Reborn to Love Mr. Right – Episode 29
Donald survived the procedure, but the altered wedding photograph gave Arianna no relief. His chair was occupied now, his future face warm with pride, while Hayden had become a pale outline beside her. Saving one life appeared to have moved the warning to another. The beautiful ceremony now resembled a scale that refused to hold both men at once.
Hayden refused to treat the image as a death sentence. He reminded her that the black ribbon had disappeared because they acted on evidence rather than surrendering to fear. Whatever threatened him could also be discovered.
Donald remained unconscious but stable. Doctors expected a gradual recovery if no second exposure occurred. Arianna stationed independent security inside his room and allowed only sealed medication from the hospital pharmacy.
Martin surrendered to police after arranging protection for Claire. His testimony connected Evelyn to the poisoning, the laboratory purge, and the attempt to falsify Donald’s death. He accepted that saving his daughter could not erase what he had done to another father.
Taylor Industries faced a different emergency. News of Donald’s collapse triggered an automatic board provision transferring temporary authority to the company’s senior directors. Several had once supported Victor and now demanded an immediate sale of Taylor’s transportation division to a Scott shell company. They called the timing unfortunate while circulating documents prepared long before the poisoning became public.
Arianna recognized the transaction. In the first future, Derek used the same sale to move Taylor assets beyond her control during the week after Donald’s funeral. The poisoning had failed, but the corporate theft continued on schedule.
As Donald’s proxy, Arianna entered the boardroom carrying his voting authorization. Directors twice her age questioned whether a high school student understood the agreement. She answered by identifying every hidden subsidiary the sale would transfer. Their amusement faded when she quoted the debt guarantees buried on page eighty-seven.
Hayden attended without representing Scott Global. Evelyn’s allies accused him of helping the Taylors manipulate his family, but he disclosed his mother’s trust and the laboratory records. The shell company belonged to Evelyn, not Scott shareholders. His refusal to hide the scandal protected the company more honestly than their carefully rehearsed denials.
One director, Leonard Graves, insisted the sale was necessary to protect employees from scandal. Arianna remembered him standing beside Derek after Donald died, advising her that resistance would frighten investors. He had been part of Victor’s network all along. His concern for workers had never survived any decision that threatened his private profit.
She presented Victor’s ledger and Martin’s testimony. Leonard dismissed both as statements from criminals seeking favorable treatment. Then he called for a vote before police could complete their financial trace.
Arianna requested a ten-minute recess and contacted Ivy. The future cloud account contained photographs from the day Taylor Industries fell, including one image of Derek celebrating with the directors who supported him. Leonard appeared in the background holding a signed sale agreement. The victory on his face belonged to a future he still believed no one else could see.
The photograph itself could not serve as legal evidence, but it showed Arianna where to search. A distinctive blue folder beneath Leonard’s hand bore the code of Taylor’s offshore compliance archive. That archive existed now, though no honest sale required it. Once again, the future gave her a direction rather than proof she could simply place before a court.
Donald’s internal auditor accessed the file. It contained predated resignation letters for loyal directors and payments promised to everyone voting in favor of the transaction. Leonard had prepared the takeover before Donald collapsed.
When the meeting resumed, Arianna displayed the documents on the boardroom screens. Two directors withdrew their support immediately. Leonard tried to delete the archive remotely, unaware that Hayden’s security team had mirrored it.
The sale failed by one vote. Police entered as Leonard attempted to leave and arrested him for conspiracy and bribery. Arianna remained in her father’s chair until every document was secured, refusing to let exhaustion appear before the doors closed. Only then did she allow herself to feel how close Taylor Industries had come to vanishing through signatures instead of violence.
Hayden found her alone afterward, pressing both hands against the table to stop them trembling. He did not tell her to be strong. He brought water, sat beside her, and waited until she could breathe without counting.
Arianna showed him the fading wedding image. “The warning changed when my father lived,” she said. “What if saving him moved the danger to you?” Hayden answered that love was not a ledger balancing bodies. He would not let an unexplained photograph teach her that happiness required choosing which person deserved to survive.
He asked her to promise they would not sacrifice one person merely to preserve another photograph. Arianna understood that protecting Hayden by pushing him away would repeat the control she had rejected in Derek. She promised they would investigate together.
At the detention center, officers prepared to transfer Derek after discovering tampering with the surveillance system. The transport route changed three times, but Derek knew the final route because it matched a prison transfer from his first life. A staged collision blocked the convoy beneath an overpass.
By the time backup arrived, one guard lay unconscious and Derek’s handcuffs rested on the pavement. On the concrete pillar, he had written a message in the guard’s blood: “Hayden dies before sunrise.”
