Chapter 33:The protector’s confession (Sienna)

My heart trooped as I waited for him talk

"She didn't need to connect to your uncle's servers to send him the files," Radek said softly. "This chip has been broadcasting her exact real-time location, every keystroke she’s typed, and every diagnostic scan she’s performed directly to Bronisław’s private desk in Kraków... since the day she packed her bags to come here."

The tiny black square on the exposed motherboard seemed to pulse under the glare of Radek’s penlight.

A hardware bug. Soldered directly into my machine.

My breath rattled in my throat as the cold reality swept over me. Every night I hunkered over this keyboard typing out detailed physical evaluations of Jaxson’s knee, mapping his joint range, recording the microscopic progress of his tissue recovery Bronisław had seen it all in real time.

He hadn't been waiting for me to send reports. He was harvesting them.

"It’s an active mirror," Radek said, his tone flat and unyielding as he pointed the steel tip of his prying tool at the micro-chip. "Every diagnostic scan you ran, every private note you made about Mr. Cole’s recovery timeline was duplicated and routed straight to Vance Sports Legacy servers. But here's the kicker, Miss Vance, it wasn't set up to just transmit data. It was configured to sign those outgoing files with your private cryptographic token."

My knees finally gave out. I stumbled backward, my thigh hitting the edge of the heavy leather armchair behind the desk.

"He set up the digital footprint," I whispered, and "He wanted my digital signature on those falsified disability papers... so when the leak went public, the IP address and the cryptographic proof would point straight to my machine."

"Exactly," Radek growled, snapping his penlight off. "If Mr. Cole’s career ended, you were the designated sacrifice. The disgraced therapist who sold out her star patient. Clean, legal, and impossible to disprove in court."

A heavy, suffocating weight settled over my chest. Bloodline. Legacy. Family. My entire life, my uncle had drilled into my head that the Vance name was something sacred, a heritage of excellence and medical integrity passed down from my parents. I had given up my social life, my youth, and my peace of mind to carry that name with pride.

And it was all a lie. I was never his protegee. I was never the future of the company. I was just a disposable pawn he had fattened up with prestige, waiting for the day he needed to slaughter me to save his own corporate skin.

A wave of nausea washed over me. I pressed my palm against my forehead, closing my eyes tight to force back the hot, bitter tears threatening to spill over.

"Sienna."

The voice wasn't harsh. It wasn't the arrogant, mocking tone of the league's top quarterback or the cold, demanding patient I had spent time wrestling with in the therapy suite. It was quiet, So close I could feel the heat radiating off his body before his skin even touched mine.

I opened my eyes. Jaxson had stepped around the desk. He didn't care about the red emergency strobe light flashing off the walls, nor did he look at Radek or the ruined laptop lying open on the mahogany wood.

He was staring directly down at me.

Slowly, deliberately, Jaxson dropped to one knee in front of my chair. The move was so sudden, so utterly uncharacteristic for a man whose physical pride was legendary, that my breath caught in my throat. He brought himself down to my eye level, eliminating every inch of distance between us.

His large, calloused hands came up, wrapping firm and warm over my freezing fingers where they rested in my lap. He didn't squeeze hard, but the steady pressure of his grip felt like an anchor dropped into a raging sea.

"Look at me, Sienna," he commanded softly.

I swallowed hard, looking into his eyes. In the dim, blood-red light, the sharp, arrogant edges of his face had melted away completely. All that was left was the real man, intense, fiercely protective, and looking at me as if I were the only thing in the room that mattered.

"You didn't do this," Jaxson said, his baritone voice low and steady, vibrating right through my palms. "You didn't betray anyone. He used your trust because he knew you were too honest to see a knife coming from your own blood."

"I brought the bug into your house, Jaxson," I choked out, a single hot tear finally sliding down my eyes . "I came here thinking I was saving your career... and I was leading him straight to your doorstep."

"You didn't lead him anywhere," Jaxson replied instantly, his thumbs brushing over the back of my hands. "Do you really think I let your uncle's corporate board push me around? Do you really believe a man like me gets forced into a contract buyout unless I want it to happen?"

I blinked,out of shock. "What... what are you talking about?" I asked.

Jaxson leaned in closer, his broad shoulders blocking out the rest of the dark room, his eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made my heart hammer wildly against my ribs.

"Three weeks before my knee blew out on the pitch," Jaxson murmured, his voice dropping into a dangerous, dark whisper, "Radek’s counter-intelligence team flagged a breach in the league's central medical registry. Someone was trying to alter my baseline physical records. The digital trail led straight back to your uncle’s private office in Kraków."

My heart stopped. "You knew?"

"I knew Bronisław was plotting something big," Jaxson admitted, his grip tightening subtly over mine. "I didn't know he was going to sabotage my brace on the field I gave him too much credit for human decency. But the moment my knee gave out and I was carried off the pitch, Radek intercepted an internal memo from Vance Sports Legacy. Your uncle was preparing an emergency executive order to revoke your medical license and place you under corporate house arrest in Kraków."

A cold shudder ran down my spine.

"He knew you wouldn't sign off on a fake disability report," Jaxson continued, "He knew your medical ethics were too clean. So he was going to lock you down, isolate you, and use that hardware chip to forge your signature while keeping you silent."

The pieces fell into place with a terrifying, violent clarity.

"So the contract buyout..." I whispered, my voice trembling. "The multi-million dollar leverage your family used... the demand that I relocate to your private estate in Zakopane..."

"It wasn't a corporate power move, Sienna," Jaxson whispered, stepping even closer, his chest almost pressing against mine as he held my gaze. "And it damn sure wasn't because I wanted an arrogant, stubborn Vance checking my vitals every morning."

He leaned in until his forehead gently rested against mine.

"I bought your contract to get you out of Kraków," Jaxson confessed softly, the raw truth of his words tearing through the silence like a blade. "I forced the buyout so Radek could put you under armed protection on my mountain. I trapped you here... to keep you safe from him."

A suffocating silence descended on the library, so he hadn't been testing my boundaries out of arrogance. He had been guarding my life.

Before I could open my mouth to speak, a deafening, metallic BANG echoed from the heavy iron gates at the lower perimeter of the estate.