Thirty Days Before Our Wedding, I Found My Fiancé’s Secret Life—So I Turned Our Ceremony Into the Day He Lost Everything / Chapter 12 / 24

Chapter 12 - The Serpent's WhisperYou do not fight a billionaire by playing defense. By the time you build a wall, they have already bought the ground beneath it.

By midnight, the top floor of Apex Biotech had been transformed into a militarized intelligence bunker. We severed external communications, operating entirely on closed, analog frequencies. Adrian paced the length of the glass-walled office, running the financial forensics.

"Genevieve isn't just trying to devalue the company," Adrian explained, projecting a web of Aethelgard's subsidiaries onto the smart-board. "She wants the diagnostic algorithm for biometric surveillance. European defense contractors are offering her billions for a backdoor into our software. If she forces our stock low enough, she can trigger a hostile proxy vote and force you to sell the subsidiary."

"She can't force a vote unless she has a scandal to spook our institutional investors," I noted, crossing my arms.

Right on cue, my private, encrypted cell phone buzzed. It was an unlisted international number.

I looked at Adrian. He nodded, his dark eyes burning with lethal intent.

I picked up the receiver and put it on speaker. "Genevieve."

"Elara. You sound remarkably calm for a woman watching her legacy evaporate," a smooth, cultured, and heavily British-accented voice purred through the speaker. It sounded like silk wrapping around a razor blade.

"I don't panic over fluctuations, Genevieve," I said coldly. "And I don't negotiate with ghosts who send flowers."

Genevieve chuckled—a dry, soulless sound. "My brother Julian was a fool. He tried to steal from you in the light. I operate in the dark. At 8:00 A.M. tomorrow, a whistleblower report will be leaked to the FDA and the Wall Street Journal. It will contain fabricated, highly convincing clinical data proving your new diagnostic line produces a thirty percent false-positive rate for early-stage oncology."

My heart hammered against my ribs. A scandal like that wouldn't just tank the stock; it would destroy patient trust permanently.

"The documents are flawless, Elara," Genevieve continued. "By noon, your company will be radioactive. Sign over the military subsidiary to Aethelgard tonight, and the leak disappears."

"You forged federal trial data," I stated, my voice echoing with absolute authority. "That is a felony."

"The law is a suggestion for people with my capital," Genevieve sneered. "Tick tock, Elara."

The line went dead.

I didn't scream. I didn't throw the phone. I looked at the dark screens in my office.

"She couldn't forge our internal data formats perfectly without a template," I deduced, my mind operating with surgical precision. "The leak didn't come from the outside, Adrian. Aethelgard has a mole inside this building."