Page 44 of Daddy's Dirty Little Secret

23

XANDER

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.”

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