Chapter 171 It’s Not Shameful to Occasionally Let Someone Else Carry the Burden for You
Chapter 171 It’s Not Shameful to Occasionally Let Someone Else Carry the Burden for You
Three sentences. Each one a second apart.
"Miss Flynn, still want to talk coffee?"
Calla's smile collapsed.
Not the kind that cracks slowly. It broke from the eyes first — her pupils contracted, then her brows, then the corners of her mouth.
She looked down and stayed quiet for about ten seconds.
Nora didn't rush her. Through the earpiece came the faintest sound of breathing — Oliver was listening.
Calla spoke.
"I know all of this."
Nora kept holding her coffee cup. Didn't set it down.
"I knew you'd find it too. I never tried to stop you."
She reached into her bag and pulled out a USB drive. Black, as ordinary as they come. She set it on the table and slid it toward Nora.
"This is a backup of every communication between Chase and my father over the past three years. Everything, including all contact records related to The Ashes. The password is my father's birthday written backwards."
Nora didn't reach for it.
"Why?"
Calla's throat moved.
"Because this marriage wasn't my choice."
Her voice dropped half a note, but didn't waver.
"Chase isn't my fiancé — he's the bargaining chip my father handed over to The Ashes, and I'm the wrapping paper around that chip."
Nora's fingers loosened from the side of her cup.
That sentence punched straight through every assumption she'd made.
In Nora's calculations, there were three reasons Calla might not come to her: enemy's pawn, neutral bystander, or coerced collaborator. She'd prepared three different approaches. But "a piece that wants to escape the board" — that wasn't on her list.
"When did you start backing all this up?"
"Two years ago." Calla raised her head. "Two years ago I got a call from my father while I was in Barcelona. He told me to come home, said the marriage had been arranged. I asked who I was marrying. He said Chase. I asked why. He said I didn't have a choice."
Her hand rested on the table, clenched once, then relaxed.
"After I came back I started quietly going through my father's things. He thought I wouldn't understand — what would an art student know about financial operations? But he forgot: during my two years in Barcelona, I wasn't only studying oil painting restoration. I also spent six months learning asset tracing from a Swiss banker."
Nora watched her.
"The signal transmitter in the painting at the exhibition — who told you to plant it?"
Calla bit her lip.
"Chase."
"And you did it."
"I did. Because if I didn't, Chase would find another way — and he wouldn't tell me in advance what that way would be. Ms. Thorne, I adjusted the transmitter's power output. Oliver's security team has a gap in their scanning frequency coverage, but I deliberately placed that gap in the band most likely to be caught by a manual sweep."
Something went off in Nora's head.
Calla had planted the transmitter, but left a flaw on purpose so Oliver's people would find it.
She was walking a tightrope between both sides — completing what Chase had asked of her while making sure the transmitter would ultimately be discovered.
"Do you know about Ian?" Nora asked.
"The shortwave transmitter in the pillow? Yes. Chase arranged it. Robbie handled it."
"Ian is in the hospital."
The corner of Calla's mouth twitched. "I know."
"You seem to know a lot."
"I don't know everything." Calla's eyes went red, but no tears fell. "I don't know why Atlas died. I don't know what the top levels of The Ashes actually look like. I don't even know what Chase plans to do with me in three months — the people he's done using never end up okay."
The coffee on the table was still steaming, slowly fading.
Nora looked at the USB drive for three seconds.
Then reached out and took it.
"If what's on here is fake —"
"You can destroy me." Calla answered immediately. "Ms. Thorne, I made peace with that the moment I handed this to you. Real or fake, as of today I've burned every bridge back to the Flynn family and the Gray family."
Nora slipped the USB drive into her inner jacket pocket.
"What are you planning to do next?"
Calla stood up and pushed her chair back under the table.
"Keep going as normal. Keep playing my part. I can't let Chase get suspicious. When you're ready — when you need me — call me."
She turned and walked away. Three steps out, she looked back.
"Ms. Thorne, the Kona Peaberry at the exhibition that day — Atlas told my father you liked that coffee. Five years ago."
Nora's hand tightened.
Calla walked down the terrace steps and disappeared through the museum's side entrance.
The earpiece crackled.
Oliver's voice.
"Don't plug the drive into anything yet. I'm having someone run a triple counter-trace check."
"I know."
"And —"
"Yeah?"
A second of silence through the earpiece.
"Atlas told Julian five years ago that you drink Kona Peaberry. Atlas always paid attention to every little detail about you."
Nora didn't respond.
She picked up the espresso on the table — already gone lukewarm — and drank it in one go.
Bitter enough to numb her tongue.
Good.
---
The drive was real.
After Storm completed the triple decryption and counter-trace checks, she sent Nora a verification report. Data intact. No tracking trojans. No location backdoors.
What was inside was more than Nora had expected.
Three years of communications arranged chronologically — encrypted emails, voice transcripts, scanned documents. Several internal files with Chase's handwritten annotations were especially critical. His handwriting was small, lines packed tight, his word choices precise to the point of being stingy. Every annotation confirmed the same thing: he treated the people around him as interchangeable parts. Including Calla.
In one document he'd written: "C needs to complete the approach task on O before March. If target not met, consider replacement."
O. Oliver.
In his annotations, Calla didn't even get a name. Just "C." Like he couldn't be bothered to write it out in full.
After receiving the data, Todd spent four hours in his study.
When he came out, he did one thing.
He called Oliver.
Not through Nora. He called Oliver directly.
Nora heard the sound of dialing from the living room — Todd didn't hide it from her, but he didn't put it on speaker either. He stood on the balcony for about seven minutes, and when he came back his face gave nothing away.
"Oliver is going to make something public within the week. After that, the Gray family won't be able to touch you."
Nora looked at him.
"What is it?"
Todd shook his head.
"He told me not to tell you ahead of time. Said you'd refuse if you knew."
"Todd Walsh."
"I promised him." Todd's tone left no room for argument. He walked to the coffee station, poured a cup, drank it, and set the cup down. "Nory, you've been carrying too much on your own for too many years. Letting someone else carry it for a while — that's not weakness."
Nora watched him for half a minute.
Todd didn't meet her eyes. He picked up his jacket and left.