Behind Every Door

Bella didn't sleep that night.

She lay wide-eyed in Monroe's spare room, the microchip from the necklace balanced between her fingers.

Why now?

Why did he give her this now, of all times?

It was too clean and perfect . Too rehearsed. The dinner, the affection, the quiet charm, the gift with a hidden message—it felt like a performance. Felt like acting. And Mason was the lead actor.

She slipped the chip into a protective pouch and grabbed her phone to send a message to Monroe.

Bella: "We need to run this now. It's urgent."

Monroe: " Alright. You can come over."

---

Monroe's contact at the cyber unit, a quiet woman named Rhea, met them in a rented lab after midnight. She didn't ask them further questions. She just plugged the chip into a secured reader and began decrypting the data.

"Whatever this is," Rhea said after thirty minutes, "it's military-grade protection. Deep encryption."

"What's on it?" Bella asked.

"I can't really say yet. But if I had to guess…" She turned to them with a strange look. "This was never meant to be found by civilians."

Bella exchanged a look with Monroe.

Rhea sat back. "You said the necklace belongs to your sister right?" She asked to reconfirm if the necklace was actually for her sister.

"Sort of," Bella said. "It was… left behind for her."

"Then your sister stumbled into something dangerous. And someone out there probably wants this chip back."

---

The next day, Bella returned to Mason's place.

She needed to play her own part. At least for now.

He opened the door. He was shirtless and had a towel around his neck.

" Good Morning," he smiled at her. "You look like you've been running." He said as he closed the door behind her.

"I have," she said, brushing past him. " I am trying to clear my head."

He followed her into the kitchen, he offered her coffee.

She took it but didn't drink it immediately , pretending not to notice the laptop on the counter. It was opened, a familiar file name highlighted on the screen.

Project VESTA: Phase II Trial Data.

She stopped all of a sudden.

"Hey," she said lightly. "You never told me what really happened with your company and Lang."

Mason's smile thinned. " Actually, It's not a story I like to talk about."

"Try me. You can confide in me." She responded.

He took a deep breath. "Lang offered to buy out my patent. I said no. So he had someone sabotage my reputation. Accused me of fraud I know nothing about and made me lost almost everything."

"Why didn't you fight it?" She asked him.

"I did." He looked at her. "I fought until there was nothing left for me to fight for. Then Emily died. And I just… stopped."

Bella nodded slowly, her heart beating so fast. His eyes didn't shift. He looked hurt and sincere.

And yet…

So why was the project file still on his laptop? She wondered.

---

That evening, Bella went to visit Becker.

He lived in a narrow townhouse filled with clocks and old newspapers. He opened the door suspiciously, then let her in.

"You shouldn't be here," he muttered. "You're stirring things. They don't like that."

"Good," she said. "Because I have a few things to stir."

She showed him the photograph again, the one from the gala.

Becker's eyes narrowed. "You don't believe him? You think he was part of it?". He asked while his eyes were still gazing at the photograph.

"I don't know what to think," Bella said. "But Emily trusted you. She said you were the only one who knew how deep the whole thing went."

He hesitated, then walked to a cupboard and pulled out an old brown box.

Inside the old box was a file.

There were pictures,names and financial transfers.

Including Blackmail materials.

Bella picked up a photograph. The photographer had both Lang, Emily and Senator Paula Rowe, smiling with champagne glasses in their hands.

Becker whispered, "They used women and groomed them. To get to men in power. Then used recordings to control legislation."

Bella felt a thorn in her throat.

Emily hadn't just stumbled into a bad romance. She had fallen into a system.

---

"Why would Lang give her the chip, then?" Bella asked. "Why help her?"

Becker shook his head. "Lang was losing control. Someone higher up wanted to clean the house. Emily had leverage. He needed a bargaining chip."

"Did Mason know about it ?" She asked.

Becker hesitated. "That man has shadows behind his eyes. Maybe he didn't know everything. But I guarantee you, he is hiding something, he knows something."

Bella's phone buzzed. She picked immediately.

Monroe: "Get back now. Hurry. We've got a problem."

---

When she arrived at Monroe's apartment, Rhea was nowhere to be found. She was gone.

So also was the chip.

And the door had been forced open.

Monroe stood in the middle of the room, gun drawn, there was blood on his shoulder and he sustained a slight injury in his right shoulder.

"They came for it," he growled. "I got one of them, but the other took off with the chip."

Bella's heart sank.

"And Rhea, where is she?" She asked.

"She's alive. Barely." He replied.

Bella rushed into the kitchen, grabbed a dish towel from the table, she pressed it on Monroe's wound.

Just after she was about to move him from where he laid, she noticed something strange on the floor which caught her attention .She saw a shattered photo frame.

Inside the frame, it was an old picture of Monroe with Mason.

They were younger. Maybe six or seven years ago.

They were both smiling in the photograph.

They were standing outside a government building.

She looked up slowly in his direction.

"Monroe," she said, her voice sounded cold . "How long have you known Mason?" She asked him.

He didn't answer. He looked away from her.

Which was answer enough for her .