The CEO Above My Desk Chapter 155

***Violet***

“Oh…” Camille breathes beside me.

My stomach drops so hard it physically hurts. Because whatever I expected to find inside Avery’s email account, it wasn’t this.

The inbox is massive. Folders stacked beneath folders. Archived chains. Deleted conversations. Thousands of emails filling the screen to the point it almost feels overwhelming just looking at it. But one thing stands out immediately.

One name.

Hargrove.

My eyes narrow as I click the contact history. Then I stop breathing entirely.

“What the fuck?” Camille whispers.

Over five thousand emails.

I stare at the number in complete disbelief. Five thousand.

My brain immediately starts trying to calculate it automatically. “That’s…” I murmur slowly. “Seven or eight emails a day.”

“For two years,” Camille finishes quietly.

The room suddenly feels colder... Because this isn’t occasional communication. This isn’t professional overlap between coworkers or city officials.

This is constant. Daily. Obsessive.

I scroll upward through the oldest timestamps, and my stomach twists harder the further back I go.

“These started right when she got hired,” Camille whispers.

I shake my head slowly. “No.”

She looks over at me. “What?”

“This kind of communication doesn’t just happen overnight.”

My eyes move across the screen again. Thousands of emails. Constant communication. Daily updates. Patterns already established from the very beginning of Avery’s employment.

No awkward introductions. No professional distance. No getting-to-know-you phase.Nothing.

It’s immediate. Comfortable. Routine... And that’s what makes my skin crawl.

I tap one of the earliest email chains lightly with my finger.

“Look at this,” I murmur. “They’re already communicating like people who know each other.”

Camille studies the screen harder. “Oh…”

“Exactly.”

Because there are no formalities. No carefully professional wording. No hesitation. No boundaries. Just immediate access. Immediate familiarity.

Like whatever relationship existed between them had already been built long before Avery ever stepped foot into Ashcroft Industries.

“There might not be emails older than this,” I say quietly, “but there’s no way this started here.”

Camille slowly leans back against the couch cushions, processing that. “You think Avery was planted.”

I don’t answer immediately. Because saying it out loud suddenly makes it real. Makes every strange interaction feel intentional instead of paranoid. Makes every instinct I ignored feel stupid.

Finally, I nod once. “Yes.” The word leaves my mouth quietly. “I think she was sent to Rowan before he even knew he needed protection from them.”

I keep scrolling slowly, my pulse pounding harder the deeper we go into the inbox.

Then another name catches my attention. Calder. My entire body goes still.

There are only five emails connected to his name.

*Five.*

But somehow that makes it worse.

“Oh no,” Camille whispers beside me.

I can’t answer. I physically can’t. Because suddenly this doesn’t feel like random corruption anymore. It feels organized. Layered. Like people have been circling Rowan’s life for years without him realizing how deep it went.

Or maybe he did realize. Maybe that’s why he trusts almost nobody. I quickly click away from Calder’s contact before my brain spirals too far into that thought.

Then another name catches my eye. Fredrick Mews.

Camille immediately grabs her phone. “That sounds familiar.”

I keep staring at the contact history while she types quickly beside me.

Thirty-two emails. Not nearly as many as Hargrove. But enough. Way too many.

Camille suddenly goes still. “Oh, shit.”

I look over immediately. “What?”

Her eyes widen slightly as she turns the phone toward me.

News articles flood the screen instantly. Court hearings. Ethics investigations. Corruption allegations. Judge Fredrick Mews.

My stomach sinks lower with every headline. “He was investigated?” I ask quietly.

“Several times,” Camille says.

I take the phone from her carefully and scroll faster. Bribery accusations.Witness coercion. Evidence tampering. Judicial misconduct.

My chest tightens harder with every article I read.

But every single one ends the same way.

Charges dropped. Cases dismissed. Insufficient evidence. Witness testimony withdrawn. No prosecution pursued.

“What the hell…” I whisper.

Camille reaches over and scrolls further down another article and points. “Look at this.”

I open it. This one is worse. Two witnesses connected to one of Mews’ cases disappeared before trial. Another publicly admitted they lied under pressure.

Then another. And another.

The same pattern repeating over and over again.

My skin crawls because I don’t believe it. Not for a second.

I don’t believe all these people suddenly lied. I don’t believe witnesses conveniently vanish. And I definitely don’t believe corrupt people magically become innocent because cases disappear before trial.

No. Something else happened.

Upstairs, shouting erupts again inside the loft.

Something slams hard enough to rattle the glass shelves near the kitchen.

Neither me nor Camille even flinch this time. I think we’re both too deep into this now to care.

I slowly hand her phone back before turning toward Avery’s inbox again.

“This is bad,” Camille says quietly.

“No,” I murmur.

Bad feels too small for this now. Because this feels intentional. Years of connections layered carefully on top of each other.

People tied together through secrets and silence and power. And sitting quietly in the center of all of it— Is Avery.

The assistant. The woman standing beside Hargrove smiling politely through interviews while the city burns around them.

My jaw tightens hard enough to ache.

*Who the hell are you?*

Camille slowly looks back at the inbox. “So…” she says carefully. “Do we open the emails?”

I stare at the screen. At the thousands of conversations waiting behind those folders. At Calder’s name. At Hargrove’s.

At the judge connected to disappearing witnesses and buried cases.

And suddenly... I don’t know if I actually want the answers anymore. Because something deep in my gut tells me this goes beyond corruption.

Beyond politics.

Maybe even beyond Rowan.