The Forbidden File

Chapter 9

I didn't sleep the rest of the night.

I sat on the edge of the bed, watching Julian’s chest rise and fall, my mind racing a million miles an hour.

I couldn't save your father.

The words echoed in my skull on a torturous loop. I had sold my soul to Victor, ruined an innocent man’s company, and nearly gotten the father of my child killed in a car bombing—all because I believed Julian Thorne was a murderer.

But if Julian tried to save my father... then Victor had been lying to me since day one.

By 7:00 AM, Julian was awake, his emotional slip from the night before firmly locked away behind his icy CEO exterior. He had a private doctor come to check his arm, kissed my forehead for the benefit of the maids, and locked himself in his home office at the end of the hall to deal with the fallout of my hack.

I waited until 11:00 AM, when Marcus told me Julian was in a virtual board meeting that would take at least two hours.

I slipped out of the master bedroom, my bare feet silent on the hardwood floor.

I needed proof. I couldn't base my entire reality on a sentence mumbled in a drug-induced nightmare. If Julian was at the building the night my father died, he would have a record of it. He kept records of everything.

I approached the heavy oak door of his home office. It was slightly ajar. I pushed it open and slipped inside.

The office was empty, Julian’s laptop sitting open on his massive desk. He had gone to the kitchen for coffee.

I rushed to the desk, my heart pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird. I woke the computer up. The password screen flashed.

I swallowed hard. Did he change it?

My fingers flew across the keyboard, typing the 32-character alphanumeric code I had memorized three months ago. The very code he had caught me using on my first day.

Click.

The screen unlocked. He hadn't changed it. Why hadn't he changed it?

I didn't have time to dwell on it. I opened his private, encrypted drive and typed my father's name into the search bar: Robert Vance.

A single, hidden folder appeared.

I double-clicked it, and my eyes rapidly scanned the documents that populated the screen.

They weren't hostile takeover documents. They were bank wires. Julian had been secretly transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars into my father's failing company. He was funding him. Trying to keep him afloat.

And then, I clicked on an audio file dated the night of my father's death.

A tinny recording from a security camera played.

"You can't pay him back, Robert! Victor is going to kill your daughters if you don't give him Thorne Industries' trade secrets!" It was Julian's voice, desperate, pleading.

"I'm sorry, Julian," my father’s voice wept through the speakers. "Victor owns me. The only way to void his life insurance claim on me is if I die. Tell Elara I love her."

"ROBERT, NO!"

The sound of shattering glass. A scuffle. Then, silence.

I clamped a hand over my mouth to muffle my sob. Tears streamed freely down my face. Julian didn't ruin my father. He was his only friend. And Victor... Victor was the monster all along.

"I wondered how long it would take you to look."

I whipped around.

Julian was standing in the doorway, a mug of coffee in his good hand. He wasn't surprised to see me. He looked perfectly calm, though his eyes were heavy with a dark, weary sorrow.

"Julian..." I sobbed, pointing at the screen. "You... you helped him. Why didn't you tell me? Why did you let me hate you? Why did you let me destroy your company for Victor?!"

Julian walked slowly into the room, setting his mug on the desk. He reached out and gently wiped a tear from my cheek.

"Because you wouldn't have believed me, Elara. You were so consumed by grief, you needed a villain. I let you make me the villain so you wouldn't go looking for the real one and get yourself killed."

I stared at him, overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he had sacrificed for me. For my family.

"But you shouldn't have opened that file today, little hacker," Julian murmured, his gaze dropping to the computer screen.

"Why?" I whispered.

"Because that file is booby-trapped," Julian said, his voice hardening into steel. "The moment it was opened, it sent a ping to the external server my father built."

Before I could ask what he meant, the deafening screech of the penthouse alarm system shattered the silence of the room. Red emergency lights began strobing from the ceiling.

Julian grabbed my arm, pulling me hard against his chest as the sound of heavy boots echoed from the hallway outside.

"Victor's mole inside my security team just got notified that we accessed the blackmail file," Julian said, pulling his gun from the holster at his waist. "And he’s in the penthouse."