Reborn to Love Mr. Right – Episode 23
The gasoline odor reached Arianna before the alarm sounded. Hayden’s security officers ordered an immediate evacuation, moving students toward the east exits while teachers searched for the source. Panic spread when gray smoke poured from a ceiling vent. Lockers slammed and shoes scraped across the floor as orderly instructions dissolved into frightened instinct all around her at once.
Derek ran against the crowd toward the science wing. He shouted that a freshman was trapped in the chemistry storeroom, although no one had reported a missing student. His certainty revealed that he knew exactly where the fire would begin.
Arianna followed far enough to see him pull a terrified boy from behind a locked door. Cameras captured Derek carrying the student into the courtyard seconds before flames flashed inside the preparation room. The rescue looked heroic because he had arranged the audience as carefully as the danger. He even stumbled beneath the boy’s weight where the largest cluster of phones could record him from several flattering angles.
Firefighters contained the blaze before it consumed the hallway shown in the future photograph. The trophy case cracked from heat, and the copy of the engagement agreement Evelyn had donated to the school curled black behind the glass. The image had predicted the event accurately, but their intervention changed its scale.
Students cheered Derek while paramedics treated the freshman for smoke inhalation. Evelyn arrived beside a television crew with suspicious speed. She embraced Derek and praised his courage before anyone asked how she had learned about the fire. The reporters already carried prepared questions about whether the rescue proved the Taylors had persecuted an innocent student.
Arianna approached the rescued boy after his breathing steadied. He said a text from the principal had instructed him to collect chemistry supplies after class. When he entered, the door locked behind him and smoke began flowing through the vent.
The message came from the same cloned address used for Derek’s auditorium broadcast. Hayden’s investigators traced it to a disposable phone activated near Evelyn’s private airfield. The evidence pointed toward Derek, but nothing placed the phone in his hand.
Derek told reporters he had smelled gasoline and remembered seeing the freshman enter the wing. His explanation sounded plausible until Arianna asked why he had gone directly to a locked storeroom instead of warning a teacher. “Instinct,” he replied, enjoying the applause behind him.
In his first life, the school fire had occurred weeks later because Victor used it to destroy archived transportation contracts. Derek remembered the trapped student and the location of the flames. This time, he had moved the event forward to manufacture redemption. He had preserved the most dramatic victim while changing the reason the building burned.
Evelyn accused Arianna of resenting anyone who challenged her version of events. She announced that the Scott Foundation would pay the freshman’s medical costs and rebuild the science wing. The generosity bought headlines with the same ease Derek once bought admiration using Taylor money.
Ivy found Arianna behind the ambulance and returned the silver ring. A tiny memory card was hidden beneath its removable crest. Derek had carried it through North Road and protected it even while abandoning his phone.
The card contained Victor’s stolen repair-shop drive, including payments, forged inspections, and recordings of his meetings with Evelyn. Derek had taken the evidence to control her. By stealing it, Ivy had made herself dangerous to them both. Her hand trembled only after Arianna copied the files to an encrypted drive.
“I’m not doing this for you,” Ivy said. She wanted immunity for her role in deleting the gala presentation and lending Derek her access badge. Arianna refused to promise what only prosecutors could grant, but agreed to document Ivy’s cooperation.
One audio file captured Evelyn discussing the engagement forgery. Another recorded her ordering Victor to destroy the school archive after removing the North Road contracts. Neither mentioned the freshman or the accelerated fire.
Hayden listened beside Arianna, anger sharpening his stillness. Evelyn had used his mother’s signature and his family’s reputation to revive the network she built with Victor. Exposing her would fracture Scott Global, but concealing the truth would allow her to own it.
“She expects me to protect the family name,” he said. Arianna remembered how often she once protected Derek’s name while he destroyed hers. “A name survives the truth,” she replied. “Only a lie needs this much protection.”
Fire investigators found a delayed ignition strip beneath the ventilation fan. It had been installed before Derek entered the wing, allowing him to appear uninvolved when the blaze began. A partial fingerprint remained on its adhesive backing.
The print did not belong to Derek, Evelyn, or Ivy. It matched the rescued freshman, suggesting someone had tricked him into carrying the strip with the supplies. Derek had turned the child he endangered into the person most likely to be blamed.
The freshman’s mother nearly believed it until Ivy produced the message Derek sent her that morning. It instructed her to make sure “the kid uses the west entrance at 3:05.” Ivy had not understood the meaning, but the timestamp connected Derek to the setup.
Police moved toward Derek across the courtyard. Evelyn saw them coming and opened the rear door of her limousine. Derek abandoned the cheering students and jumped inside, but before the car escaped, he looked directly at Ivy and drew one finger across his throat.
