts and apologized whenever he spent money on himself.
Then the memory passed.
Because memories were not proof that people stayed the same.
“Aaron.”
He walked toward me slowly.
Not like a CEO.
Like a husband who was unsure if he still had the right to approach.
“I need to talk to you.”
I looked at the elevator behind him.
“About what?”
His eyes moved briefly toward the employees watching from a distance.
“Not here.”
I almost smiled.
A few days ago, he cared about appearances.
Now he was afraid of them.
“Then where?”
He hesitated.
May you like
And that hesitation told me something.
Aaron Prescott, the man who always had an answer, did not know what to say next.
