Chương 2
Now he was asking for information.
"You don't get to ask me that after letting them call me a thief."
"I didn't call you a thief."
"You didn't stop them."
His silence answered for him.
Mara placed the envelope on the desk.
"The account transfers were approved using your authorization."
Daniel looked down.
"That isn't possible."
"That's what I thought."
She pulled out a printed document.
"There were three approvals."
Daniel didn't touch it.
"One from you."
Mara slid another page forward.
"One from your chief financial officer."
Another page.
"And one from someone using an executive access code that should have been deleted two years ago."
Daniel stared at the documents.
The room became smaller.
"Where did you get these?"
"I told you."
"Where?"
His voice sharpened.
Mara noticed.
Not because he was angry.
Because he was scared of the answer.
"I had copies before they locked me out."
Daniel closed his eyes for a second.
When he opened them, the exhaustion was gone.
Something colder had replaced it.
"You need to understand what happens now."
Mara folded her arms.
"Are you threatening me again?"
"No."
He looked at the papers.
"I'm telling you that the person who wanted you blamed knows you have this."
A chill moved through her.
She looked toward the office door.
"How?"
Daniel didn't answer immediately.
That hesitation told her enough.
"Because someone searched your apartment."
Mara felt the air leave her lungs.
"What?"
"They didn't take your computer."
"How do you know?"
"Because they weren't looking for your computer."
The room went quiet.
"They were looking for something specific."
Mara thought of the night before.
The unlocked drawer.
The missing notebook.
The strange feeling that something in her apartment had been moved but not stolen.
She had convinced herself she was tired.
She had convinced herself she was imagining things.
Daniel watched her face change.
"You found something else."
It wasn't a question.
Mara looked at him.
For the first time since entering the mansion, she saw something different.
Not a powerful executive.
Not the man who had abandoned her.
A person trapped inside the same danger.
"I found a notebook," she said.
Daniel's expression hardened.
"Where is it?"
Mara stepped back.
The old instinct returned.
Trust nobody.
Especially not someone who had already chosen silence over her.
"I don't know if I should tell you."
Daniel nodded slowly.
"Good."
She frowned.
"Good?"
"Because if you trusted me immediately, you'd be making the same mistake everyone else makes around me."
Outside the office, footsteps moved through the hallway.
Neither of them spoke.
Daniel looked toward the door.
Then at Mara.
"Someone else is here."
The handle began to turn.
And for the first time since she arrived, Mara understood that the locked gates outside had never been meant to keep her out.
They had been meant to keep something else from getting in.
The handle turned another inch before Daniel crossed the room and grabbed it.
"Wait," he said.
The voice behind the door belonged to someone who had no reason to be nervous, which was exactly why Mara noticed the nervousness.
"Daniel?"
It was Claire Whitmore.
His younger sister.
The person who had spent the last year telling Mara that loyalty was the only thing keeping the company alive.
Daniel opened the door just enough to block her view of the office.
"What are you doing here?"
Claire looked past him.
Then she saw Mara.
Her expression changed too quickly to hide.
Not surprise.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
"You let her in?"
Mara felt the words before she understood them.
Claire wasn't asking about a visitor.
She was asking about a decision.
Daniel stepped into the hallway and pulled the door mostly closed behind him.
"Not here."
"Actually, I think this is exactly where it needs to happen."
Claire lowered her voice, but the sharpness remained.
"You have any idea what you've done?"
Daniel stared at her.
"Interesting question."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means everyone keeps asking me what I've done."
He glanced toward the office.
"Nobody asks what they did."
Claire's face tightened.
For a second, she looked less like a powerful executive and more like a woman who had been carrying an argument for too long.
Mara stood alone inside the office, listening to voices she couldn't fully hear.
The old instinct to leave returned.
She had spent enough time in rooms where powerful people decided her future while she waited quietly.
She reached for the envelope.
Then the door opened again.
Daniel stepped inside.
"Stay."
The word stopped her.
Not because it was a command.
Because it sounded like a request.
Mara looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because if you walk out now, they win."
"Who is they?"
Daniel looked toward the hallway.
"That is the question."
Claire entered behind him and closed the door.
The three of them stood in silence.
It was strange seeing Daniel and Claire together.
They had the same controlled posture.
The same habit of choosing words carefully.
But where Daniel seemed tired from carrying responsibility, Claire seemed tired from hiding something.
"I don't understand why she's here," Claire said.
Mara gave a small laugh.
"That's funny."
Claire looked at her.
"What?"
"You spent six months telling me I was the only person in that company who still cared about details."
"And?"
"And now you're acting like I disappeared the second I became inconvenient."
Claire looked away.
That tiny reaction made Mara uncomfortable because it looked almost like guilt.
Almost.
"You don't know what you're involved in," Claire said.
"Then explain it."
"I can't."
"You mean you won't."
Claire pressed her lips together.
Daniel moved toward the desk.
"She found the transfers."
Claire froze.
Mara watched the silence that followed.
It wasn't the silence of someone hearing bad news.
It was the silence of someone hearing confirmation.
"You knew," Mara whispered.
Claire looked at her.
"No."
The answer came too fast.
May you like
Mara noticed Daniel noticed too.
"You knew something was happening," Daniel said.
