Chapter 26: Accusations (Sienna)

Four armed guards stood stationed near the heavy oak doors, their tactical flashlights slicing through the dim emergency glow. In the center of the room, Radek paced like a caged predator, holding a glowing tablet in his gloved hand.

"Three minutes ago, the European stock exchanges logged a massive sell-off," Radek announced, his voice slicing through the quiet like a cold blade. He turned the tablet toward me, displaying a red line plunging off a digital cliff. "Vance Enterprises stock has plummeted twenty-four percent in pre-market trading. The board has convened an emergency vote of no confidence. And every major financial news network in Europe is running the exact same headline."

I stood my ground near the edge of the carved desk, my chest heaving beneath my knit sweater, my hands clenched into tight fists at my sides. Cold sweat pricked at my spine, but I refused to shrink back beneath Radek’s fierce gaze.

"I told you, someone remotely accessed my laptop!" I declared, my voice echoing with fierce, unbroken conviction through the cavernous study. "I watched the cursor move across my screen on its own! They bypassed the estate’s internal firewall, cloned my digital signature, and routed the packet through my terminal to frame me!"

"It’s a very convenient story, Doctor Mercer," Radek sneered, taking two heavy, deliberate steps into my space. "You are the only person on this property with unredacted access to his clinical data. You were brought into this house to evaluate his recovery, yet every time you conduct a session, a security breach immediately follows. You leaked these files to sabotage his standing, ruin his stock value, and put an end to his career."

"That is a lie!" I shouted, stepping directly toward Radek, looking him straight in the eyes without a single flicker of fear. "I have spent every waking hour in this place trying to protect his knee from his own stubbornness! I caught him when he fell in the gym! I spent hours in the hydrotherapy pool keeping his joint supported! I took an oath as a medical professional, and I have never—never—broken patient confidentiality! My honor and my integrity are not for sale, Radek!"

My words hung in the air, vibrating with pure, unadulterated truth.

Yet, as furious as I was with Radek, my heart was hammering violently for a completely different reason.

I slowly turned my head toward the shadows near the hearth.

Jaxson sat quietly on the edge of the high leather chair, his long legs planted firmly on the Persian rug, his dark cane resting between his knees. He hadn't said a single word since Radek’s team marched me into the room. He sat completely motionless, a towering force of nature enveloped in silence.

His sharp, handsome face was bathed in the pale firelight, his jaw set in a hard, unyielding line. But it was his eyes that locked onto mine—intense, piercing steel-blue eyes that seemed to cut straight through my skin, analyzing every subtle quiver of my lips, every ragged breath in my chest, every drop of sweat on my forehead.

He wasn't reacting with rage. He was observing me. He was measuring my emotional truth against the overwhelming digital evidence stacking up against me.

"Jaxson..." I whispered, my voice softening as I looked into those steel-blue eyes. The memory of our late-night conversation right here in this study flitted between us the way he had laced his fingers through mine, the raw vulnerability in his voice when he confessed his fear of losing everything. "You know me. You know I didn't do this. Please tell me you don't believe this."

Jaxson’s steel-blue gaze didn't waver. A heavy, suffocating silence stretched across the room, so taut it felt as though the slightest sound would snap it.

Radek tapped the tablet screen aggressively, breaking the spell. "It doesn't matter what she says, sir. The digital trail is absolute. The file was signed with her cryptographic key at 02:14 AM. But the real damage isn't just the stock crash it’s the contents of the document itself."

I frowned, my brows knitting together. "What do you mean? It was a standard biomechanical assessment of his patellar graft."

"No, it wasn't," Radek said coldly, scrolling down the document on his screen. "The file published online was altered. The perpetrator didn't just leak your progress notes. They inserted a fabricated diagnostic conclusion right above your digital stamp."

Radek read the sentence aloud, every word dropping like lead onto the floor:

"'Diagnostic Summary: Patient Jaxson Cole suffers from permanent, irreversible nerve damage in the right lower extremity, rendering full motor recovery permanently impossible.'"

My breath caught in my throat. "Jaxson Cole...?" I stammered, my mind stalling on the name before the terror of the medical claim slammed into me. "Permanent nerve damage?! I never wrote that! His femoral and peroneal nerves are completely intact! There is no permanent nerve damage!"

"It doesn't matter what the truth is, Doctor," Radek growled, his eyes dark with grim finality. "The market believes it. The board believes it. A diagnosis of irreversible nerve damage means Mr. Cole can never legally fulfill his duties as CEO under the corporate charter. You just handed Bronisław the entire company on a silver platter."

"It's a lie!" I screamed, turning frantically toward the man sitting by the fire. "Jaxson, it’s a fake document! Someone changed the text before transmitting it! You have to believe me!"

Slowly, Jaxson rose from his leather armchair.

He leaned heavily on his cane, standing at his full, towering height. His dark hair fell slightly over his forehead, and his steel-blue eyes burned with an unreadable, lethal intensity that made the entire room hold its breath.

He took three slow, deliberate steps toward me, the tip of his dark cane clicking against the floorboards with ominous precision. He stopped right in front of me, his shadow completely enveloping my frame.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small black satellite device, and held it out.

"Radek is right about one thing," Jaxson said, his voice dropping into a raspy, ice-cold register that sent a shudder straight down my spine. "The board just triggered the emergency clause. But they didn't just remove me."

He turned the screen toward me.

"They've dispatched federal marshals to this estate," Jaxson whispered, his steel-blue eyes locking onto mine with a terrifying finality. "And they aren't coming to arrest you, Sienna... they're coming with an asset seizure warrant for everything I own."