Chapter 64 The Data That Broke Her
Danielle's Pov
I wasn’t even fully awake when the message came through the hostel intercom.
“Danielle Wilton, report to the dean’s office immediately.”
My heart sank so fast it felt like it fell through the mattress.
I sat up slowly, palms already sweating, the room spinning with the weight of déjà vu.
Not again.
Not that office again.
By the time I made it to the admin building, my legs felt like thin sticks barely holding me upright.
The corridor outside the dean’s office was too bright, too silent. Students stared as I walked past; some with pity, some with curiosity, some with the ugly excitement people reserve for tragedy they aren’t part of.
I swallowed hard and stepped inside.
The same long table.
The same panel of staff in their thick glasses and disappointed expressions.
The same intimidating silence.
But this time… they looked settled and probably prepared.
As if they’d already decided.
The dean folded her hands like she was about to deliver a funeral speech.
“Miss Wilton,” she said calmly, “we have a new evidence.”
My throat closed. “I didn’t do anything.”
They didn’t blink.
“Sit.”
I sat barely. My knees were shaking.
The head of cybersecurity clicked a remote, and the projector lit up. On the screen was a digital map, a glowing red dot pulsing like a heartbeat.
The location tag read:
D. WILTON; PERSONAL LAPTOP
“This,” he said, tapping the screen, “is the device the breach originated from.”
My fingers dug into my skirt.
“That’s not possible,” I whispered. “I didn’t… I wasn’t even…”
“We traced the breach,” the technician continued. “The timestamps align precisely with 11:46 p.m. last Friday.”
My breath froze.
Friday. Eleven forty-six.
The night Liam borrowed my laptop to “submit an assignment.”
I looked at the timestamp again and felt my stomach drop straight through the floor.
The dean leaned forward. Her voice was cooler this time but less patient.
“Danielle, are you maintaining your innocence?”
My mouth opened but nothing came out.
Because the facts were right there.
They mistook my silence as guilt.
One professor sighed dramatically. “Her quietness is an admission. She knows what she did.”
“I didn’t do it,” I said, voice breaking, “but..but I don’t know how this…”
I didn't make sense, even to me
The dean cut me off. “Then explain the activity happening on your exact device at the exact moment the student records were breached.”
Explain?
How do you explain something you can barely process?
My fingers were ice. My throat burned.
I didn’t even hear the door open, not until it slammed against the wall.
Liam stormed in, chest heaving, eyes burning with a fire I didn’t expect.
“She didn’t do it,” he snapped.
The professors jumped. One stood up immediately.
“Mr. Carver, you were not invited into this room,”
“I don’t care.” Liam stepped in front of me like a shield. “You’re not attacking her without proof.”
“We have proof,” the dean shot back. “All of it links to her laptop.”
“That doesn’t mean she did it!” he yelled. “She’s new here. She barely even knows the system. Why would she hack anything?”
“Sit down or leave,” one professor barked.
Liam didn’t move.
“If you punish her,” he said, “you’re punishing the wrong person.”
Every head swiveled toward him.
My breath stilled.
He knew something.
The dean narrowed her eyes. “Mr. Carver… are you implying something?”
Liam froze not visibly, but I felt it.
Something in his jaw tightened.
“No,” he said quietly after a beat. “Just that she’s innocent.”
Before anyone could say more, the dean ordered:
“Escort him out. He is disrupting proceedings.”
Liam didn’t fight it. He let himself be pushed toward the door, but before he stepped out, he met my eyes.
And that’s when I knew.
The guilt was already there.
Buried. Tucked. Deep inside him.
I broke the moment we stepped into the hallway.
I didn’t even wait to be dismissed. I just walked out when they told me we’d reconvene later.
Everything inside me felt hollow.
Like someone had scooped out my insides and left a shaking shell behind.
Students watched as I walked toward the lockers, but I didn’t care. I just needed…
I needed him to say it.
Or deny it. Or fix it.
Anything.
He was already waiting at the far end of the corridor, leaning against the lockers as if he’d known exactly where I’d go.
His eyes softened when he saw me.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
I didn’t speak.
We stood there in thick, suffocating silence until he exhaled sharply.
“I didn’t think it would blow up this big.”
His words cut through me like glass.
I stepped back slowly. “What?”
He raked a hand through his hair. “Danielle listen,”
“No.” My voice trembled violently. “Did you…did you use my laptop to hack into the student records?”
He looked away.
And that answer was louder than anything.
My chest tightened until I could barely breathe. “Liam. Look at me.”
He didn’t.
I slapped him.
The sound hit the lockers like a whip.
He didn’t flinch nor get angry. He didn’t defend himself.
He only whispered, “I was trying to help someone.”
Help someone?
HELP SOMEONE?
“You ruined my life to help someone else?” My voice cracked. “Do you even hear yourself?”
He swallowed, jaw clenched. “I said I’ll fix it.”
“Fix what? My reputation? My academic record? Or all the people who think I’m a criminal?”
His silence was the answer.
I backed away from him, tears burning behind my eyes.
“I trusted you,” I whispered. “I defended you. I believed every word you said.”
Liam stepped forward, but I held up a hand.
“Don’t. Just don’t.”
For the first time since I met him, he looked genuinely scared.
“Danielle, please. I swear I’m not your enemy.”
I stared at him, at the boy I liked, at the boy who made me laugh, at the boy I almost cared for!
“And yet,” I said, voice hollow, “you destroyed me without blinking.”
I walked past him.
He didn’t stop me. He didn’t follow. He just stood there like some statue.
The weight of guilt sat on me like stone.
I failed Mark.
After everything he did for me. After the opportunities, the chances, the protection; I betrayed him without knowing.
I failed Becca.
She trusted me.
And I walked straight into the arms of the one person connected to the man Mark despised most.
Whatever was happening in the Carver family…