Chapter 87 Closer Than I Thought
ALEX HART’S POV
The house was unusually quiet when I entered the living room, but Cassandra’s car was outside.
Maybe she was sleeping.
That was what I thought.
I sank onto the couch and buried my face in my palm.
Then I remembered I had to prepare for tomorrow.
I stood and headed straight for my study.
As I moved closer, I noticed that the door was wide open.
“I closed it firmly the last time,” I muttered under my breath, my finger on my jaw as I tried to remember.
Then I moved to the doorway and pushed the door wider.
Inside, Cassandra stood in front of my bookshelf.
She was holding a file, the one with the access logs and every single document that had to do with the ownership of Hart & Associates.
She froze when she saw me.
Completely.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my eyes bloodshot.
She didn’t answer right away.
“What are you doing?” I repeated, my voice firmer this time.
I stepped inside, closed the door behind me, and moved closer to her.
She swallowed, taking small steps back until her hip bumped the edge of the desk.
“I… I was… I was bored and came to look for something to read,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Return that to where you took it from,” I muttered, my voice low.
She hurriedly placed the folder back and let out a sharp breath.
“You scared my baby,” she said, rubbing her little bump.
“You shouldn’t have come in here. It’s my workspace not a playground,” I said, trying to keep my cool.
“I didn’t know this was a no-go area,” she hissed and walked toward the door.
Dumbfounded, I watched her as she walked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
I didn’t have the energy to trade words.
Then I walked over to the shelf and checked the folder, the contents were still intact.
I looked around the study, then exited the room and closed the door firmly.
All I just wanted was to go to Horizon Developments the next day and return victorious.
The next day, we drove in Marcus’s car and headed to Horizon Developments.
I sat in the passenger’s seat, one of my elbows resting on the door while I stared outside the window, mindlessly staring at the billboards.
Neither of us spoke much.
Because there wasn’t much left to say.
We had rehearsed every possible angle before we left the office.
Soon, the Horizon Developments building appeared ahead of us. Marcus pulled into the visitor parking lot, killed the engine, and sat there for a second, gripping the steering wheel.
“You good?” he asked as he glanced at me.
“No,” I replied.
“But let’s get this over with.”
We walked through the revolving doors into the lobby and stopped at the reception desk.
The woman behind the counter looked up as we approached.
“Alex Hart and Marcus Reeds,” I said.
“We are here to see Mr. Tony Wells,” I added with a polite smile.
The woman tapped at her screen, frowned, then tapped again.
“I’m sorry, gentlemen. Mr. Wells is unavailable,” she muttered as she looked up.
“Please, we just want to see him briefly,” Marcus leaned in and whispered.
“I’ve been instructed to inform you that Mr. Wells will not be meeting you today… or any day,” she replied, her voice flat.
The words hit me like a tornado.
“Excuse me?” I muttered, my voice lower than I intended.
The secretary repeated her words, slower this time as if she was reading them from a script.
“He has nothing further to say to you. Your contract has been terminated and the request stands. If you have legal concerns, please direct them to our legal counsel.”
“Can we at least speak to someone?” Marcus spoke, his jaw tightening.
“This is about our reputation. We’ve done nothing wrong,” he continued.
The secretary didn’t blink.
“I’ve been instructed to say exactly what I just said.
I’m sorry,” she said.
She wasn’t actually sorry.
My gaze lingered on her for a long second, hoping she would miraculously take what she had said back.
But she didn’t.
“Come on,” Marcus muttered, his voice low as he touched my arm.
We turned away from the desk, the lobby suddenly feeling too open.
It felt as if every security camera in the ceiling was watching us leave.
When we got back to the car, Marcus let out a long sigh and turned to face me.
“This isn’t random. Someone wants to see us bleeding and that person knows that Horizon is our biggest active project. They know losing them would trigger a domino effect,” he stated, returning his gaze to look straight ahead.
“Who could it be?” I asked.
Though the question was more to myself than to him.
I do not have enemies in our line of work.
There was none I could think of.
“Someone who knows exactly where to hit us. We will have to find out,” Marcus retorted.
I didn’t say any more words, I just stared blankly at the space.
Marcus pulled out of the parking lot into the traffic and drove off.
But the question kept ringing in my head.
“Who?”
“Who could be sabotaging me?”
“And why are they doing this?”
Because if someone could make a client like Horizon Developments vanish overnight without explanation, then whatever was happening was serious.
And I wasn’t sure they would stop there.
The rest of the day felt like punishment to me.
I couldn’t concentrate on anything… nothing at all.
Marcus had left work earlier, saying he had something urgent to attend to.
Since I couldn’t focus on work, I decided to go home.
I picked up my jacket, cleared my desk, and headed out to my car which the mechanic just dropped off.
I sat behind the steering wheel and stared blankly for a while before starting the engine.
On my way home, I saw a figure that looked familiar.
At first, I didn’t think much of it.
But then something about the build made my grip tighten around the steering wheel.
“Isn’t that… Marcus?”
My eyes narrowed as I slowed down.
He was standing beside a car, talking to someone. And that person was unmistakably the Manager of Horizon Developments.
But before I could take a closer look, they both slipped into the car.
“I don’t think he’s the one,” I told myself, looking around to check if I would see his car.
Marcus’s car was not in sight.
“Maybe this is my opportunity to talk to the manager,” I mumbled under my breath.
I quickly pulled over at the side of the road and stepped out of the car.
Just as I was about to get closer to the manager’s car, it pulled into the street and zoomed off.
“Damn!” I cussed under my breath, tapping my forehead.
Disappointed, I turned back towards my car.
Before I could start the engine again, my phone buzzed.
It was a message from an unknown number.
The same one that had gone MIA.
I picked it up and opened the message which read:
“The enemy is closer than you think.”
My stomach dropped and a cold wave crept up my spine.
“Closer than I think?”
“What does this person mean?”
“Does this mean the previous messages weren’t random?”