Chapter 36 Tangled Truths
Mark’s POV
“Sir, Sir!”
Collins tore through the corners of the room like a man running from ghosts.
The room smelled of smoke and panic.
I stood in the middle of my office, staring at the smashed pinhole camera.
The sound of drawers slamming, the hiss of static detectors, the low curse under his breath.
“Another one,” he muttered, yanking out a black speck from the bottom of my desk.
It looked like a dead insect, no bigger than a thumbnail.
My heart sank. “That makes five?”
“Seven,” he corrected. “And they are all running on the same encrypted channel.”
My office had been spied on with a lot of secret cameras and bugs.
Collins straightened, sweat shining on his forehead. “Sir, there’s more. These things weren’t planted recently. They’ve been feeding data for at least thirty days.”
Thirty days.
That meant everything, every call, every argument, every time Becca had come here. It had been someone else’s entertainment.
My throat tightened. “Run a trace.”
He was already typing, cables snaking from his laptop to the scanning device.
The screen flickered, then locked on a signal.
“Its all the same encrypted route,” Collins said.
“But there’s something odd,”
“What is that?” I questioned, straightening my tie.
“One of the bugs had a glass shard wedged inside the lens.” He handed it to me carefully.
The glass glimmered faintly under the light. I brought it close to my nose, instinctively.
A faint scent clung to it; vanilla mixed with cedarwood.
For a moment, the room blurred.
Milla Anderson.
The perfume was hers.
She used to wear it religiously, the kind of scent that lingered on your skin long after she left the room.
She was halfway across the world now, yet somehow her presence hung over my desk.
“Boss?” Collins called, watching me too closely.
“Nothing,” I said, pocketing the shard. “Just… an old memory.”
But the doubt stayed.
What is this trap? Why would Milla's scent be in my office when she is far across from Atlanta
It was already sunset by yhe time the sweep ended, my penthouse looked like a battlefield.
Furniture overturned, cables scattered, surveillance bugs lined up neatly on the counter like trophies of betrayal.
Collins wiped his hands. “That’s all of them. I’ll have the network mapped by morning.”
“Good,” I said, though my voice sounded distant, foreign. “And Collins?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t trust anyone. Not Carmen. Not even the board.”
He gave a sharp nod. “Yes Sir.”
The elevator doors closed behind him, leaving me alone with my thoughts, and the quiet hum of a city that suddenly felt hostile.
That’s when Becca showed up.
The knock was gentle, uncertain. I opened the door, and there she was, standing in the hallway in a soft cream sweater.
She let her hair fall across her shoulders.
Just the way I love it.
I would just grab her by her waist, slide the hair and suck her bare neck.
Markk!! Focus
“Hmmm… i…came to say thank you,” she stuttered.
“For bringing Danielle to me. I… I didn’t know how much I needed that sense of longing,”
Her voice trembled at the edges. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did.
Every word sank deep, settling somewhere between guilt and want.
“You don’t have to thank me,” I said. “You deserved to know her.”
“I have to,” she insisted softly. “You didn’t have to care. But you did.”
Something in her tone disarmed me.
For days, I’d been walking through fire; scandal, betrayal, the weight of my family name and yet one look at her, and all the noise in my head went silent.
I should’ve stepped back. Instead, I found myself brushing a stray strand of hair from her face.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved. The air grew heavy, charged.
My hand lingered longer than it should have, my pulse racing in ways logic couldn’t explain.
I wasn’t supposed to want this,not now, not with the world closing in but the pull was impossible to ignore.
“Mark…” she whispered, eyes flicking to my lips.
The sound of my name in her voice,
Ugh…I almost lost control. I was about to pinned her to the wall but then Collins barged in.
“Boss__” He froze halfway through the door, blinking at us. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Becca stepped back immediately, her cheeks burning. “I should go.”
“Becca…”
But she was already at the door. “Thank you again, Mark.”
The door clicked behind her, leaving silence that felt louder than any explosion.
Collins gave a half-smirk. “I’m sorry for the bad timing?”
“You should be,” I muttered, dragging a hand down my face. “What is it?”
His tone shifted instantly. “You need to see this,”
“What?”
“The Simmons Group’s confidential bid files were leaked tonight.”
The words hit like a gunshot.
“What?”
He placed his tablet on the counter and showed me the security log.
“The breach came from inside our system. The access point was Carmen’s workstation.”
“Carmen?” I frowned. “You think she—?”
“No,” he cut in. “The signature doesn’t match her behavior. Whoever did this used her account but had trouble with the password. Look here, five failed attempts before success. Then multiple lockouts.”
“And the security alarm?”
“It didn’t trigger.”
“That's impossible,” I snapped.
“Exactly. Someone bypassed the alert entirely. Which means they had administrative control.”
Every thread, every shadow, led back to one person.
Daniel.
But without proof, confronting him would only expose how much he already knew.
I gripped the edge of the counter, the marble cool beneath my fingers.
“Pull the server logs. Trace every movement through Carmen’s ID. I want to know who was in her office, what time, how long.”
Collins nodded. “Yes Sit”
When he left, I sank into the couch, exhaustion crawling through me. I stared at the smashed pinhole camera.
Daniel must have planted it, the day he created chaos at my basement
That was the day he’d planted the camera.
How long had he been planning this?
The thought of him watching, listening, dissecting every word, especially around Becca, made my stomach twist.
Every conversation we’d had suddenly felt violated.
I looked toward the window, where the city lights bled through the glass like wounded stars.
For the first time in years, I felt small in my own home.
Somewhere between the noise of betrayal and the warmth Becca had left behind, I realized something brutal and simple,
This wasn’t just about business anymore.
They weren’t after my name.
They were after everything that made me human.
And that included her.