She Was Never Just the Billionaire’s Wife (Natasha and Chase) novel Chapter 128

128 /193

(Chase)

It's after midnight when I close the file.

I’ve spent days on this.

Rebuilding Bauer's offshore structure from the bottom up.

The work is slow and unglamorous, but it’s helping to keep me from slowly losing my mind.

Giving my hands something to do.

If they were idle, I’d be putting a hole through my office wall.

I know Sonia’s the one who tampered with Natasha’s medical file.

Perhaps not directly, she hardly has the know-how to do something like that, but she’s behind it.

I watched her face when I said the word file. That was all I needed.

I have no idea what Dr. Bailey was doing there.

He wasn’t around yet when Natasha was hospitalized, so he couldn’t have been involved.

Dr. Evans is my main suspect as Sonia’s co-conspirator at this point.

I push back from the desk and pour another coffee.

There’s a right way to do this and a wrong way.

The way not to do it is to put my hands around Sonia's throat.

Which is deeply unfortunate since that’s the way I most want to do it.

But that would give Natasha all the grounds she needs to be granted sole custody.

I get now why my grandfather is so annoyed with me.

Sonia is nothing but a spoiled child. I allowed myself to be blinded by a pretty face.

She certainly has nothing of substance to offer. Yet I kept her around for months.

That’s biting me in the ass now, but I’m going to fix it.

The way to do it is quietly.

I pick up the phone.

The estate's head of security answers on the second ring, sounding wide awake.

"Sir."

"Donovan. I need you to cancel Sonia Morton’s access to both the estate and the Warren Global offices. Pull every credential she has on the Warren name. Estate cards, fleet access, the box at the Biltmore, the boutique accounts. All of it."

"Certainly Sir. Is Mrs. Warren aware of this?"

"My mother won’t care, but if she asks, route her to me."

"Yes, sir."

I sit back down.

Bauer next.

The case I’m building doesn’t look like a case yet.

It looks like a stack of cross-referenced spreadsheets and a notebook I’ll burn the day the merger closes.

I’m working it alone because a leak now sinks everything.

Mason can keep stalling Bauer's lawyers in a boardroom.

I have to make the floor ready to drop out the moment Bauer signs.

The trap closes on signing day. Not before.

Until then, Bauer needs to keep believing the deal is going through, and his people need to stay on the back foot without scaring him into pulling out.