Chapter 134

Chapter 134
Alina's POV

Lowell was pushing through the crowd toward me, moving fast, his eyes locked on mine with an intensity that made my heart stall.

My palms were slick with sweat. My pulse was hammering so hard I could feel it in my chest wall — and yet my feet wouldn't move. I stood there, frozen, until he was less than five meters away. Then something broke through, like surfacing from a bad dream, and I spun around and plunged into the crowd.

Behind me, his voice — rough with urgency, cutting through the noise: "Alina!"

The sound of it went through me like a current. I stumbled, caught myself, pulled my cap down lower, and tucked in behind a group of volunteers moving supplies in the opposite direction. I kept my head down and didn't look back.

His voice was swallowed by the wind and the noise of the crowd. By the time I came out the other side of the relief camp, I knew I'd lost him.

My hands were shaking. My shirt was soaked through at the back, the wet fabric pressing cold against my skin in the winter air, raising goosebumps. I walked quickly to where Adams had parked, pulled open the rear door, and got in.

Adams was in the back seat, taking his time with a cigar. Smoke hung thick in the enclosed space. He turned his head and looked at me, and a slow smile spread across his face.

"He didn't catch you, then." There was quiet satisfaction in his voice. "So — you saw him. How did it feel?"

He wanted to watch me unravel. That was what the question was for — not curiosity, just appetite. I looked down and said, "Don't. Let's go."

He didn't push it. He pressed the cigar out in the ashtray, gave the driver a look, and the car pulled away. Then his arm came around my shoulders and drew me in.

Through the window, the lights of the relief camp receded and blurred into a cold wash of pale color. I pressed my forehead against the glass. I pushed Adams's arm away. He pulled me back.

The smell of tobacco on him was familiar by now, which was its own kind of unpleasant. After a moment he spoke, his voice unhurried and measured.

"Alina. I need you to understand something. I haven't lied to you. Everything I've shown you is real — what happened to your parents, what Lowell's father did, and Lowell's own part in all of it. You saw him just now. You know, in your gut, that he couldn't have been completely in the dark."

I was gripping the fabric over my knees so hard my knuckles had gone white.

"So what do you want to do?" Adams's gaze was fixed on the side of my face, steady and expectant, making clear that deflection wasn't an option.

Before I could answer, he continued. "If you're willing, I can give you a real position. Something that puts you in a place to stand against him directly. You have the ability. You have every reason to want this. The only thing you've been missing is the platform."

He had the delivery exactly right — the right weight of sincerity, the right tone of someone who genuinely had your interests at heart.

But I knew what this was. Everything he had done since he found me, every door he had opened and every piece of evidence he had placed in my hands — it was all architecture. He was building something, and I was the material. He wanted me completely on his side, a weapon aimed at Lowell, controllable because I believed my anger was my own.

The thing was — the anger was my own. That was the part he hadn't manufactured. The sense of betrayal, the particular pain of having trusted someone and been wrong — that was real, and it sat in my chest like a rusted blade, pressing in at odd moments when I wasn't braced for it.

"What would you need from me?" I asked, keeping my voice flat.

Adams went quiet for just a second — long enough for the mask to flicker. My indifference had almost thrown him.

"I'll bring you into Charlecross Group. A legitimate title — I think Executive Assistant to the Chairman suits the role. It gives you access and standing without drawing too much attention."

I let that sit for a moment. Then: "So I'd be working directly with you every day?"

I did need the position. Not because Adams had ever intended to help me — he hadn't — but because a seat at that table would let me look for things he didn't know I was looking for.

"Good," Adams said, and his surprise at my compliance was only barely concealed. "Since we're agreed, I'll have everything arranged. You're coming in from outside, so we'll keep it quiet. Too high-profile too soon won't serve you."

"Understood."

---

He didn't waste any time once we were back at the estate.

The next morning, a document arrived by messenger: a formal letter of appointment, Executive Assistant to the Chairman, bearing the official seal of Charlecross Group. True to what he'd said in the car, there was no announcement — just a brief internal email, terse and unexplained, circulated within the company.

I thought about it afterward on my own. He almost certainly didn't want Lowell's side catching wind of it too early. The plan, as I read it, was to keep me quiet until I could be used to catch Lowell off guard.

The appointment still caused friction inside the company.

On my first morning in the new office, I heard a man's voice carrying down the hallway, making no particular effort to be discreet.

"What is Adams playing at? Some woman nobody's heard of, dropped straight into senior management? Do you know how many people have been waiting for that position? And he just decides, without a word to anyone—"

"Keep your voice down — word is she and Adams have a personal arrangement—"

"That's what I'm saying. Executive Assistant. Sure. We all know what that means."

The voices moved past the door and faded.

I sat behind my desk and set the appointment letter down.

Let them talk. I wasn't here for their respect. I was here for what the position could reach.

---

Over the following days I worked through the company's departments methodically — learning the operational structure, pulling files, working backward through older records, looking for anything that connected to the money-laundering outfit I was tracking.

Someone noticed.

On the third afternoon, a man intercepted me at the door of the records room. He was around fifty, gold-framed glasses, a smile that had been practiced until it looked almost natural. He introduced himself as Johnson, the Group's Head of Administration, with a small nod.

His eyes dropped briefly to the file numbers in my hand. The smile stayed in place.

"Miss Alina," he said, his tone carefully courteous, "most of what's held in this section covers the Group's early-stage investment history — quite old material, really. As our new Executive Assistant, you wouldn't typically need to be across any of this, at least not at this stage."

He paused.

"May I ask — have you cleared access to these files with Mr. Adams?"