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Home / Romance / Cruel Love Back in His Hands / Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

All Chapters of Cruel Love Back in His Hands : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

107 Chapters

Chapter 62

She called Marcus Webb on a Tuesday morning.She had found his name through a contact at a law firm she'd worked with two years ago on a contracts dispute. The contact had said, simply, that Marcus Webb was the person you called when you needed to understand something that someone else was working very hard to hide.He answered on the third ring. His voice was unhurried, like a man who had heard most things and was no longer surprised by them.She told him the outline. False harassment complaint. Fabricated text messages. Paid witnesses. A campaign that had been running for months. She kept it short and factual."And the person you think is coordinating it," he said. "You have a name?""A strong suspicion. No solid proof yet.""That's what you're hiring me for." A short pause. "Send me everything you have. The complaint documents, the witness names, the access logs you mentioned. I'll start on it tomorrow."She thanked him and hung up.Then she called George.She told him what she'd d

Chapter 63

Isabelle Gets InShe heard about it from Lucy first.Lucy appeared at her office door just before lunch, closed it behind her the way she'd started doing lately, and said, "Richard approved an outside consultant this morning. Without telling anyone on the team."Kristine looked up from her screen. "What kind of consultant?""Crisis management." Lucy sat down. "Nathan recommended her. Said with the George situation generating press noise, the company needed someone to manage the narrative before it spread further.""We don't have a narrative problem. George's consulting contract is suspended. That's internal.""I know." Lucy's voice was flat. "Richard didn't see it that way. Or Nathan convinced him not to." She paused. "Her name is Isabelle Vance. She's coming in this afternoon."Kristine had heard the name before. Just once, briefly, at Richard's birthday dinner two months ago when Nathan had arrived with a woman he introduced as someone he'd been seeing. She had barely registered it

Chapter 64

Marcus called on a Thursday.Kristine stepped out of a meeting to take it. She walked to the far end of the corridor, turned her back to the glass walls, and kept her voice low."Tell me," she said."The witnesses." He didn't waste time on a greeting. "Both of them were paid. I traced the money — it moved through two accounts before landing, but I have the full trail. Whoever paid them is sophisticated but not untouchable.""Where does the trail end?""A shell company. Registered in Oregon, listed as a dormant property holding entity. No active business on record, no physical address that checks out." A pause. "But it has a registered agent. A name on file as the legal point of contact."Kristine pressed her free hand against the wall. "Who?""That's what I'm still working on. The agent name is a woman. But here's where it gets complicated." He stopped just long enough that she felt it. "I need another twenty-four hours to confirm what I think I'm looking at. I don't want to give you

Chapter 65

The hospital's formal review panel met on a Wednesday.George had been through reviews before. Every doctor had. Incident reports, quality audits, the routine machinery of institutional oversight. He knew how to sit in those rooms and speak carefully and let the process move.This was different.He sat at the end of a long table across from five people whose job today was to decide whether he was who Claire said he was. His lawyer sat beside him. George had spent three evenings going through every document, every log, every contact record he could produce to place himself elsewhere on the dates Claire had named.He was prepared.What he wasn't prepared for was the chair that stayed empty.Dr. Reeves was supposed to be there. Nineteen years at the hospital. George had referred patients to him, attended his lectures, eaten lunch with him more times than he could count. Reeves had told George's lawyer two days ago that he was willing to appear as a character witness.He had sent a messag

Chapter 66

Nathan came to her office on a Friday afternoon.He knocked twice, which he never did. He stood in the doorway with his jacket open and his expression arranged into something that looked like he'd been thinking carefully before he arrived."Do you have five minutes?" he asked.She gestured to the chair.He sat. He placed his hands on his knees. He was doing the thing he did when he was preparing to be reasonable — the visible settling, the deliberate calm."I've been thinking about George," he said.She kept her face still. "What about him?""He's getting crushed." He said it plainly, like he was stating a weather condition. "Claire's complaint, the suspension, the witnesses — whoever is behind this has resources and he's going up against it with just one private lawyer." He paused. "I want to help."She said nothing."Caldwell Technologies has an entire legal division," he said. "We work with some of the sharpest employment and litigation lawyers in the city. I want to make them avai

