Alle Kapitel von THE BILLIONAIRE'S APPRENTICE BRIDE: Kapitel 21 – Kapitel 30

Marcus had people searching for the attorney by sunrise. Databases, old case files, every address tied to Meridian Holdings going back six years. Nothing solid yet. Just a name and a face caught in a dome light, gone before we could follow him anywhere."You should go in today," Damian said over breakfast, sliding a folder across the counter that had nothing to do with Evelyn for once. "The apprenticeship. You've missed three site reviews this month.""I've been a little busy.""I know. But if you disappear from your own program for too long, people start asking questions we don't want asked." He didn't look up from his coffee. "Besides, it might be good for you. A few hours where nobody's trying to hurt anyone."He wasn't wrong. I hadn't set foot in the actual lab in almost two weeks, and some small, stubborn part of me missed it—the version of my life where the biggest problem I had was a miscalibrated pressure gauge.The Cole Industries research floor looked exactly the way I remem

"Family law," I said, staring at the letterhead Marcus had pulled up. "That's oddly specific for a man hiding behind his wife's name.""It's specific because it's useful." Damian was already typing, pulling up something on his own laptop, his jaw set in the particular way that meant he'd found a thread and didn't like where it led. "Family law firms handle divorce settlements, custody agreements, and separation contracts. The kind of paperwork that comes with strict confidentiality built in as standard practice, not as something suspicious. Nobody questions a family lawyer for keeping secrets. It's the job.""So it's the perfect cover for drafting exit agreements nobody's supposed to talk about.""Exactly." He turned the screen toward me. A business registry, filed eleven years ago, the same year as the first arranged marriage he'd apparently never told me about in detail. "Voss & Associates has handled exactly four high-profile separation agreements in the last decade. All four clien

Marcus met us at the penthouse within the hour, his laptop already open, a name pulled up on the screen before either of us had taken off our coats."The payment went to an account under Gregory Aldin," he said. "Freelance consultant, no fixed office, works out of a rented storage unit downtown. Matches Sophia's description almost exactly. Mid-thirties, no last name volunteered, comfortable getting people to sign things they don't understand.""Can we find him?" I asked."We're trying. He's careful. Cash withdrawals, burner phones, no fixed address longer than a few months." Marcus rubbed the back of his neck. "That's not actually the part that's bothering me most."He turned the laptop toward us."The payment went out an hour after you left Sophia's apartment. That's not someone reacting to a report filed later that day. That's someone who knew in real time you'd been there. Which means either Sophia's building is being watched directly, or...""Or something's tracking us," Damian fi

Rosa went very quiet when we asked her about the missing folder."I remember it," she said finally, sitting down heavily at the kitchen table, like the weight of the memory needed somewhere to land. "Richard tried for years to reach that family. Every attempt was sent back unopened. I used to be the one who mailed them, actually. Every year, around the anniversary. I never understood why he kept trying long after it was clear nobody wanted his money.""Whose family?" I asked."Evelyn's." Rosa's hands twisted together in her lap, the same nervous habit I'd seen from her the night she first admitted the truth about the fire. "She had a younger sister. Claire. Worked the overnight shift at the plant to pay her way through nursing school. She was on the floor the night it happened."The room went still in a way that had nothing to do with the quiet apartment around us."Evelyn's sister died in that fire," I said slowly. "The same fire that killed my father.""Yes." Rosa's voice had gone t

I didn't cry until we got back to the penthouse.It came on slowly, sitting on the edge of the couch with my coat still on, the weight of what Evelyn had said finally catching up to me now that there was nowhere left to run from it. My father had tried. He'd written it down, put his name on it, done exactly what a good man does when he sees something wrong, and it had gotten him nothing except a folder that never left a drawer.Damian sat down beside me without saying anything, close enough that his shoulder pressed against mine, and let me cry without trying to fix it or explain it away. That felt like its own kind of gift, someone willing to sit inside the worst of it with me instead of rushing me toward being okay."He tried to save people," I said finally, my voice raw. "And it didn't matter. It didn't change anything.""It mattered," Damian said quietly. "It mattered to him. It mattered to the people he was trying to protect, even if the system failed all of you afterward. That's