Bear with Me (#2, Completed)

1. Time to disappear

SCARLETT

Fatigue started to settle in as I recounted for the hundredth time what I had come across earlier in the office. The two officers from the Metropolitan Police and the Serious Fraud Office kept scribbling things on their notepads like they had not heard my story over and over again in the past few hours. I couldn't blame them, really- I came to them with information on a huge financial crime involving the extremely reputable trading company in Canary Wharf that I worked for. Getting all the facts and details was crucial in compiling the evidence against my CEO.

"Miss Miller, let's go over this once again- how did you find out about your CEO's crimes?" The skinny officer with the glasses asked, eliciting a deep sigh on my part.

"Do we have to do this again? It's 1 AM, and I am exhausted."

The other officer nodded sympathetically. "We understand, miss, but Mr Armstrong is an extremely powerful and well-connected man, and building a case against him is not easy. The last person who came forward with some information two years ago disappeared into thin air not long after, so we need to be sure that we get everything and we get it right."

Shit, what?

Did he think that this new piece of information reassured me?

"What do you mean the last person disappeared? And why are you only telling me this now?" I tried to remain composed, but my voice was shaky.

My CEO always looked like a calm, polite man on the rare occasions that I came across him at the office. Then again, it never crossed my mind that I was going to discover information that proved his involvement in insider trading and embezzlement of company funds to an unknown offshore account.

It had been a crazy day as I worked on the latest company financial report that my management had asked for. Thinking about it now, it was odd that my CEO joked about me not needing to prepare a detailed analysis, but I thought he simply wanted me to focus on my other, more urgent tasks. Yet, being the type of person that I was, I was set on getting the report perfect. So when I found myself missing certain documents and coming across information that did not match, it spurred me on to dig deeper- after all, our company always encouraged staff to be thorough in their work. And after days of digging into our system and our archives, I finally knew the truth.

The prickling of the skin on my upper arm was what brought me back to the present. I placed my other hand on top of it and scratched the itchy part through the thin fabric of my top.

That was another problem that I had been trying to figure out for the past two days- where the hell did the tattoo on my arm come from? I certainly could not remember getting one, and yet, there it was, etched on my skin the morning when my best friend Riley and her three Scottish friends left. I wondered time and time again whether perhaps we got drunk and got tattoos but I had no such recollection. On top of that, how wasted must I have been to get a bizarre text such as "You'll crawl and beg too" tattooed on my arm?

Some memories were crystal clear though, like the tall, muscular hottie who accompanied Riley.

Callum Andrews.

Even his name made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Sure, the other two guys- Aiden and Rafe- were handsome as well, but there was something about Callum that captivated me and lit a fire within me that no stranger, no matter how hot, had ever managed to spark before. Or maybe it was just my guilt over the fact that I nearly knocked him out with a vase when I thought that he was a burglar.

"Miss Miller? Did you hear what I just said?" The Met cop looked at me like something was wrong with me, which was when I realised that I had gotten carried away in my thoughts.