Aidan, among other work issues, was deep into digging what happened 6 years ago.
He started with what he knew.
Which was not much.
That was the honest answer.
Six years ago, he had been so certain, so fast, and completely sure of what he was looking at that he had never stopped to build a real picture of it.
He had looked at the photographs that had been shown to him and called it true.
Now he was going back.
He had everything he could legally access on his table — old company records from the IPO period, everything from the months leading up to that night.
And more had come through Priya’s efficiency.
However, the more he dug, everything seemed to lead up to one person.
Marcus.
Every road somehow bent back toward him.
The old photographs.
The timing.
Too many things stopped making sense the more he thought about them.
Aidan leaned back slowly in the chair.
How had he never questioned that before?
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in.”
Priya stepped inside holding two coffees.
She handed him a coffee and stopped when she saw the papers covering the desk.
Her eyes moved slowly across the files.
“Okay,” she said carefully.
“This looks unhealthy.”
Aidan almost smiled.
“Probably.”
Priya sat opposite him.
“Found anything interesting?”
Aidan picked up one of the folders.
“Six years ago.”
Priya blinked once.
“The photos taken at my IPO event.”
”Yeah.”
He rubbed a hand over his jaw.
“The more I think about it, the less sense it makes.”
Priya stayed quiet.
“I trusted Marcus completely,” Aidan said finally.
“Too completely.”
”That old secretary of yours?”
”Yes, well he was a friend too at one point.”
He pulled a photograph from the pile and slid it across the desk.
“Look, That’s him,”
Priya picked it up.
Marcus looked younger in the picture.
Standing beside Aidan.
“He doesn’t look like a threat,” she said.
“That’s exactly the point.”
Priya set the picture down.
“What exactly are you thinking?”
Aidan stared at the desk for a moment.
“I think six years ago, something was manipulated.”
”By Marcus?”
“But every time I go backwards, his name shows up somewhere.”
He opened another file.
“Marcus handled the ballroom guest list that night.
He approved security.
He coordinated press access.” Aidan looked up.
“And the photographs.”
Priya frowned slightly.
“The photographs of Evelyn and Damien Holt?”
Aidan nodded slowly.
“At the time it felt obvious.” He looked irritated suddenly, but mostly at himself.
“I was angry and proud and stupid enough to accept what was in front of me without actually questioning it.”
Priya nodded in agreement.
Aidan leaned forward.
“You know what bothers me the most?”
”What?”
”I never asked Evelyn for her side properly.”
” No, you didn’t.” Priya said sarcastically.
“I accused her.
I let my ego decide everything.” His jaw tightened.
” How did i never actually investigate anything?
Not once.”
Priya looked at him carefully.
“You just trusted the wrong people, sir.”
”No, I failed the right one.”
Aidan picked up his phone.
“I contacted the hotel from six years ago.”
Priya looked up immediately.
“The one where Evelyn and Damien were photographed?”
”Yeah.”
”And?”
”They still have archived security records apparently.” He exhaled slowly.
“But retrieving old CCTV footage takes time.
Legal approvals, storage retrieval, all that.”
”How long?”
”A month.”
Priya winced.
“A month feels very long right now.”
”I know.”
Aidan stared at the coffee in his hand.
“But they agreed to send it.”
”And if the footage proves something?”
He looked at her.
“Then I destroyed my marriage over a lie.”
Priya looked away first.
She couldn’t admit, but she knew it was tragic.
Aidan stood up and walked toward the window.
“And I keep replaying that night in my head,” he admitted quietly.
“Trying to remember details I ignored.”
”What details?”
”Marcus being the first person to hand me the photographs.” His voice hardened slightly.
“Everybody around me reacted very fast that night, I couldn’t even…”
Priya looked at him.
“You think Jane knew?” she asked carefully.
Aidan closed his eyes briefly.
“I don’t know what to think anymore.”
That scared him most.
Not knowing who had been real.
Not knowing whether six years of his life had been built on something rotten from the beginning.
His phone buzzed on the desk.
Unknown number.
“Mr.
Smith?” a man’s voice said.
“Speaking.”
”This is Hotel Bellarosa regarding your request.”
Aidan straightened slightly.
“Yes?”
”We’ve located the archive containing the footage from that week six years ago.
Retrieval has been approved.”
Aidan glanced at Priya.
“Okay.”
”There is one issue.”
His stomach tightened.
“The ballroom cameras functioned properly.
However, one hallway camera outside the executive suites appears to have been manually disabled for approximately forty-two minutes that evening.”
The room went completely still.
Aidan’s grip tightened around the phone.
“Disabled?”
”Yes, sir.”
”By who?”
”We don’t know yet.
The records are old.”
Aidan swallowed slowly.
“Send me everything you can.”
”Of course.”
The call ended.
Priya looked at him immediately.
“What happened?”
Aidan lowered the phone slowly.
“One of the hallway cameras was shut off that night.”
Priya stared.
“That’s not normal.”
”No,” Aidan said quietly.
“It’s not.”
************
Marcus sat in a private restaurant booth scrolling lazily through his phone while a woman across from him talked about something expensive and boring.
He wasn’t listening, obviously.
He didn’t care about her, no.
This was just all fun.
Because, there was only one woman that he loved.
His phone vibrated once.
A message.
Carlo.
Marcus opened it immediately.
“File accessed, Review delayed.”
Marcus smiled slightly.
There it was, movement.
He typed back quickly.
“Good.
Keep monitoring.”
Then he forwarded the message to Jane.
The reply came less than a minute later.
“Good.”
Marcus leaned back in the booth.
The woman across from him finally stopped talking.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Marcus smiled easily.
“Of course, pretty.
Of course.”