All Chapters of Her Father’s Billionaire Best Friend : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

“Who would put that there?” I asked, because asking felt like scooping at a wound. “Someone who wants you to look guilty,” Adrian said quietly. “Someone who wants to fracture trust inside the family. Politically, emotionally—this is the kind of line that ruins reputations, and reputations are currency.” Marcus’s hand tightened on my wrist until the pain was a white hot bell. He looked like a man learning his whole life had been a chessboard he hadn’t fully understood. “We prove where it came from,” he said. “We get Tom to clear his name. We show the chain.” “But Tom signed it,” I said. The words felt like acid. “If he did—” “Maybe he did sign a document once to get the business through a crisis,” Elena interrupted, voice a cold saw. “But that note—’deploy distraction’—that could have been added afterward. Someone could have edited a memo, or used his authorization as a cover. We can’t assume intent yet. But we have to treat it as if someone used his authority.” We walked out of t

We moved, then, into the sterile business of truth—calls placed, counsel summoned, legal pads filled with the kind of language that tries to make chaos digestible. Marcus stood back for a moment, hands tucked into his pockets like a man trying to tamp down a rising tide. When he stepped forward to speak, his voice had the authority of someone who’d been carved out of tougher things. “We can’t argue sentiment in a court of public opinion,” he said with calm ferocity. “We need raw provenance. We need stamp logs, file metadata, the original chain of custody for every document. We need to show edits, not just present the product. If someone doctored the memo after the fact, we show the origin. If a stamp was applied, we show who applied it and when.” Tom nodded, relief like a film over his face at being offered a plan that made sense. “Do what you must,” he said. “This house, this firm—if they want blood, they will get it. But if there is a single honest way to prove my intent, we will

The hospital corridor smelled like bleach and regret. It’s astonishing how a place that saves lives can feel so full of endings. We sat in a small visitors’ room the police provided—stiff chairs, a water cooler that coughed, a vase with wilting flowers someone had thought would comfort the bereaved. I kept watching the clock as if it could speed time forward to a point where answers came and pain lightened, which was an absurd and childish hope. Marcus held my hand the whole time. When he wasn’t on a phone call with a lawyer or with Adrian, his thumb stroked the back of my hand in a slow rhythm that made it feel like a pulse in the room: mine, his, the world’s. He’d been a shield all week; now his eyes were raw with purpose. He looked like a man who’d decided he would not be surprised into paralysis. “You shouldn’t have to be here,” he said softly, when the room was quiet. “I’m sorry.” “You shouldn’t be sorry,” I said. “We should be angry.” He smiled a little, the tightness around

“—if Claire becomes an exposure risk—” The phrase landed like a punch. It had been written into a memo, and here it was again in the dark like someone practicing a spell. Adrian’s face went white. “This is deliberate,” he said. “They repeat the phrase to seed the idea.” My hand knew Marcus’s like it had a separate mind—squeezing, squeezing until it hurt. The repetition of those words felt like proof that this had been orchestrated in multiple venues, laid like a net to catch us. “Who records themselves saying their own murder plan?” I murmured, because saying it aloud made it smaller and thus more manageable. “Not murder,” Adrian said. “Narrative. The plan was to make Claire a lever. The recordings, the memos, the photos—they all point to a carefully designed operation that leverages both public sentiment and private trust.” The night had long ago turned to an indistinguishable purple. We were tired and raw, and yet each new piece of evidence felt like a weapon we could brandish

The note of fear made his words tender. He sounded sincere—no practiced villainy in his tone. “I’m sorry, Claire, honestly,” he said finally. “I never wanted you hurt. I thought if I gave a little, I could stop a lot. I was wrong. Find the transfers. Look for MK-77. If they try to pin things on your father, know that the original was clean. They doctored it after. I don’t have much time, so I’m leaving this here. Forgive me if I failed you.” The recorder clicked off with a last, tiny hiss that felt like a heart shutting. I remember the way silence landed after that audio, a physical thing that filled the little hollow bank room. Elena’s lips trembled; she looked like someone who’d been thrown out of a small lie and found not redemption but a deeper truth. Marcus’s hands tightened on the folder until I felt the cords at my wrist. “Cyril Vance,” I repeated, tasting the name. It fit into a pattern we’d seen—Adrian’s lead on a security contractor, the rental sedan, the blunt instrumen