Semua Bab In Bed With The Billionaire Boss: Bab 21 - Bab 30

LUCIEN POV The heavy double doors of my office didn't just open; they were pushed aside with the weight of federal authority. Six agents in tactical vests entered the room, their boots loud against the minimalist gray carpet. The bright, pulsing blue light from the corridor cut through the dim, amber emergency glow of my suite, casting long, frantic shadows across the glass desk. I didn't move. I kept my left hand resting lightly on the small of Athena’s back, feeling the rapid, rhythmic rise and fall of her breathing. She was tense, her shoulders straight and rigid, but she didn't step away from me. When I first brought her into my world a week ago, I saw her as an elite instrument—a brilliant, vengeful developer who could help me excise the rot Marcus had brought into the Laurent name. I had designed our fake engagement contract to be entirely transactional, a calculated play to draw out the Harringtons and force my step-brother into a corner. I expected her to be passive, to

ATHENA POV Russo’s voice cut through the freezing air of the office, making my heart drop straight into my stomach. The basement level. Someone was already moving toward the archives while Lucien and I were standing here arguing about secrets from five years ago. I looked at Lucien. The corporate wall he had built up a second ago cracked, replaced by a sharp, lethal focus. He didn't look at Russo; his eyes were fixed on me, calculating our next move in a fraction of a second. "How many?" Lucien asked, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous register. "Two signatures on the biometric bypass, sir," Russo said, tapping his earpiece. "But the camera feed was spiked right before the gate opened. We’re blind on the lower lift." "It’s Arthur," I said, the realization hitting me before anyone else could speak. I grabbed my silver tablet from the desk, my fingers tightening against the aluminum casing. "He didn't run when the federal teams showed up. He knew the moment Chloe’s server

ATHENA POV The braided cable clicked into the main display console. For a second, nothing happened. The giant monitor on the wall stayed pitch black, reflecting the cold, fluorescent tubes overhead and the tense, quiet way Lucien was standing right behind my shoulder. Then, the system hummed. The dark glass flared into life, throwing a sharp, bright blue light across the concrete walls of the vault. A.M. - Private Archive 2019. My thumb hovered over the tablet interface. I could feel my own pulse vibrating against the edges of the screen. This was it. The exact point where my childhood memories of my dad—sitting at our cramped kitchen table with cold coffee, telling me his software would change the world—clashed with the reality of billionaire boardrooms and offshore trusts. I tapped the screen. The main folder branched out into three distinct sub-directories. They weren't complex code bases or encrypted algorithms like the ones I had just destroyed upstairs. They were simple,

ATHENA POVThe small video window of my dad’s face was gone, but his voice still echoed in the dark space of my mind. Athena is the only master node. He hadn't just left me a legacy; he had practically turned my entire digital footprint into a dead man's switch. If the Laurent trust executors or whatever was left of the Harringtons tried to launch the software without my explicit permission, the entire multi-billion-dollar architecture would become public property. It would be free for anyone on the internet to download, copy, and modify.For a corporate giant like Laurent Holdings, that was a fate worse than destruction. You can't monetize a product that everyone owns for free.The heavy, mechanical scraping sound from the other side of the steel door grew louder, a grating screech of metal against metal that vibrated straight through the soles of my shoes. Someone out there was using heavy equipment. They weren't trying to hack the electronic lock anymore; they were physically cutti

ATHENA POV My fingers slipped on the greasy metal of the elevator roof. For a terrifying second, my boots dangled in the empty air of the shaft, the dark void below yawning like an open mouth. Then, Lucien’s hand closed around my wrist. His grip was incredibly tight, almost painful, but it was the only thing keeping me from falling back down into the smoke. With one powerful, fluid pull, he hoisted me up onto the flat, dusty top of the elevator cabin. I scrambled onto my knees, my breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps as I tucked my tablet tightly against my ribs. Lucien climbed up right behind me, his boots landing with a dull, heavy clonk on the hollow metal roof. He didn't waste a second. He crouched low, his dark eyes scanning the concrete walls of the shaft above us. The only light came from the narrow gap between the elevator door and the concrete floor of the garage level, about four feet above our heads. I looked down at his left hand. The wet, dark smear of blood on his