CHAPTER 3:SUSPICIONS AND SECRETS

Some truths don’t shatter you. They sharpen you into something more dangerous.”

I didn’t sleep.

Again.

Not because I was haunted by heartbreak.

No, this time it was suspicion.

The kind that buzzes in your blood like static before a storm. The kind that tells you something isn’t just wrong—it’s about to get worse.

The message on my phone burned itself into my brain:

“They know you’re looking.”

Who the hell were they?

---

By 6 a.m., I was in my office. Maya arrived thirty minutes later, bleary-eyed and holding two iced coffees like an angel with winged eyeliner.

“I knew you’d be here,” she said, handing one over. “Spill.”

I showed her the text.

She stared at it. “Creepy. Vague. Classic male energy.”

“I think it’s more than creepy,” I muttered. “I think someone’s watching.”

“You think Xander’s behind this?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But the timing doesn’t feel like coincidence. The merger. The note. The message.”

“And you’re still going through with the meeting?”

“I’m going to play along,” I said. “See how deep this rabbit hole goes.”

Maya sipped her drink slowly. “You always were the scariest one in the room.”

I didn’t smile.

Because if I was right, I’d need to be scarier than whatever secret Xander had been hiding behind his perfect suits and icy detachment.

---

I met Tasha—the hacker—in the parking garage of a yoga studio downtown.

She wore a hoodie, combat boots, and a smirk.

“Who pissed you off this time?” she asked.

“My ex-husband,” I replied.

“Oh. So revenge hacking. My favorite.”

I handed her a flash drive with everything: contracts, timeline spreadsheets, scanned copies of documents I’d found buried in our old files.

She plugged it into her tablet right there on the hood of her car.

“This is heavy,” she said after a beat. “Eros Holdings is a ghost company.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning someone created it to hide assets, transactions, movement. Like digital money laundering but cleaner. Professional-level obfuscation.”

My pulse quickened. “Who owns it?”

“That’s the thing,” she said, swiping. “There’s no name on record. But there’s a flag that just popped up. A line of code meant to ping someone if you access it.”

I froze. “So whoever’s behind this… knows I’m looking?”

She nodded. “And based on the encryption? They’re not amateurs.”

---

Back at the office, I did what any sane woman would do after discovering she may have stumbled into corporate espionage.

I put on lipstick.

A bold, blood-red shade that said don’t underestimate me just because you used to sleep beside me.

Then I walked into the meeting room where Xander was already seated.

Again.

He stood when he saw me. “You look—”

“Don’t,” I cut in. “Let’s get this over with.”

He sat down slowly, watching me with those unreadable blue eyes. The same ones that once made me feel safe. The same ones that now made me feel like I was standing in a den of wolves without a weapon.

I pulled out the contract.

“I read your proposal. It’s clean.”

“But?” he asked.

“But I don’t trust it,” I said. “Or you.”

He didn’t flinch.

“I don’t expect you to,” he said simply. “But you need to know something, Raven. If you get involved in this—really involved—you won’t be able to walk away clean.”

“Was that a threat?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “It’s a warning.”

---

He slid a folder across the table.

“Read this,” he said. “But not here. And not in public.”

“What is it?”

“Answers.”

I hesitated, then took it.

And saw my name written in a bold, unfamiliar hand across the tab.

RAVEN BLACK — CLASSIFIED

I didn’t speak. I didn’t blink.

“What the hell is this?”

But Xander didn’t answer.

Because just then, the glass wall behind him shattered.

A brick—wrapped in black cloth—landed on the table with a violent thunk.

I stared at it.

And then unwrapped the cloth.

Inside was a photo.

Me.

Sleeping.

Taken from outside my window.

“When the truth is buried beneath lies, you learn to become a sharper kind of curious.”

I kept staring at the drive Tasha handed me, her warning echoing louder than the city noise around us.

“You’re playing with fire, Rae,” she said. “Whoever’s running this isn’t just laundering money—they’re laundering identities. I traced one of the corporate proxies back to something called the Veritas Circle.”

“Sounds like a cult.”

“It’s worse,” she said. “It’s rich people with too much power and no accountability. Think dark money, off-the-books deals, and information so classified it disappears before it exists.”

My mouth went dry. “And you think Xander’s involved?”

She hesitated.

“I think he tried to keep you out of it.”

---

On the drive back, the silence in my car wasn’t quiet—it was calculating.

I kept thinking about those nights he’d come home late. The times I’d caught him staring into nothing. The way he’d always change the subject when I brought up the people behind his company's new investors.

And I hated it.

Because I wasn’t scared of the truth—I was scared of how long he’d kept it from me. Like I was something too fragile to handle the full weight of his world.

But I wasn’t fragile.

I was done being breakable.

---

At the office, the day dragged like a blade.

Maya kept side-eying me from behind her monitor.

I finally caved. “What?”

“You’re vibrating like an espresso shot.”

I leaned in. “What do you know about something called the Veritas Circle?”

Her brows lifted. “That’s a deep cut. I only ever heard of it in whispers—one of those elite cliques rich men joke about like frat houses, only with private jets and international blacklists.”

“Think Xander’s part of it?”

Maya gave me a long look. “I think your ex was always playing a deeper game than he let on. The question is—are you ready to play it too?”

---

Later that night, I found myself sitting in the apartment Xander once shared with me.

I’d kept the spare key.

Not to spy.

To remember.

Or maybe to remind myself what I walked away from.

The place was colder now. Stripped down. Spartan. But in the office, I found something he must’ve forgotten—or intentionally left behind.

A photo. Us. From two years ago. Smiling like the world hadn’t fractured yet.

On the back, a single word.

“Sorry.”

---

Then I heard the click.

The unmistakable sound of the apartment door opening.

I wasn’t alone.

“It’s not the silence that’s scary. It’s what moves inside it.”

I backed up fast, heel catching on the corner of the rug. My pulse thundered as the door clicked shut behind whoever had just entered.

No footsteps.

No voice.

Just presence. Like heat pressing against my skin.

I grabbed the closest thing I could—a crystal vase—and stepped into the hallway.

“Who’s there?” My voice cracked, just a little.

Silence.

Then—footsteps. Slow. Deliberate.

I inched toward the noise, heart in my throat, when—

“Raven?”

Xander’s voice.

I exhaled like I’d been punched in the stomach.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, lowering the vase but not letting go.

He stepped into the light, wearing that same black suit like it was armor. But his face—his face was off. Tight. Strained.

“I got a notification someone entered the apartment. You used your key.”

“You’ve been tracking me?”

“I track the apartment, not you.”

“That makes it so much better.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Why? Because I might find something you forgot to burn?”

He didn’t take the bait. Just walked over to the desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a thick folder.

“The file I gave you—did you open it yet?”

I shook my head. “Why?”

“Because the longer you wait, the more dangerous this gets.”

“Then tell me the truth.”

He stepped closer, so close I could smell that crisp cedar scent he always wore.

“I can’t. Not here. Not yet.”

“Then when?”

But before he could answer—

Glass exploded.

The living room window shattered, raining crystal across the floor.

A brick landed with a heavy thud.

We both froze.

My ears rang. My brain screamed. Xander was already moving, checking outside the window for whoever had thrown it.

But I didn’t move.

Because I saw what was wrapped around the brick.

Black cloth.

And inside it—

A photograph.

It was me.

Sleeping.

Taken through my bedroom window.

Dated two nights ago.

My blood ran cold.

And scrawled across the bottom of the photo in red ink:

“Stop digging, little dove.”