The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 113

Chapter 101: The War Room-2

+25 Points

“You’re sure about this?” Caleb asked, backstage at Black Tower’s main conference hall, forty journalists on the other side of the doors.

I was checking the documentation order on my tablet, composed and focused, I hadn’t slept more than four hours in five days and I felt absolutely fine, because this was the part I was built for.

“I’m sure,” I said, without looking up.

“Victoria’s lawyers are going to try to”

“I know what they’re going to try.” I pocketed my tablet and looked at him directly. “Which is why the full documentation package is already with the SEC, two financial journalists I trust, and a forensic

accountant whose testimony I pre-arranged yesterday. There is no version of this where they walk away clean.” I paused. “Are you sure?”

He looked at me for a moment, and something in his expression. “Let’s go,” he said.

The room noise died down the moment we appeared, cameras rising, the charged attention of journalists who had come expecting damage control as I felt Caleb tense beside me.

Caleb spoke first. He laid out the timeline, the forensic evidence, the transposed account number that had unraveled Victoria’s construction, his voice level, precise and completely controlled as I stood beside him and let him finish.

Then I stepped forward. I took it apart document by document, transaction by transaction, mapping the connection between Victoria Lane and Jade Hart in the kind of irrefutable detail that left no room for spin or alternative interpretation.

The forged communications. The planted evidence trail rooted in a real meeting Victoria had attended through James. The offshore account that dissolved two layers back into a shell company registered directly to Jade. When I finished, the room was very quiet.

One journalist raised his hand. “Ms. Hart, why did you personally lead this investigation?”

I looked at him steadily. “Because the truth matters.”

By evening, Victoria had left the city. By the following morning, Jade was being interviewed by authorities, and the SEC released a formal statement clearing Black Enterprises of all allegations.

We drove back to my house afterward in separate cars, and I found Maya in the living room with Tom when I arrived, both of them on the floor surrounded by building blocks, Tom in his pajamas because Maya had correctly predicted this was going to run late.

Tom looked up the moment I walked in and abandoned his blocks entirely, crossing the room at speed and wrapping both arms around my waist. “Maya said you were on TV,” he announced into my shirt.

“I was,” I said, holding him.

“Were you the hero or the villain?”

“The hero,” Maya said firmly, from the floor.

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Chapter 101 The War Room 2

+25 Points

Tem pulled back and studied my face with four-year-old seriousness. “You look tired, Mommy.”

“I am a little tired,” I admitted.

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