Snatched a Billionaire to Be My Husband — Episode 28
Cora read the recovered email twice. Byron’s address, authorization code, and private instruction appeared complete. The sentence about keeping her ignorant hurt more than the technical evidence. It echoed every moment when powerful men had decided truth was too dangerous for her to possess. Loving Byron made the possibility of his betrayal uniquely capable of destroying her judgment.
“Tell me you didn’t write this,” she said. Byron did not reach for her. “I didn’t.” His answer came without hesitation, but he understood that certainty alone could not clear him. “Examine everything. My devices, travel records, office access—whatever you need.”
Easton expected Cora to explode. Instead, she forwarded the message to the independent forensic team. Byron had taught her to trust evidence when people became unreliable. Loving him did not mean abandoning that rule when the evidence turned in his direction.
The email had been sent at 3:12 a.m. Los Angeles time. Byron’s passport and flight manifest placed him aboard a commercial flight from Tokyo, where he had negotiated an acquisition. The aircraft offered no internet service during the hour surrounding transmission. Passenger records and cabin reports confirmed he had remained aboard without access to a satellite phone.
“Someone used your office credentials,” Cora said. Byron listed four people with delegated access at the time. Malcolm had been one. Helena Ward had been another, serving as deputy general counsel before Malcolm personally promoted her.
Helena joined the emergency board call from a room lined with law books. She dismissed the flight records as insufficient, arguing that Byron could have scheduled the email before departure. “The simplest explanation,” she said, “is that he protected Cora publicly while exploiting her family privately.” Her confidence bordered on contempt.
Cora leaned toward the camera. “The simplest explanation is rarely the one requiring you to ignore cloned certificates, hidden servers, and Malcolm’s confession.” Helena’s expression tightened. She had expected a frightened fiancée, not the woman who spent days learning the system used against her.
The board suspended Byron again pending an outside review. He accepted the vote without protest, then informed the directors that Helena’s own access would be frozen under the same standard. She objected that no allegation had been proven against her. Her outrage revealed how thoroughly she believed scrutiny was something reserved for less powerful people.
“Neither has one been proven against Cora,” Byron replied. “You had no difficulty placing her in handcuffs through implication.” The chairman reluctantly approved a mutual restriction, cutting Helena off from the systems she had controlled for years.
Minutes later, someone attempted to delete Nocturne’s archived server. Carter called from the bar, reporting that files were disappearing faster than his team could copy them. The deletion command came from inside the building rather than through the corporate network.
“Helena has someone there,” Cora said. Byron ordered security to evacuate the bar and preserve every access point. Carter refused to leave the server room because removing the backup array would destroy the live trace.
Cora opened Nocturne’s management console from the secure workspace. Although her ankle monitor prevented her from traveling, her employee credentials allowed control of the building’s reservation and safety systems. She locked the executive elevators and activated cameras around the server corridor. Months earlier, she would have needed permission; now the systems recognized authority she had earned through work.
A hooded figure appeared on-screen carrying a portable drive. The person used Vincent’s old master code to enter the heavily restricted floor. Carter whispered through his headset that he could hear someone outside the door.
Byron sent police and his remaining private guards. “Carter, leave through the emergency stairwell,” he ordered. Carter reported that the stairwell alarm had been disabled and the handle chained from the other side. Whoever entered Nocturne intended to trap him with the evidence.
Cora searched the building plans. The server room shared a ventilation passage with the wine vault, narrow but large enough for a person to crawl through. Carter removed a ceiling panel while Cora guided him toward the access point.
The intruder began cutting through the electronic lock. Sparks flashed beneath the door. Cora’s pulse raced, but she forced her voice to remain steady. “Three feet forward, then turn left. Do not follow the light; it leads back toward the corridor.”
Margaret arrived with a box of old corporate calendars seized from the Hansen residence. One entry showed Helena borrowing Byron’s authorization token before his Tokyo trip, supposedly to prepare emergency documents. The date matched the transfer. Margaret remembered Helena returning it personally after insisting no assistant could be trusted with executive credentials.
“Send that to federal investigators,” Cora said. Margaret photographed the page, finally using her knowledge of Malcolm’s secrets to expose rather than conceal them. The evidence connected Helena to the credential, but Carter still needed to save the server definitively proving she used it.
Carter reached the wine vault as the server-room door gave way. Cameras captured the intruder removing the hood. Helena Ward stared directly into the lens, realized Cora was watching, and smiled before plugging the drive into the backup array. Her calm made clear that destroying the evidence had always included destroying witnesses if necessary.
The video feed turned black. Carter shouted that fire doors had sealed throughout the floor, and Nocturne’s oxygen-suppression system began a sixty-second countdown. Helena had chosen to destroy the evidence even if everyone trapped inside stopped breathing with it.
