Reborn to Love Mr. Right – Episode 26
The wedding photograph remained on Arianna’s phone long after police removed Derek and Evelyn from the ballroom. White flowers surrounded her future self, and Hayden stood beside her with unmistakable love in his eyes. Yet Donald’s empty chair turned every sign of happiness into a threat.
“You saved him once. Choose again.” The message implied that fate kept an account and demanded payment whenever Arianna changed it. She refused to believe a photograph possessed more authority than the living people around her, but fear had already found the memory of her father’s funeral.
Donald studied the image with less alarm than she expected. He observed that the wedding date was hidden, the black ribbon could signify several kinds of loss, and no photograph proved how events arrived there. “A warning is information,” he said. “It is not an order.” His composure did not erase the concern in his eyes, but it prevented fear from becoming the first decision they made.
Hayden agreed, though his hand remained around Arianna’s. He asked the digital team to inspect the file while Donald’s doctors arranged a complete examination. Every meal, medication, vehicle, and appointment would be reviewed until they understood the danger. No ordinary routine could remain unquestioned after the future had marked Donald’s chair.
Ivy gave her formal statement before leaving under police protection with her mother. She did not ask Arianna for forgiveness. Instead, she promised to testify about the fire, the stolen cards, and Derek’s threats even if prosecutors offered no immunity.
Derek demanded to speak with Arianna from custody. His attorney claimed he possessed information about Donald’s death that could prevent an imminent attack. In exchange, he wanted the kidnapping and arson charges reduced. He had transformed another person’s survival into currency before the handcuffs had cooled around his wrists.
Arianna refused the bargain, but she agreed to hear a monitored statement with Hayden and detectives present. Derek entered the interview room in handcuffs, carrying himself as though the restraints belonged to someone else. “You saw the chair,” he said before she sat down.
He described Donald’s death in the first future as a sudden heart attack during a Taylor Industries board meeting. Arianna remembered receiving that call while traveling with Derek. By the time she reached the hospital, her father was gone and Derek was already speaking to the company’s attorneys. She had mistaken his efficiency for support when he had merely arrived early to divide the spoils.
“He wasn’t sick,” Derek said. “Victor arranged the diagnosis after it happened.” A rare industrial compound had produced symptoms nearly identical to cardiac failure, then broken down before ordinary toxicology tests detected it.
Hayden asked for the compound’s name. Derek smiled and requested a signed agreement first. Arianna recognized the familiar pleasure he took in making another person’s life depend on his generosity.
“Then keep your secret,” she said, rising. “Victor’s files will tell us what you know.” Derek’s confidence cracked when she reached the door. He had expected terror to make her surrender control.
“Compound S-47,” he called after her. The substance had been developed to clean corrosion from deep-well equipment at a Scott Global research facility. Evelyn had supplied it to Victor years before Donald’s death. Derek offered the truth only when withholding it stopped giving him power.
Hayden knew the facility. His mother had ordered it closed after an employee suffered unexplained heart damage, but Evelyn preserved a private laboratory beneath another corporate name. The site remained active outside the city.
Donald’s physician reported no sign of poisoning, yet a blood panel showed an irregular enzyme level that had not appeared during his last physical. It could be harmless, or it could represent early exposure to S-47. A specialized test would require a sample from the original laboratory. Until then, every reassuring heartbeat carried the possibility of damage they could not see.
Security searched the mansion and Taylor offices. No chemical container appeared, but Donald’s daily vitamin capsules showed tiny punctures near their seams. Someone had opened and resealed them without disturbing the bottle.
Only four people had handled the latest delivery: Donald, his housekeeper, his physician, and Martin Shaw, the Taylor family attorney who brought the package from the pharmacy during the gala investigation. Martin had served Donald for nineteen years and prepared every document protecting Arianna’s inheritance. His access had always looked like loyalty because no one had imagined needing protection from the man who wrote their protections.
Arianna remembered Martin from the first future. After Donald died, he had urged her to give Derek temporary voting authority so she could grieve without corporate pressure. That temporary signature had become the first legal step in losing Taylor Industries.
Donald ordered Martin located, but his office was empty and his phone disconnected. A resignation letter waited on his desk, dated the morning Evelyn returned. It thanked Donald for years of trust without explaining why he had betrayed it.
An alarm sounded from the mansion kitchen. Donald, who had insisted on finishing a late breakfast despite the investigation, dropped his coffee cup and gripped the edge of the table. His face went gray as his knees collapsed beneath him.
Arianna reached him before he struck the floor. The wedding photograph refreshed on her phone, and the black ribbon spread across Donald’s empty chair like fresh ink. Beneath it, a countdown appeared: “Six hours until the future corrects itself.”
