C16 A Storm on Mute

Ten missed calls.

All from Bishop.

I stared at the screen like it might start ringing again. It didn’t.

There was no voicemail, no text message, just silence, which somehow unsettled me more than any words would have. Bishop wasn’t a man who left things unsaid. If he called, it meant something was happening. Or about to.

I stood outside the bookstore longer than I needed to, frozen under the flickering sign, my mind spinning in every direction at once. Should I call him back? Pretend I hadn’t seen the calls? Go home and wait for him to find me?

But a part of me the part that had been sharpened by everything I’d discovered in the last few days whispered not to move too fast.

So I walked.

I took a different route again, away from familiar corners, through quiet streets where the streetlights hummed and blinked over cracked sidewalks. My heart thudded in my chest, a steady rhythm I couldn’t calm. And still, my phone stayed quiet.

By the time I reached my apartment, the sky had turned a deep velvet, and the weight of the folder in my bag seemed heavier somehow. I climbed the stairs slowly, keys clenched between my fingers. Just in case.

Inside, everything was untouched. Still. But it felt different, like the air had shifted in my absence.

I checked the locks. All fine. Nothing out of place. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was waiting for me. Lurking not in the room, but in the space between me and the next decision I was about to make.

Then, finally, my phone buzzed.

Bishop.

Just a text this time.

“Where are you?”

No punctuation. No explanation. Just three words that felt more like a warning than a question.

I hesitated for a full minute before I typed back.

“Home.”

The reply came instantly.

“Stay there. I’m coming.”

My fingers hovered over the screen, unsure what to say. Part of me wanted to shut everything down, lock the door, and pretend none of this had ever started. But the other part, the one that had walked into a bookstore to clear her head and walked out even more tangled, knew it was too late for that.

Twenty minutes later, he knocked.

Not a hard, angry knock. Not the kind that demanded an answer. Just three firm taps like he already knew I’d been waiting.

When I opened the door, Bishop stood in the hallway, still in his black coat, collar turned up, the shadows deepening the sharp angles of his face.

“May I come in?”

The way he said it quietly, like a truce disarmed me more than if he’d walked in uninvited.

I stepped aside.

He entered slowly, eyes scanning the space like it was unfamiliar, like maybe he expected to see a suitcase or an open window or… Damien. I closed the door behind him, and for a long moment, we just stood there in silence.

“You didn’t answer my calls,” he said.

“I needed time,” I replied, voice level.

“To run?”

“To think.”

He took a breath. “And did you?”

“Think? Yes. Run? No.”

His jaw flexed, but his expression remained unreadable. “What did Lauren tell you?”

I didn’t answer right away. “She told me Valentina might be alive. That Damien isn’t acting alone. That someone is using me to get to the truth.”

“And do you believe her?”

“I believe that I don’t know what to believe anymore. But I also know I’m in this whether I like it or not.”

Bishop stepped closer, and I didn’t move. I couldn’t.

“I didn’t want you to see the footage yet,” he said quietly. “You weren’t supposed to find that file.”

“But I did.”

He nodded. “You did.”

I met his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me about Valentina?”

His gaze darkened. “Because she was supposed to be dead.”

The room fell into a quiet tension. That sentence. That weight.

I sat down on the edge of the couch, my hands folded in my lap. “Tell me everything you know. No riddles. No half-truths.”

Bishop hesitated, then removed his coat and lowered himself into the chair across from me. He looked tired like someone who’d been carrying a secret too heavy for too long.

“She worked for me,” he began. “Years ago. Before Damien. Before any of this. Valentina was smart, ambitious, and manipulative in a way that made her dangerous not just to others, but to herself.”

“What happened to her?”

“She disappeared. We thought she was dead. And maybe she was, in a way. But now she’s back. And she’s orchestrating something far bigger than you or Damien or even me.”

I swallowed. “And you think I’m the weak link.”

He looked at me. “No. I think you’re the one they underestimated.”

