บททั้งหมดของ Playing The Billionaire's Revenge Queen : บทที่ 41 - บทที่ 50

Gerald's POV,The box arrived at midnight. A courier left it on my doorstep without knocking, then disappeared before I could get to the door.There was no note or name on it. There never was. The insider always worked through other people, sending things in plain brown paper packages that left no trace of who'd delivered them.I carried it into the study, poured myself a scotch I had no intention of drinking, and cut the tape.Inside were old files, soft with age, stamped ‘LAMBERT, R., LEGACY, SEALED.’ I almost laughed. Emilia's father, in my hands, after all the trouble he'd given me.My lawyers had gotten me out of that police station in four hours. “Pending investigation,” they'd said, like it was a minor inconvenience. I'd still spent every day since checking my rearview mirror. But tonight, with the box open on my desk, I felt something I hadn't felt in weeks.Leverage.I flipped through the pages. Research rosters. Data validation reports. A program called Meridian, and Lamber

Emilia's POV,Brody didn't say a word until we were three blocks from the greenhouse."Not the penthouse," he told the driver. "Take the long way. Watch every mirror."His phone was at his ear before I could breathe. Twenty minutes later, Thomas's team called back from the second-floor room across the street."Empty, sir. No equipment, nothing left behind."Brody hung up and stared out the window, his jaw locked. "Security doubles tonight. You don't go anywhere without Thomas's men.""Brody...""I'll find out who it was." His voice was flat and final. "Let me handle that part."I let him. Some fights you pick, and some you save. I had one of my own waiting.××××The offer came three days later from an investment group called Halcyon Ridge.Five million dollars for a medical-data tool I'd been sketching in a notebook beside my father's hospital bed. It was a system that would let patients see every change made to their medical records and who had made it.The idea had come to me after

Brody's POV,"You," I said.That was the whole answer. She'd asked what I was looking at, and I'd run out of ways to dress it up.Emilia stared at me, cheeks pink, then laughed, tired and helpless, and threw a sticky note at my chest."Go home, Callahan.""Only if you come with me.""Ten more minutes."It was forty. I sat in a folding chair too small for me and watched her finish a contract, and I never once checked my phone.××××Thomas called at 3:12 a.m.I took it in the hallway, barefoot, Emilia asleep behind the bedroom door."Sir, one of our people picked up something on a courier line. Someone working for Gerald has been asking for Mr. Lambert's room number and which floor he's on. He didn't go through the main desk. He got in touch with someone who has access to the direct extension."My stomach tightened. "Who gave it to him?""We don't know yet.""How long before he gets there?""Twelve hours if he's careful. Two if he isn't.”I ran through the possibilities the way I would

Brody's POV,By 8:40, five directors had called my lawyers. By 8:55, two had gone straight to the press.Not one of them had called me.That told me everything."They're going to push for your removal," Thomas said, keeping pace with me down the executive corridor. "They'll appoint an interim CEO and argue that you're a liability.”"Let them say it.""Sir, you're walking in with no votes.""I'm walking in with their bank statements."I'd spent four hours in the car going through everything I knew. The directors who'd stopped returning my calls two months ago. The ones who'd suddenly started having lunch at the same restaurant. I'd noticed the pattern before, but I'd kept looking for another explanation. That ended the night Pryce's name appeared in a stolen login.The boardroom doors opened.Twelve chairs surrounded the long glass table. Eleven were occupied. Beyond the windows, the city stretched across the skyline, bright and indifferent.Not one of them looked at me.Harold Voss, t

Emilia's POV,I held it together for six hours.I got through Detective Alvarez's questions. I watched Thomas's team search the penthouse twice, checking every room, every window, every possible way someone could get inside. I even called my father and told him, "I'm fine, Dad," in a voice so cheerful I barely recognized it myself.I kept it together in the elevator, all the way down the hallway, and while Brody locked the door behind us and went around checking the windows again.Then he turned to me."Emilia."And suddenly, I couldn't do it anymore.My knees buckled before I could reach the sofa. I sank onto the hallway floor, still wearing my work clothes, and covered my face with both hands. The sob that came out of me was so raw it startled me. I tried to swallow it, tried to stop it before another followed, but my chest was already heaving."I'm sorry," I managed. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm..."“Don't apologize.”He lowered himself onto the floor beside me, and I waited fo