The Confrontation

The door slammed behind him so hard the glass trembled.

I stood there frozen, heart racing, staring at the space he’d left. The silence that followed was louder than any shout.

Then I heard it — voices down the hall. Angry ones. Alexander’s.

I shouldn’t move. He told me to stay put. But the words from the security chief echoed in my head. A source inside the company. Someone close to him.

And somehow, it was about me too.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I slipped out of the office. The hallway lights felt blinding. Every step sounded too loud.

When I reached the conference room, the door was half open. Alexander stood inside, facing three executives I barely recognized. His shoulders were tense, his tone calm but dangerous.

“You think you can humiliate me and hide behind an alias?” His voice sent chills down my spine.

One of the men tried to protest. “We didn’t leak anything—”

“Then explain this.” He tossed a printed page onto the table. Even from where I stood, I saw the headline in bold red letters: Exclusive: The Assistant and the CEO.

The man went pale. The others exchanged terrified glances.

I knew I should back away, but I couldn’t. My heart wouldn’t let me.

Then Alexander’s eyes flicked toward the door. He saw me.

For a second, everything stopped. His expression softened — then hardened again as he looked back at them.

“Out,” he said.

The executives practically ran.

When they were gone, I stepped inside. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I just wanted to know—”

He cut me off, voice low. “You shouldn’t have followed me, Luna.”

“I couldn’t stay there,” I said. “I needed to see what’s happening.”

He exhaled, running a hand through his hair. “This company is built on control. Whoever’s doing this knows I can’t afford to lose it.”

His phone buzzed again. He checked the screen — and his face changed.

“What now?” I asked.

He turned the screen toward me. A new article. A new photo.

This time it was from inside the building. Me and Alexander in the elevator yesterday. He was reaching to press a button, I was turning toward him, and for one frozen frame it looked like he was touching my face.

“They’re watching us,” I breathed. “Someone’s taking these right here.”

He nodded slowly. “Which means they’re still in the building.”

Before I could respond, the fire alarm blared. Red lights flashed down the corridor.

Alexander grabbed my wrist. “Stay close.”

We ran through the hallway as people started pouring out of offices, confusion everywhere. The air smelled faintly of smoke — maybe real, maybe fake. My heart pounded so loud I could barely hear him shouting orders to security.

When we reached the stairwell, he stopped and turned to me. “Don’t trust anyone right now. Not even people you think you know.”

I tried to speak, but the alarm was deafening. “Alexander—”

A voice from below cut through the noise. “Sir, we’ve got something on camera.”

He didn’t wait. He pulled me down the stairs, skipping steps like every second mattered.

On the third floor, security screens lined the wall. One of the guards pointed at a feed. “This was from twenty minutes ago. Someone accessed your office after you left.”

The footage showed a figure in a gray suit slipping inside — then leaving with a flash drive.

Alexander’s jaw clenched. “Zoom in.”

The image sharpened.

And my breath caught.

It wasn’t a stranger.

It was Mia.

My friend. The one who warned me not to check the gossip sites. The one who said she was on my side.

“No,” I whispered. “That can’t be right.”

Alexander didn’t look at me. He was already giving orders, his voice cold and sharp. “Lock down every exit. Find her.”

He turned toward me then, eyes unreadable. “Luna, you need to stay here.”

I shook my head. “She’s my friend. I need to talk to her—”

He stepped closer, voice lower. “You don’t understand what she’s done.”

I met his gaze. “Then help me understand.”

For a moment neither of us moved. The tension between us was electric, too much to hold. He looked like he wanted to say something else — something real — but the radio on the guard’s belt crackled.

“Sir, we lost her. She exited through the basement parking lot.”

Alexander’s expression darkened. “We’ll find her.”

Then the guard hesitated. “There’s more, sir. Another article just went live.”

He pulled up the headline on his tablet. I felt the blood drain from my face.

It wasn’t about him this time. It was about me.

“Exclusive: Assistant Luna Reyes under investigation for corporate theft and blackmail.”

The screen blurred as my vision swam. I heard Alexander curse under his breath. Security buzzed around us, phones ringing, alarms still wailing.

I looked up at him, desperate. “You believe me, right?”

His jaw worked. He didn’t answer right away.

Then the lights flickered. The power cut out.

Total darkness.

Someone shouted from down the hall, “They’re in the system!”

Alexander reached for me, but before his hand found mine, another flash lit the room — not from lights, but from a camera.

Somewhere in the shadows, someone was taking another picture.