Chapter 144

Isabella’s POV.

Our trip back home was supposed to be enjoyable, but instead, we both spent it stressing. Neither of us could understand how this could've happened. Sadly, I don't work with Ares anymore. My own company had taken off, and I was collaborating with great artists. As a result, I hadn't been around Ares' office much. To make matters worse, Jeff and Jacob were personally invited to The Grand Luxury Hotel, which was the biggest and most popular establishment owned by Ares.

The press had a great time picking apart every little thing, painting Ares as a toxic supporter of the two.

"PR couldn't contain this. I'm not sure who, but one source keeps sprouting the news constantly, and with the actual proof, it becomes much harder to deny," Ares groaned.

We arrived back in the United States and were already on our way to his office.

"What did Isla say?" I wondered.

"She's pissed. She, Mills, Ken, Nasira, and my dad are meeting us at the office," he informed me, his hand moving to my thigh. "I'm so sorry we have to delay our great news," he sighed and shook his head.

"Hey, it's okay, that can wait," I assured him and gave his hand a squeeze. "Once we solve this, we can tell them all the great news," I winked.

***

We arrived at the hotel, where people awaited us outside, clicking photos at every step we took. Ares was visibly annoyed, and I shared in his frustration. I had to hide my hand in my pocket, not wanting the public to know about our engagement before our family did.

As Ares opened the office door, I was greeted with the sight of our family, but most importantly, Slade.

“Slade!” I exclaimed excitedly and opened my arms as he ran to me for a hug. "Hey, buddy, I missed you," I hugged him tightly and kissed the top of his head.

“I missed you both!” Slade then went to hug his dad, looking up at him with a grin. With each passing day, he looked more and more like Volkov.

“What are you doing here?” Ares asked before I could.

“School ended early, and he didn’t want to go home. He wanted to see you,” Reynold answered with a soft sigh as he looked at Slade.

“Why don’t you go stay in my room?” Ares looked for his keycard. We obviously needed some privacy since we didn’t want to discuss everything in front of Slade.

“I’ll take him,” Ken offered and patted Slade’s shoulders, leading the way.

“So, what have we found till now?” Ares asked, hands on his hips as he looked between them all.

“I checked the email they spoke of; it’s your personal work email,” Nasira mentioned, being the most tech-savvy among all of us right now.

“That’s odd, I’m only logged in on this laptop with that email – no other devices,” Ares frowned.

“I know, and what’s even weirder is the date and time,” Isla spoke up. “It was sent the first day you spent in Italy, and it was like 3 PM, which made it well past 12 AM in Italy. Plus, this is the only connected device, so someone snuck in and logged into your computer,” she added, and Ares and I shared a quick look.

“Okay, so this means he was framed, right?” Mills asked, stepping through.

“Yes, definitely,” Nasira said, self-assured.

“Good, you guys continue the investigation. Ares, I’ll prepare you for a quick video,” Mills tapped his shoulder, walking past him.

“What for?” Ares frowned.

“Damage control. Now that we know you were framed, we can proudly tell the media that this wasn’t your fault. There are also photos of you in Italy that aren’t released yet, but we’ll release them now to convince the people that you were not home but on vacation,” Mills stated, hands on her hips as she spoke. God, she was so damn good at her job, wasn’t she?

“Ok,” he sighed.

Ares left with Mills and his father to figure out the press drama while I stayed behind with the others to solve this issue. One day dragged on for two days, and now we were all fueled on coffee, sitting at the round table in Ares’ meeting room, trying to figure out how this could’ve happened because someone was smart enough to scrub frames of the surveillance.

“Ok, I’ve been thinking, your laptop is password protected, right?” Isla began to wonder.

“Yes, of course,” Ares revealed. Even I didn’t know his password for his work emails.

“Who knows the password?” I then asked. It was starting to look more and more as if Ares did it, but I knew he couldn’t have.

“Only Preston, the assistant,” Ares sighed. “But he’s on vacation for three weeks already.”

“Wait, are you sure? Preston White?” Nasira sat up immediately, almost as if she heard something she liked.

“Yeah, why?” Ares frowned.

“Hey, can I have this? My beautiful smart brain just came up with an idea,” Nasira took the computer from Ares. She went on the app, and I noticed her make use of several filters to get some data. “See, Preston’s keycard was swiped,” she pointed to the screen where we could see the day, time, and the person’s keycard swiped to get into the room.

“But that’s impossible, he’s out on vacation,” Isla spoke up, showing the record of all available staff for that period of time.

“Someone took his keycard, and I’m thinking they took more than that too,” Ares muttered. Finally, we had some hope.

“Call Preston,” I suggested, but it came out more like a demand.

“Yes, ma’am,” Ares winked and got up to make the call.

After a short call with Preston, we learned that his alarm tripped and his mother-in-law was in town to check for him, but nothing seemed to be missing, and every room was kept clean. However, for the sake of Ares, Preston had his mother-in-law check for the specifics.

“Okay, so his mother-in-law did a better sweep, and his tablet, keycard, and notebooks are missing. The passwords were written in those notebooks,” Ares said frustrated, putting down the phone on the table.

“So we’re at a loss,” Nasira sighed, and Isla groaned.

The person was slick enough to clear the camera evidence, each and every time. We still had no idea who could’ve snuck in and out like that – so freely and almost as if they knew everything already. That’s when an idea popped up in my head.

“This is great. They might have cleared that surveillance camera, but they haven’t cleared the other rooms. Check where Preston’s keycard was used. Chances are that the person didn’t use their personal keycard, so they wouldn’t be placed at the scene,” I suggested, and Nasira’s eyes lit up.

“That’s smart. Really smart,” Ares smiled.

My idea seemed to work. The person had indeed used the keycard several times. They were careful, knowing the outline of the building, and were able to avoid every camera, but we caught them. They used the backdoor, the backdoor no one knows has a camera installed due to previous crimes, and that camera had a clear shot.

After a little more digging, we found out it was a relatively new employee. He had been working for the office for almost 9 months. Nothing was out of the ordinary, which made this all weird for us. We finally involved the cops, and all it took was for two cops to sit the employee down, and he immediately told them everything.

Rishma, his girlfriend, told him all the bad things Ares has done to her and Adelaide, and they cooked up a revenge plan to drag Ares’ name through the mud. I suppose it would’ve worked, but Erikson, the employee, wasn’t as careful as they thought, and he sure as hell was quick to flip on them.

It took little effort for us to clear Ares’ name since there were people within the precinct who spilled the beans outside. The old scandal involving Rishma and Adelaide was forgotten about, but with their recent crazy scheme, they’ve been in the media again, earning their infamous status that only tarnished their reputation more.

***

Sunday dinner was hosted by my parents, and we all sat around the table. Ares looked at me and gave me a subtle nod. I smiled and turned to look at our family.

“So, Ares and I have some news to share,” I cleared my throat and instantly earned everyone’s attention.

“What?” Mom asked excitedly.

“Tell us!” Maksim whined.

“We’re getting married,” I held my hand up, showing off the ring he got me. These past few days we had been careful, and me too, finally, I could show it off.

I barely gave them time to process and said, “And we’re pregnant.”

“Really? Really Daddy?” Slade asked excitedly, looking at his father and then me. We both nodded, and he immediately came to hug me tightly.

We were bombarded with tons of questions, but we couldn’t have asked for a better support group than the one we already had.