All Chapters of My Sister's Fiance: Chapter 161 - Chapter 170

“Relax,” Zach said quietly.“I am relaxed.”“You’re thinking of three ways to kill public attention.”“Four. Don’t underestimate me.”His smile appeared again. “Never.”I unbuckled my seat belt. “We get out, walk them to the gate, talk to Ms. Harper if we need to, then leave. No drama.”“I want a dramatic goodbye,” Issa said.“No.”“I need a hug with emotion.”“You’ll get a normal hug.”“A normal hug has no storyline.”Max sighed. “I want to go in fast. I want to tell Leo my Daddy is real.”Issa immediately turned sharply toward him. “Don’t tell Leo.”Max smiled. “Why?” he asked so sweetly even the devil might have felt threatened. “Are you embarrassed for Leo to know you have a Daddy Shiny?”Issa’s face immediately went red. “I don’t care about Leo!”“You like Leo.”“I do not!”“You said Leo’s hair is fluffy.”“That was an observation!”I looked at Zach.His face shifted slightly, his jaw tightening half an inch, his blue eyes suddenly focusing through the rearview mirror on our four

“Espresso machine,” Zach repeated, like he’d just discovered that a world war could start over an Italian kitchen appliance.I finally looked at him. “Don’t pretend that isn’t your emotional weakness.”“I’m Italian, Bella.”“You’re a rich man with a coffee machine that has more features than my first car. That’s a disease.”His smile appeared slowly. Behind us, the preschool doors had already closed. Max and Issa had disappeared inside that little building with their backpacks, their hair, their social announcements, and probably one complete story about Daddy Shiny that would spread faster than winter flu.I took a breath.Okay.One disaster down.All the others to go.Zach opened the passenger door for me, too calm, too polite, too aware that several mothers near the drop-off lane were still trying to look without looking.“Don’t act like a gentleman. I don’t need more rumors.”“Rumors?” He glanced briefly toward the other parents, then back at me. “You just showed up with two child

The twenty-first-floor hallway split in two directions. To the right, Zach’s executive office suite sat behind frosted glass and dark walnut doors, at the end of a corridor that felt like it had its own tax bracket.To the left was the large conference room that had already been turned into my team’s war room: long table, extra monitors, neatly arranged cables thanks to Tania, glass boards covered in mapping, colored sticky notes, and one bowl of donuts that definitely hadn’t been provided by Northlake because they looked too human.I spotted Tania inside, standing near the large screen in a cream blazer with the expression of someone who had already discovered technical stupidity and required witnesses. Arun sat at the end of the table in a dark hoodie, laptop open, wearing the face of a developer who was three error logs away from abandoning society. Jemima held two tablets. Omar was pointing at a firewall diagram with Levi, who looked like he was considering early retirement.That

I walked over to him.On the screen, a list of my team’s active sessions appeared. I saw my name. Tania. Arun. Omar. Jemima. Levi. Claire had one legal review session. Read-only token. Normal.Then one line flickered.ADMIN_OVERRIDE_VIEW.No username.No device label.Just source: internal privileged console.I stared at it.Tania looked at me.Neither of us said anything for two seconds, and somehow, two seconds was enough to turn the air in the room to glass.“Someone’s watching us?” Jemima asked, her voice quieter than usual.Arun started typing fast, trying to refresh the panel. “Could be a monitoring service.”“Monitoring services have names,” Tania said.“Northlake might not give us—”“Don’t give them the benefit of a positive imagination. They’re not paying us enough for that,” I cut in.Arun opened the session details.Blank.Too blank.Tania bent over her laptop, her butter-yellow nails moving quickly across the keyboard. “That’s not a normal user. There’s no endpoint fingerp

I looked at Tania.“I’m just documenting operational chemistry.” She didn’t lift her eyes from the iPad.“I’m going to document your unemployment.”“Noted.”Zach moved closer, not to me exactly, but to the board. I knew. The distance between us shifted just enough for the air around my skin to notice.“If privileged access still sits above acquisition control, then there’s a pathway that was never handed over.” He read what I’d written on the board.“Yeah.”“Or someone deliberately handed over a fake one.”I looked at the red line on the diagram. “Yeah.”“And whoever it is knows your team started pulling the thread.”“They know because they’re watching.”“Can they see the school schedule?”I went still. Slowly, I turned toward him. “Directly through Northlake? They shouldn’t be able to.”“They shouldn’t,” Zach repeated.I hated the taste of those words in his mouth.“If they queried the building operations cache, that only gives them Northlake,” Arun said. “Badges, visitors, meeting