That silence stretched between us again, heavy and sharp.

“You’re not here just to warn me, are you?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I’m here to ask you something.”

I waited.

“Will you help me find her before she finds us?”

My breath caught.

I thought of the folder in my bag. The lies. The danger. The part of myself that still wanted to go back to the girl I was before all this started.

But she is gone now.

“I will,” I said. “But on one condition.”

His brow lifted. “Which is?”

“No more secrets, Bishop. Not from me.”

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he nodded once.

“Agreed.”

He sat across from me, his elbows resting on his knees, fingers laced. For the first time since I’d met him, Bishop King didn’t look like the man from the news or the office or the nightmares people whispered about behind closed doors.

He just looked tired.

“You know,” he said, voice low, “I didn’t expect you to last a week.”

I blinked. “Thanks for the confidence.”

He gave a small huff that could’ve been a laugh or maybe it was just exhaustion disguised as one.

“It wasn’t about you,” he added. “It was me. I didn’t want anyone close. I’ve built too much on keeping things… separate. Controlled.”

“And then I showed up with coffee stains and curiosity.”

“You showed up and made the walls shift. Slowly. Then all at once.”

I swallowed. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know.”

He leaned back, running a hand through his dark hair, and for a second, I caught a glimpse of something I hadn’t before regretted. Maybe even guilt.

“I don’t blame you for wanting space,” he continued. “What you’ve walked into… it’s not normal. None of this is.”

“You think?”

He smiled faintly. “I wanted to shield you from it. From them.”

“You mean from Valentina? Damien?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he looked at me like he was deciding how much I could take and how much of the truth he could give without watching me crack.

“It’s not just them anymore,” he finally said. “There’s someone else, someone higher up. I don’t have a name yet. Just traces. Movement in my company. Anomalies in bank records. Whispers that started months ago and grew louder right after you were hired.”

That last line sent a chill down my spine.

“Are you saying I was planted?”

“No. I’m saying you might have been noticed. Targeted. But not by me.”

His honesty stunned me.

I stood and walked to the window, my arms folding around myself. The city outside moved in a blur of cars and lights and lives, all indifferent to mine.

“You think I’m in danger.”

“I know you are.”

I turned. “Then why let me stay? Why not push me away like everyone else?”

The bishop stood too. He didn’t come closer, but the tension between us pulled tight.

“Because it’s too late for that,” he said. “You’re part of this now. And I trust you more than I trust anyone else.”

The weight of those words didn’t fall lightly. They lodged in my chest, warm and terrifying.

I should’ve walked away.

I should’ve asked him to leave.

But instead, I took a step toward him.

“What happens next?” I asked softly.

His voice lowered. “Next, we stop waiting for answers to come to us. We found them.”

Together.

It was unspoken, but I felt it. For the first time, we weren’t standing on opposite sides of the truth, we were stepping into it, side by side.

I glanced at my bag and the folder was still hidden inside. “I found something earlier. In Damien’s files.”

Bishop’s eyes flicked to the bag. “Show me.”

I hesitated.

Not because I didn’t trust him but because the moment I opened that folder again, everything would shift. The line between ordinary and extraordinary would vanish for good.

I took a breath.

Then I reached inside, pulled out the papers, and laid them on the table.

His brows furrowed as he flipped through the pages. Then his expression hardened.

“This wasn’t just about Valentina,” he murmured. “This is bigger. Look at this account, look at where the transfers are going.”

I leaned in. “That’s not one of your subsidiaries.”

“No. It’s offshore. Shell corporations. Someone’s laundering money using my name and my company.”

My blood went cold.

“But who?”

He looked at me, jaw clenched. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

We didn’t say anything after that. The room fell into silence, but it wasn’t heavy. It was focused. Like something had locked into place between us.

I didn’t know where this would lead how much more darkness there was ahead but I knew I wouldn’t be walking into it alone.

And for now, that was enough.