Chapter 67

Stop Protecting MeThey stared at the phone for a long moment.George picked it up. He read the message twice. Then he set it face-down on the table."Don't call it," he said.Kristine looked at him. "Why not?""Because we don't know who C is. Because it could be a trap. Because if someone connected to Nathan or Claire is trying to pull us off course right now, this is exactly how they'd do it." He moved to the window again, arms folded. "We have eleven days and Marcus is already close. We don't need an unknown variable.""Or it's someone on the inside who wants out," she said. "Someone who has information we don't have yet.""Or it's bait.""It could be both." She stood. "George, we can't just ignore it.""I'm not ignoring it. I'm telling you to wait."She felt the familiar pressure of it — the wall he built around decisions when he thought the territory was too dangerous for her to enter. She had felt it before. She'd said nothing before.She didn't say nothing this time."You do th

Chapter 68

She woke before he did.The apartment was grey and quiet, early light coming through the gap in the curtains. She lay still for a moment and listened to him breathe.Then she felt it — the faint tremor in his chest. The kind that happens when someone is holding something very still so it doesn't break.She turned her head.His eyes were open. He was staring at the ceiling. And the expression on his face was not the careful, composed version of George she knew from meetings and lawyers and review panels. It was something stripped back and unguarded, the face underneath all of it, and it stopped her."Hey," she said softly.He didn't answer right away.Then: "I keep thinking about what happens if we lose."She didn't tell him they wouldn't. She didn't reach for something reassuring. She just waited."Not the case," he said. "Not the hospital. I mean—" He stopped. Started again. "I keep thinking about what happens if all of this — the investigation, Nathan, the board — if it goes the wro

Chapter 69

Marcus called at eleven in the morning.Kristine was in a meeting. She felt her phone vibrate three times in her pocket — his name, his name again, then a text that said: Out. Now. Urgent.She excused herself.She was in the corridor with the door barely closed behind her before she answered."I have it," Marcus said.She pressed her back against the wall. "Have what?""The footage." His voice was controlled but she could hear something underneath it — the careful energy of a man who had been looking for something for weeks and had just found it. "Hospital security system. The server from the floor where George's office is located. The archive goes back four months.""How did you get access?""I have a contact in the building's facilities management. Someone who owes me a long favour and who is not connected to Nathan Caldwell in any way." A pause. "Kristine. Claire was in George's office alone. I have her on camera."She closed her eyes for one second."Tell me exactly what it shows,

Chapter 70

She saw it on her phone at six forty-five the next morning.She was still in bed, half awake, when the notification came through from a local news app she barely used. She almost ignored it. She turned the screen over, read the headline, and sat up.Top Seattle Gynecologist Accused of Harassment by Colleague.His name. His photo. The one from the hospital website where he was standing in his white coat looking directly at the camera. They had used the professional one, which was somehow worse — it made it look official, verified, factual.She read the article in under two minutes.It had everything. The complaint, the suspension, Claire's account of events, two unnamed sources from inside the hospital confirming the investigation was serious. The language was careful — alleged, accused, under review — but the framing was not careful at all. The framing said guilty.She called George.He picked up on the first ring. He was already awake."I've seen it," he said."How long has it been u

Chapter 71

Richard's office smelled like coffee and tension.He was standing when she walked in, which he only did when he didn't trust himself to sit still. He gestured toward the chair across from his desk and she took it."Close the door," he said.She closed it.He sat down. He looked at her the way he had since she was a child — the particular look that meant he was trying to figure out how much of the truth to share and how much to hold back to protect her. She had always found it comforting. Right now it felt like one more thing she didn't have time for."The article is a problem," he said."I know.""The board is calling me." He rubbed the side of his face. "Three members so far this morning. They want a statement about the company's association with George. They want distance.""There is no association. George's contract is already suspended.""His personal relationship with you is the association they're concerned about." He held her gaze. "Kristine, I believe you. I believe George is

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