Chapter 23: Daddy’s Dirty Little Secret: Chapter 23

Monday came and went like a haze. The office was quiet in the way that made people more tense, not less. Amelia’s absence was starting to stretch into something that couldn’t be ignored anymore. Her desk hadn’t been touched. Her inbox had gone cold. She didn’t respond to the resignation acknowledgment I sent last week, and I hadn’t heard a word from her since.

It didn’t feel right.

I sat at my desk with a half-written report open on one monitor and her old Slack thread open on the other. Still no green dot next to her name. Still no reply to the last message I’d sent asking her to just let me know if she was okay.

I stared at the screen a few more seconds, then grabbed my phone and scrolled until I found Laurence’s contact. I didn’t want to make the call—I wasn’t even sure what I was hoping to get out of it—but if anyone would know where she’d gone, it was her father.

The line rang twice before he picked up. His voice sounded thinner than usual. “Xander. Yeah. Hey.” There was some kind of background noise—like he was outside or pacing near traffic. His words came fast, uneven. I wasn’t sure if he was distracted or just not completely sober.

“Hey, Laurence. I’m calling about Amelia,” I said. “She hasn’t shown up. She quit suddenly last week. No word since. Have you heard from her?”

There was a pause, then a sharp exhale. “She quit?” He sounded hollow, like he wasn’t all there, but his voice ticked up a notch at the mention of Amelia’s name.

“You didn’t know?”

“No. I haven’t talked to her. I figured she was just busy or something.” His voice pitched higher again, unconvincing. Then suddenly, it was filled with fear and a tremor of panic. “Xander, listen—I need a favor. I need a loan. It’s urgent. Can you get me half a million? Just temporary. Please. I swear I’ll pay you back. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency and⁠—”

I blinked. “Laurence, I—what?”

“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t serious,” he said quickly. “It’s a mess, but I’ve got someone breathing down my neck. It’s not personal—it’s business.”

“That’s not something I can just move around,” I said slowly. “We don’t have cash like that just sitting around. Even if I could get access, the business needs it. We’re barely covering our pipeline projects as it is.” My mind was reeling. Larry was in trouble with someone; I could hear it in his voice, and Amelia had been acting strange for a while, telling me she was scared for him, worried about him. My throat constricted as I wondered if she’d gotten involved, if that was why she suddenly vanished.

“I’ll pay it back,” he said. “You know I’m good for it.”

I hesitated. “What happened to your December profit share? You got a lot of money, enough to last the full year. I signed the check myself.”

There was silence on the line for a moment. Then I heard a small rustle, maybe wind, or fabric. “That’s not enough,” he said, and then—without warning—he hung up.

I sat there, staring at the phone. The call had lasted less than three minutes, but it left my thoughts scrambled. He sounded nothing like himself. And whatever trouble he was in, it was big enough to make him ask for money that he had to know I couldn’t just produce.

Something was off. Way off. And now I had two people missing pieces of themselves—one who had vanished entirely, and another who didn’t seem far behind.

I stared at my phone long after the call ended, still holding it in my hand like maybe something would light up or vibrate. Nothing did. Just a blank screen and the quiet hum of the office around me.

That conversation with Laurence left a strange echo in my head. His voice hadn’t sounded right. Distracted, agitated—maybe worse than that. And the request for a half million dollars? That wasn’t just out of character. It was desperate. If he had no idea where Amelia was either, and something had him so flustered he hung up without even a goodbye, then whatever this was, it went deeper than I thought.

I sat with that discomfort for another minute before standing up and heading down the hall.

I wasn’t marching. I wasn’t angry. I just needed clarity.

Godwin’s door was open this time, but he was focused on his screen, typing with that sort of careful speed that meant he was solving something. He glanced up as I stepped in and then sat back in his chair, like he already knew why I was there.

“Hey,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Got a minute?”

He nodded once, eyes narrowing slightly with caution. “Sure.”

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. Not for secrecy, just for the quiet.

“I’m not here to lecture,” I said, lifting my hands a little. “I’m not coming down on you. I just … need to ask something, as a friend. Or at least someone who’s just trying to understand what’s going on.”

Godwin tilted his head, curious but not defensive. “Alright.”

“I called Laurence,” I said. “To see if he’d heard from Amelia. He hadn’t. He sounded … off. Like he was stressed, maybe drunk. He asked me for half a million dollars. Then hung up.”

Godwin’s expression didn’t shift, but I could see something flicker in his eyes.

“I’m worried about her,” I said. “Actually worried. And I know I don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt with you, but I swear I’m not asking to control anything. I’m not looking for leverage. I just want to know she’s okay.”

Godwin folded his hands and looked down for a second before responding. “She hasn’t told me anything lately. I don’t know where she went.”

I nodded, but didn’t move.

