🖤 The Secretary Who Refused to Be Replaceable

Chapter 07 - Bell Tower

The red emergency lights made everyone look guilty.

Marco moved Diana behind him before she had time to object. Dominic moved not in front of her but beside her, which surprised her more. He no longer seemed to assume protection required possession.

Marcus remained on the upper landing, half his face shadowed.

"Interesting timing," Diana said.

"Buildings have moods," he replied.

"So do traitors."

His smile flickered.

From below came footsteps. Not running. Climbing with purpose.

Dominic looked at Marco.

Marco nodded once and descended silently toward the sound.

The impersonator pressed herself against the railing.

"I don't want to die for a file."

"Nobody is dying," Diana said.

Dominic glanced at her.

"You cannot promise that."

"Then someone should start making better promises."

He accepted the rebuke with a small incline of his head.

A figure emerged below Marco: a woman in a cream coat, blonde hair tucked beneath a cashmere hat, red lipstick perfect despite the emergency lighting.

She looked at the impersonator first.

"Stupid girl."

Diana recognized her from photographs on Dominic's event wall.

"Vivian Rowe," she said.

Dominic's head turned.

"You know her?"

"Former chief counsel. Resigned before I started."

Vivian smiled.

"Forced out, darling. Details matter."

Marcus descended two steps.

"Vivian, this is messy."

"Your fondness for secretaries is messy."

Diana looked between them.

There it was: not partnership, not trust. Friction. The kind conspirators develop when one begins imagining himself superior to the other.

Dominic's voice lowered.

"You hired the lookalike."

Vivian shrugged.

"Marcus insisted Miss Vale was indispensable. I found that unlikely."

"You searched her apartment."

"I sent movers with poor manners."

"Why?"

Vivian looked at Diana.

"Because Henry Vale was more careful than all of you."

Diana held the tiny drive so tightly its edges pressed into her palm.

"What did my father see?"

Vivian's eyes softened in a way Diana did not trust.

"Enough to die for."

Dominic moved down one step.

"Say his name with respect."

Vivian laughed.

"Now you grow a conscience? Your father paid men like invoices. Henry Vale was one more debt settled in a ledger."

The word settled struck Diana like a hand.

Marcus watched her reaction with interest.

Diana forced herself not to give him more.

"What is Bell Tower?"

Vivian's smile thinned.

"An insurance file. Created by your father after the Madison fire. He copied receipts, photographs, shipping manifests, names. Enough to connect Victor Caruso, the Vitellis, and several respectable gentlemen upstairs to an arson that killed Dominic's uncle and cleared a block for redevelopment."

Dominic went still.

"My father?"

"Don't look wounded. You knew what he was."

"I knew pieces."

"Children always do. They simply rename them inheritance."

Diana looked at Dominic then and saw the blow land. Not because he had loved his father blindly, but because he had spent years trying to build order on top of a graveyard whose depth he had underestimated.

Marcus descended another step.

"Bell Tower was supposed to stay buried until Dominic refused the Vitelli settlement."

"Why involve me?" Diana asked.

Marcus looked almost regretful.

"Because you were the key that neither of them knew existed."

Vivian's eyes sharpened.

"Your father did not hide the original file in a safe. He hid it in something worthless enough that men with money would overlook it."

The red toolbox.

Diana's chest tightened.

"We donated it."

"No," Vivian said. "Your sister sold it."

Diana's head snapped up.

"What?"

"Medical debt makes people practical."

"Lina would have told me."

"Would she?"

The question was cruel because it had weight. Lina had always protected Diana from numbers when the numbers were terrible.

Dominic took out his phone.

"Marco, take Diana to her sister."

"No," Diana said.

"Diana—"

"No. If Lina is in this, I need to hear it from her. Not from you. Not from them."

The emergency lights snapped back to white.

Everyone blinked.

The stairwell door behind Marcus opened.

Two board security officers stepped in, hands near their jackets, waiting for instructions from the wrong person.

Vivian looked pleased.

"Mr. Santoro is acting interim chair until allegations against Mr. Caruso are resolved."

Marcus's expression smoothed.

"Dante—"

"Dominic," Diana corrected automatically.

Marcus smiled.

"Forgive me. So many powerful Italian men, so little patience."

Dominic's eyes went cold.

Marcus spoke to the guards.

"Take Miss Vale to the conference room. She has company property."

Diana lifted the drive.

"This?"

Then she did something she had never done in Dominic Caruso's building.

She ran.

Not down toward Marco. Up.

Past Marcus, who reached too late. Through the stairwell door. Into the hall. Cheap heels hitting polished floor, lungs burning, the tiny drive cutting into her palm.

She knew the executive floor better than anyone. She knew which hallway camera lagged by three seconds, which pantry door stuck unless lifted, which service elevator could be summoned manually from the linen closet because she had once fixed it during a catering disaster while seven executives complained about coffee.

Behind her, men shouted.

Diana ducked into the records room and locked the door.

Her hands shook as she plugged the drive into the nearest terminal.

One folder appeared.

BELL TOWER.

Inside was a video file.

Diana clicked it.

Her father's face filled the screen.

Older. Tired. Alive.

"If my girls are watching this," Henry Vale said, "then I failed to come home."

Diana covered her mouth.

Behind her, someone began entering a code into the locked door.