Chapter 5

Ava didn't sleep. The message remained on her phone screen long after midnight. 

‘YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO SURVIVE. ‘

Every time she locked the screen, she still saw the words anyway. By morning, her nerves felt raw. A door closing somewhere down the hall made her flinch. A phone ringing in the distance made her heart jump. Someone knew. Not just about the accident. Not just about her death. About her survival. About something she still didn't understand.  

The thought should have frightened her. Instead, it made her angry. Angry at the unknown person hiding in the shadows. Angry at the missing pieces. Angry at herself for spending weeks wondering whether Adrian was the enemy when there were clearly larger questions waiting to be answered. She needed facts. Not assumptions. And Adrian's office was the obvious place to start.  

The opportunity came shortly after lunch. Adrian had left for an external meeting, and his assistant mentioned he wouldn't be back until late afternoon. Ava waited another ten minutes, and then she headed upstairs. Her pulse beat steadily beneath her skin. Not because she enjoyed what she was doing, but because she hated it. Because if she found something terrible, she wouldn't be able to unknow it.  

The executive floor was quiet. Sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and the familiar scent of coffee and leather lingered in Adrian's office. For a moment, memories caught her off guard. The first year of their marriage. Stealing his chair while he pretended to be annoyed. Eating takeout together at midnight when both of them were buried under work. Laughing because neither of them could remember the last time they'd gone home before dark. The memories hurt. Ava pushed them away. She wasn't here for memories. She was here for answers.  

She moved behind the desk, opened drawers, reviewed folders, and checked cabinets. There was nothing. Just contracts, financial reports and meeting notes. The kind of paperwork she'd expected to find.  

Ava exhaled sharply. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe there was nothing. Then she noticed a small locked drawer built into the side cabinet, and her stomach tightened. There. The key wasn't difficult to find. Adrian had always hidden things in predictable places. Some habits never changed. The lock clicked open, and Ava slid the drawer open.   

A black folder rested inside. There was no company logo on it. No official markings. Just one word. 

‘AVA’

Her heartbeat stumbled. Slowly, she opened it. The first page wasn't what she expected. It was a security report. Ava frowned. Then she read the title. 

‘Threat Assessment: Ava Laurent.’

Ava's confusion deepened. She turned the page. Another report. It had a different date, different investigator, and same name at the top.`Ava Laurent.`

Her stomach turned. She flipped again. And again. The paper cut her thumb and she barely noticed. It wasn’t a month of surveillance. It wasn’t a year. The dates kept going back. Three years. Five years.  

Before their first date. Before they’d even met. Private investigators. Travel logs. Security reviews. And names she didn’t recognize with red lines through them.  Every single page was about her.

Ava's hands tightened around the folder. She stopped at one report from three years before her marriage. A man had been repeatedly seen near her apartment building, and the investigator had documented his movements over several weeks. The final page read,

`Subject determined to present elevated risk. Surveillance authorized.`

At the bottom sat a signature. Approved by Adrian Laurent. 

Ava stared at it. It was three years before their wedding. Before their engagement. Before they had even started dating. She flipped to another report. A charity event she barely remembered. The report detailed a last-minute security change after an anonymous threat was received. Again, approved by Adrian Laurent.  

In another file, a man attempted repeated contact through her workplace. Investigation authorized. Risk assessment approved. Protective measures implemented. All approved by Adrian.  

Ava sat down heavily. Her mind struggled to catch up. Why? Why would Adrian spend years tracking threats around her? Why would he hire investigators? Why would he pay for security reviews?  

A memory surfaced without warning. A rainy evening during her final year of university. A flat tire outside her apartment. She remembered standing beside the road, frustrated and soaked, while a security vehicle happened to stop nearby and help. At the time, she'd assumed it was luck. Now she wasn't sure.  

Another memory followed. A strange man leaving the lobby of her building as she arrived home one night. She'd never thought about him again. Until now. Ava looked down at the reports. How many things had she missed? How many times had someone quietly stepped in before she even knew there was danger? Her eyes burned. Because this wasn't the man who was cold and distant to her. This was someone watching doors for her. Checking cars, and signing papers in the dark. For years. And she’d never known.

Then she reached the more recent files, and the atmosphere changed immediately. The language became sharper, more urgent. Investigators who had sounded calm in earlier reports now sounded frustrated, concerned, almost desperate.  

Ava turned another page, and another. Each report felt heavier than the last. Anonymous threats. Untraceable communications. Surveillance failures. Dead ends. Every lead vanished before it could be confirmed, as if someone was deliberately erasing their tracks.  

Ava reached a report written only weeks before her accident, and her stomach tightened. The investigator sounded exhausted. Months of work. No answers. No suspect. No breakthrough. Only growing concern.  

Ava turned to the final page. Before she could read it, a knock sounded outside. She jumped, and the folder nearly slipped from her hands. Panic surged through her. She shoved everything back into place, locked the drawer, returned the key, and hurried from the office. Her thoughts were moving too fast to think clearly.  

"Ava."  

She stopped. 

Victor Hale stood near the executive lounge. His expression softened immediately. "You look troubled."  

Ava tried to smile. It didn't work. Victor noticed. Of course he noticed. He always seemed to notice.  

"Come with me." His voice was gentle. Before she could refuse, he guided her toward a quiet seating area. When they arrived, a cup of coffee was already waiting on the table. Ava paused. It was prepared exactly the way she liked it. Black. The smell of coffee drifted between them, warm and familiar. For a while, neither of them spoke. Ava wrapped her hands around the cup more for something to do than because she wanted it, and Victor watched her over the rim of his mug.  

"You seem distracted."  

Ava forced a smile. "Just tired." 

The answer came too quickly, and Victor didn't call her out on it. That somehow made it worse.  

"The company certainly doesn't think you're tired."  

Ava raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"  

"You've made half the executive team nervous."  

A reluctant laugh escaped her.

Victor smiled. "It's true. People are talking."  

"That sounds dangerous."  

"It usually is."  

For a moment, the conversation felt normal, easy. Then Victor leaned back in his chair. 

"You remind me of someone."  

Ava looked up. "Who?"  

"Adrian."  

The answer caught her off guard.

Victor chuckled at her expression. "I see why you are married to him. You both have the same habit."  

"What habit?"  

"The questions." His gaze drifted toward the window. "When Adrian was younger, he'd drive everyone crazy." A faint smile touched his lips. "He never accepted an answer just because someone important gave it."  

Ava said nothing.  

Victor continued anyway. "He always wanted to know why."  

The words settled heavily between them, because lately all Ava had been doing was asking why. Why had she died? Why had Adrian looked shattered at the crash? Why had her marriage fallen apart? Why did nothing make sense anymore?  

Victor sighed. "His biggest flaw is that he thinks he can handle everything alone." Ava looked down at her coffee. 

"He gets that from his father." There was history in Victor's voice, years of it. "He believes protecting people is enough." Ava's fingers tightened slightly around the cup. 

Victor shook his head. "It isn't."  

Silence stretched between them for a while.

"He never understood that people need honesty too."  

The comment lingered in Ava's mind. Not because it excused Adrian, but because it didn't. If anything, it raised more questions.  

Victor checked his watch and stood. "Well. I've probably talked enough."  

Ava managed a small smile, and Victor returned it. Then his expression softened. "Just don't assume you know the whole story."  

The words landed harder than they should have. Before Ava could respond, Victor walked away. She watched him disappear down the hallway, and the unease remained. If anything, it had grown stronger. Because Victor hadn't answered a single question. Yet somehow she felt like she'd learned something. And she wasn't sure what to do with it.