“She’s not in danger,” he added, a little too quickly. “She needed time. That’s all.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” I asked, too sharp, then softened. “Sorry. I just … what does ‘time’ even mean when someone ghosts their whole life?”

He took a breath. “Look, I don’t know everything, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. But I can say this—when you came down on her in the office, when you accused her of things that weren’t happening, it shook her more than you probably realized.”

I let that sink in.

“You humiliated her,” he said, not cruel, just honest. “Not publicly, but still. That day … you were jealous. Possessive. And it made her question everything about the situation you two were in. She didn’t say it exactly, but she didn’t feel safe, emotionally.”

I nodded slowly. I’d known that. Even when I was storming out of her office, I knew.

“We crossed lines,” I admitted. “She and I. I never planned to. But I did. And I know I made it worse. But Godwin, if something happens to her, and I didn’t act because I was worried about protocol⁠—”

“She just needs space,” he repeated, firmer this time. “Whatever she’s dealing with, she’s not asking to be found right now.”

“I can’t take that as an answer anymore,” I said.

Godwin didn’t argue. He just looked tired. Maybe he understood. Maybe he didn’t.

I left his office without another word, grabbed my keys, and walked out into the late afternoon haze without checking my email or telling anyone where I was going. If Amelia wasn’t going to come to me, I would go to her. I refused to be one of those people who let life walk right past and didn’t say anything. It felt like something was wrong, that she might be in trouble, and what sort of man was I if I ignored that gnawing gut feeling?

The drive over to her apartment felt longer than I remembered. I knew the route by heart, but every red light stretched out like it was trying to test my nerves. My hands tightened on the steering wheel. I wasn’t racing. I wasn’t weaving between cars. I just … needed to get there. I needed to see her place, to feel like I was doing something besides pacing around my own mind.

“You’re being dramatic,” I muttered under my breath, not even convinced. “She probably just turned off her phone. People do that.”

But Amelia didn’t. Not like this. She wasn’t the type to disappear without so much as a goodbye. Even when she was upset, she didn’t vanish. The resignation letter had been the only real sign she’d given me—and it had read more like a formality than a choice. Too clean. Too final. It hadn’t sounded like her at all.

I turned down her street and caught myself scanning the sidewalks as if she might suddenly appear, walking her trash to the curb or checking her mailbox like nothing had happened.

“She needed space,” I repeated Godwin’s words, but they sat wrong with me. Space didn’t look like this. It didn’t sound like Laurence asking for half a million dollars and hanging up the phone like the house was on fire. And if she really was fine, if she really just needed a break, why did I feel like someone had yanked a wire loose inside my chest?

I pulled into the lot and rolled slowly to a stop. Her parking spot was empty. Not surprising, but not helpful either. I got out and walked into the building and up to her door—knocked and waited. I knocked again—nothing.

So, I sat on the floor outside her apartment door, right on that little welcome mat with the faded floral border. The hallway smelled like someone down the hall had just reheated leftover pasta, and I could hear a TV echoing through thin walls. Every now and then, a door creaked open somewhere on the floor, or footsteps passed behind me with slow suspicion. I kept my head down and my hands laced loosely between my knees.

Let them stare. I wasn’t moving.

If Amelia was here, she wasn’t answering. If she wasn’t here, I’d see her when she came back. I didn’t have a good reason to sit here like this. I just couldn’t leave. It wasn’t about control. And it wasn’t pride. It was this gnawing sense that if I walked away now, I’d never see her again.

She had walked out of my life with no real explanation. Just that carefully worded resignation email that read like it had been copied from a template online. She never even acknowledged the messages I sent. She didn’t fight. She didn’t explain. She didn’t even give me the chance to apologize.

And here I was. Sitting outside her door like someone waiting for an answer that might never come. I should have kept my distance. We were supposed to be temporary, clean, unattached. But somewhere between the office and the nights in my house and the way she’d slowly taken up space in my life, I started letting her in. I let my guard down, and now I felt stupid for it.

No, not stupid.

Abandoned.

It felt too familiar—that silence, the disappearing act. That final door shutting that you don’t even realize is the last one. Like when Mom walked out of the house for the last time, and I never saw her again.

Amelia shut me out the same way my mother shut my father out. Quietly. Without discussion. Just gone. And maybe that’s the part that hit hardest. The idea that I didn’t matter enough to be told why.

A door opened down the hall, and an older woman with a laundry basket walked out. She stared openly, like she was memorizing my face in case she needed to describe me to a police sketch artist later.

I gave her a nod. She didn’t return it.

I turned my attention back to Amelia’s door, resting my arms on my knees, and let the hallway fall quiet again.

Maybe I was an idiot for caring this much.

Maybe I should just quit while I still had some dignity, go home, and admit I’d lost this one.

But I stayed. Because something inside me couldn’t leave.