Love Redux: Fated to the Handsome Doctor

Miriam’s steps halted in front of the door. She decided not to return to her apartment unit.

“Excuse me, I just want to introduce myself,” she said politely. However, there was no response.

“Excuse me….” As if she had nothing else to do, she persisted in entering her neighbor’s apartment unit. Her intuition told her something was wrong. She wanted to confirm her suspicions.

“Oh, Hello!” Suddenly, someone’s voice startled her. She turned around and found her acquaintance standing there.

“Miss journalist, how are you?” he greeted warmly.

“I’m fine. What are you doing in front of my house?” Mahya asked in surprise. Undeniably, her heart was also beating fast. She was worried that Miriam would meet Lara, whose status was still concealed.

“Oh, I just wanted to say hello to you! It turns out… there’s no one there. I heard something break earlier. I thought… someone was there,” said Miriam while fixing her hair.

“Ah. Maybe it’s my cat. He’s naughty!” Mahya tried to sound annoyed. Actually, she sighed with relief because Miriam didn’t sense Lara’s presence. It seemed so.

“Oh, I see. Well then. Here, please accept this. It’s a housewarming gift,” said Miriam, handing a box of cake to Mahya.

“Thank you,” Mahya accepted it happily.

“I’ll take my leave.”

“Please. It’s nice to be your neighbor,” Mahya said, waving her hand.

Their apartment units were adjacent. It was not a good sign. Mahya calmed her racing heart. Hopefully, all her worries wouldn’t be proven true.

“See you later,” Miriam kept talking. Mahya just smiled and inwardly shouted for her to disappear immediately. Mahya wanted to enter the house and meet Lara soon. She had to make sure Miriam returned to her own apartment unit.

***

“Mahya! Just now….”

“Yes. Doctor Miriam.”

“Do you know her?”

“Yes, I do. She is a hospital executive. I’ve had a lot of dealings with her when interviewing that handsome young doctor,” explained Mahya as she arranged the documents she wanted to discuss with Lara.

“Don’t tell me that doctor is… Andre.”

“Eh! Right! Do you know him?” Mahya asked in surprise. Apparently, Lara could recognize the handsome man.

“I know him. I know him well, even….” she hesitated. Lara still felt that her relationship with Andre was one that shouldn’t be. There was a part of her that rejected Andre when she remembered her late mother. However, regardless, Andre had helped her a lot when Seno was tormenting her alone.

“How well do you know him? Why have you never told me about it, Lara!” Mahya exclaimed. She was so curious about Andre and Lara’s relationship.

“What should I tell? He’s just my childhood friend.”

“Ah! So you did grow up together? Doctors Andre and Miriam are suspicious.” Mahya started to conspire. Lara just laughed, not paying much attention to it.

“Suspicious? How that supposed to mean?”

“Their relationship. It seems… Miriam’s family bought Andre. You know, arranged marriage like that of rich families!” Mahya kept on blabbering.

“Arranged marriage?” Lara frowned. She never thought that their relationship was based on such things. No wonder… Miriam seemed so obsessed with Andre. Even… the beautiful woman had once confronted her. Beautiful woman? Yes. According to Lara, Doctor Miriam’s appearance was really attractive.

“Doctor Andre once talked about his feelings during the interview. Well, not specifically, but I could read… their relationship isn’t normal!”

“Mahya! Stop meddling in other people’s relationships. Come on, we need to focus on our work. So, what do you have?” Lara didn’t want to discuss Andre and Miriam further. This conversation would only lead to prejudice and waste their time.

“Haha! Ah, it’s not fun,” Mahya laughed. But, Lara’s words were true. They needed to focus on re-reading Mahya’s scattered findings in front of them.

“Do you see this? This is the company’s financial report in the first quarter. How could there be such a large fund? Who injected it?” Mahya began to hand over the first file to Lara.

Although Lara had never worked formally, at least she still understood how to read data. With Mahya’s help, Lara was sure she could provide insights and thoughts that could help her friend’s analysis.

“Seno said there’s a foreign investor offering cooperation,” Lara said, trying to remember her conversation with her husband about the health business.

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

Mahya fell silent. She tried to observe the company’s financial report in the first quarter. As an investigator with quite a decent auditing experience, she immediately noticed several unfamiliar things in the report.

“Do you see this?” Mahya pointed to one part of the report. “This is the company’s financial report in the first quarter.”

“Yes, and then?”

“I noted a significant increase in the incoming fund position, but there is no adequate explanation regarding its origin. This doesn’t match the company’s historical trends in general.”

Although Lara didn’t have an auditing background, she nodded understandingly. Mahya must have her own considerations. “What’s the conclusion?”

“If I were an auditor, then I would need to ensure that all transactions and sources of income are properly recorded and in accordance with applicable accounting standards. This could be an indicator of abnormality or even potential fraud.”

“So, what do we do now?” Lara asked, confused.

“First, we need to further investigate the origin of the fund. We have to investigate additional documentation, confirmation from related parties, and verify the truth of these transactions.” Mahya began to conclude.

“How, Mahya?” Lara looked at her friend intently. If only Mahya were an official auditor of Seno’s company, surely the mentioned data could be requested immediately.

But, weren’t their jobs even illegal and secret? How could they do it systematically and according to the needs required?

Mahya smiled, “Well… you know, what I have to do?”

Lara widened her eyes. “Don’t tell me….”

“Yes, of course. I will hack their system again!”

Lara swallowed her saliva. She never thought that Mahya had such skills. However, in this situation, they did need access to deeper information.

“Can you hack their system?” Lara asked with a puzzled expression. She was amazed and worried about Mahya’s skills. Wasn’t hacking into a company’s system illegal?

“Yes, I have enough skills for that. Don’t worry, I won’t damage data or leave any traces that can be detected.” Mahya reassured her friend.

“But isn’t that illegal?”

“And… is what Seno did legal, Lara? We are white-hat hackers! This is for justice!”

Lara tried to catch her breath. “Alright, we do need more information to uncover the truth behind this fund surge. I trust you, Mahya.”

Quickly, Mahya started working on her laptop. She connected her system to the company’s network with her impressive skills. Meanwhile, Lara monitored the situation with a tense expression, afraid of being discovered by the company.

After several minutes that felt like hours, Mahya finally smiled satisfactorily. “I managed to get into their system. Now, let’s take a closer look at the financial reports.”

They began delving into the data, looking for suspicious transactions, and seeing if there were any identifiable patterns. The more they investigated, the clearer it became that there was data manipulation to hide the true flow of funds.

Lara was truly surprised because they didn’t find anything in those reports. “It’s not just about the surge of funds, Mahya. They are really hiding their original source. What’s really happening in this company?”

Mahya leaned her head on her hand. It felt like her exhaustion hadn’t disappeared after battling with complex codes and infiltrating, avoiding the opponent’s firewalls. This time, after getting the report results, her efforts felt completely futile.

“It seems like there’s something bigger behind this. We might just be seeing the surface. I need to dig deeper.”

Lara nodded weakly. She knew that Seno was indeed a dangerous person.

“How can I marry such a cunning bastard?” she cursed to herself. However, as hard as they tried to uncover Seno’s crime, Seno tried even harder to rise to the top.

Now, the researched drugs would finally be launched on the market!