Lahat ng Kabanata ng Her Father’s Billionaire Best Friend : Kabanata 51 - Kabanata 60

We left Cyril on a bench with a trash bin rolling like a small sun; the scene played in my head later like a frame I couldn’t get out of my skull. The important thing was what came after: the forensics on his drives and the trail we needed to follow. We had a man in custody and enough breadcrumbs to justify a thousand questions. At the station, Detective Moreno let us sit in a cramped room where the light buzzed low and honest. Cyril’s mouth had been shut with the formalities of the process, but Adrian had already started pressing into the drives. Juliette and a tech volunteered to run parallel traces. The legal team had wrapped a warrant like a paper umbrella over the whole thing. It felt like a small miracle—facts now had shoulders. “Start with the payment trail,” Marcus said. “Follow the MK-77 chain. Find the consulting firm that laundered the hotel receipts. Who’s taking the money and who’s wiring it out?” Adrian nodded and tapped away like someone making a dam out of code. “I’

They called it a turning point. In practice it felt like a pressure cooker being opened—hot steam blasting the room until the air tasted metallic. Cyril’s immunity deal arrived like a small bomb on our timeline: the prosecutor wanted his testimony and in exchange promised leniency. He gave names, rough outlines, and what he called “operational color.” It was everything we needed and nothing we wanted. We were at the penthouse when the call came. Adrian’s voice was clipped, the kind of voice that moves between people like a scalpel. “Cyril will testify. He’s cooperating. He’s given us a name—an intermediary who handled the consultant payments and signed off on the operational briefings. The name is Lionel Barnes.” The name landed like a stone. Lionel Barnes—board-feeder, consulting umbrella, the kind of man who moved in dinners and donations and handshake politics. I’d seen his face in press photographs, smiling at openings with Tom, a man who looked like he belonged in a board phot

And yet I slept with Marcus beside me, proud and dangerous, his breath a steady rhythm that made me brave for the work ahead. The war had turned in small but meaningful ways, and our choices had a cost that we’d accepted. We were no longer just lovers in a scandal; we were players in a chessboard where people’s lives were the pieces. At 2:13 a.m., my phone buzzed with an anonymous text: Good move. But don’t get attached. The house learns fast. —A I rolled over, his palm warm at the small of my back, and felt the shape of the next moves forming like a secret handshake in the dark. We were committed now—publicly, dangerously, irrevocably. We would follow Barnes and then the line beyond him, and if the person at the top had expected our panic, they’d find instead something else: a woman who would not be used as a wedge, and a man who was willing to fall to keep her whole. The morning the subpoenas hit felt like a held breath finally released — but instead of relief there was a thousan

“You spoke of contingency as cost,” the lawyer said. “Is it not true that you discuss the cost of reputation in the boardroom?” “Yes,” Marcus answered, voice steady and without flourish. “But cost analysis is not moral calculus. We discuss outcomes to make the right decisions. That does not mean I would ever use a person—especially someone I love—as a tool in a smear campaign. I will answer questions about strategy; I will not accept the premise that strategy is the same as cruelty.” People leaned forward. The room felt close enough to touch. After the deposition, cameras swarmed. Marcus came out with an expression drained but resolute. Reporters shouted, someone asked about our relationship like it was currency to be traded. I felt the old ache of exposure. But also I felt a fierce pride that this man had put his voice in front of the lie and let the truth get bruised but real. That night, when we came back to the penthouse, we were weary and raw. The deposition had been a win i

We left the courthouse with a cautious optimism. The ledger’s edits had been shown; the audio clips had been admitted; Cyril had fingered infrastructures that traced up toward Barnes; Elena’s testimony added color to an operation that had been tonal and cold before. The pieces were falling into place like the slow reveal in a puzzle. People cheered us in the street and then—they also hissed. Headlines splintered into versions of the truth that suited someone’s loyalty or angle. I learned that the court of public opinion is a circus that will eat whatever you feed it; the only way to manage that beast is to feed it steady, verified things until it tires. That night—after the press fatigue had settled and the CNN pundits had turned to their next feast—Marcus took me by the hand and led me to a tiny, private room at the back of the law firm where Adrian had a reserved, little office for sealing testimony and prayers. He closed the door and motioned me toward a couch. The world outside