Chapter 3 The first Secret

Seraphina's POV

I sat in my clean office, the afternoon light casting long shadows across the room and the building's buzz muffled by the thick glass. I opened the file and delicately touched the edges of the pages with my fingers. My father's name was the first thing I noticed.

His name. The writing was quite clear.

I froze, and a cold ran down my back. As I looked through the rest of the papers, my heart raced. All of them had to do with Wrenford Holdings. Corporate deals, meetings, and agreements-things I didn't know about. The numbers and names all seemed strange to me. But then I saw it.

A move. A huge amount of money. A contract with a global company that is connected to Wrenford Holdings. There was a line with my father's name on it.

The last paper in the stack has the word "Classified" on it. I stopped and looked at it for a long time. What did my dad do? Why had he never spoken anything about it?

My hands shook as I reached for the document. I let out a little gasp when I opened it.

It was worse than I had imagined. My father's name was linked to a corporate scandal that had been hidden away. It wasn't just a commercial arrangement; it was a cover-up. One that might ruin everything if it got out.

Then, almost as soon, I heard footsteps in the hall. My heart raced as I slammed the file shut and pushed it into my drawer. Someone was on their way. Someone who had seen too much.

I tried to seem normal, but the air in the workplace felt heavy. The paper that had once looked so harmless now weighed heavy in my drawer, like a danger I couldn't ignore. I was rubbing my temples to calm my anxieties when someone knocked on my door.

"Seraphina?"

I looked up and saw Richard, my boss, standing in the doorway with an unreadable look on his face.

"Richard," I murmured, my voice tight. "What can I do for you?"

He walked in with a stack of papers in his hands. "Just wanted to check in and see how you're doing. Do you need anything?

His voice was too nonchalant, and his eyes instantly darted over to my desk before darting away again. I was going to respond when he turned around and mumbled something about needing to look over some reports. He seemed to be in a hurry, as if he was trying to avoid something.

I was going to go back to work when I heard people talking outside the building. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I knew one of them was Cassian.

He responded in a chilly voice, "I don't care. We can't afford to make another mistake." Do whatever you have to do to get her to shut up.

I stopped moving. My stomach hurt, and I couldn't breathe for a second. Her? I didn't even know who they were talking about, but Cassian's voice was so scared that I thought it was me.

I couldn't stay here since I knew someone was watching me and keeping note of everything I did. But I stayed. I couldn't.

It was lunchtime, and I needed to get out of my office for some fresh air. I headed down the corridor to the break room, but I saw a door on the other side that was slightly open. The room for storing. I had never seen it before.

I opened the door and went inside because I was curious. A flickering light bulb in the ceiling was the only source of light in the room. There were piles of old paperwork and boxes heaped up in a messy way. There was a small box in the far corner, hidden under a mound of dusty documents.

It wasn't very big; it was just an old wooden box like the ones you find in an attic. I knelt down and touched the top with my fingers, not sure what to do. I thought about my dad's face and quickly opened the box. There was a stack of old pictures inside, including one of my father when he was younger and one of Evander Wrenford.

The margins of the picture were tattered and the picture was old. My dad and Evander stood next to each other, their handshake frozen in time. It was a business setting-friendly and professional-but they were standing too close to each other. The tension in the picture seemed real, like a pact made in the dark and kept quiet.

But it wasn't simply the picture. There was a symbol in the background that was hard to see. An odd symbol that gave me a bad feeling. I knew it right away. I had seen the pattern on my father's desk years ago, but I never thought to ask about it.

I rose up, and the photo felt heavy in my hands. This was more than I had asked for. There was a link between my father and Evander Wrenford. But what did it cost him?

My hands were shaking as I pushed the picture back into the box. This wasn't just a slip-up. This was a secret.

After I had finished going through the last of the files, my phone rang. The sun was low in the sky in the late afternoon, and it threw deep shadows in my office. It didn't feel warm, though; nothing about this day had felt nice. I took a quick look at the caller ID. It was blocked.

I thought about it. "Hey?" I said, my voice tense.

A pause, and then a voice that sounded low and rough. "Seraphina Vale?"

My heart skipped a beat. I had never heard that voice before, but there was something about it that seemed familiar, like a recollection from a long time ago that I couldn't quite place.

"Yes, who is this?"

There was a small laugh on the other end, which seemed strange because everything was so calm. "I know what you want." Your father... he didn't die by accident.

I stopped. My face lost all its color. How could they have known? The words felt like frost settling deep in my bones. I opened my lips to say something, but nothing came out.

"Seraphina, do you want to know the truth?" I can offer it to you, but you won't like it.

I leaned forward to catch my breath. "Who are you?" What do you know about my dad?

But the call went dead before I could ask anything else. The room was quiet. My hands shook when I took the phone away from my ear. The words hung in the air, making it hard for me to breathe.

Your father didn't die by chance.

I couldn't get any air. I stood there, pacing the room, going over the words in my head again and again. Someone had information. Someone knows what truly happened.

But who? And why?

I couldn't get the impression that someone was pulling threads that I couldn't see. I needed to know. I had to face my mom.

The apartment was quiet, just like it had been for months. As usual, I found her sitting by the window, staring out at nothing. Her face, which used to be bright, had become dull, and her eyes were far away, buried in a fog of memories.

I murmured, "Mom," and my voice shook as I sat next to her. "I need to know what happened to my dad." I found something. There's something... something I'm not seeing in a picture or a file. Please. Tell me.

She didn't look at me. She merely shook her head slowly, though. "Seraphina, you're just imagining things." You always have been, even when you were tiny.

I pushed harder, determined not to let her ignore me again. "Mom, this isn't just about him. It's about me. It's about the life we have now. "Don't you care anymore?"

She wiped away a tear, and her hand shook a little. "I care more than you think," she muttered, her voice tight. "But some things... some things are better left buried."

I took her hand. "I don't want to live in the dark anymore." You have to tell me the truth.

Then she glanced at me, and her eyes were full of fear. "Leave it alone, Seraphina." They will never let you know the truth.

I stopped moving. Like smoke, her words hung in the air. Who was she scared of? Who were they?

I clasped her hand and spoke softly. "I can't stop now. I need to know.

She took her fingers away, and her lips shook. "Then you're walking into something you won't be able to get out of."

I rose up, feeling the weight of her warning in the pit of my stomach. I couldn't stop myself. I wouldn't stop. But was the route I was on worth the money?