Chapter 6 - MARK FINALLY UNDERSTOOD WHY JESSICA CHOSE HIM
Adrian did not look like a man caught doing something wrong.
He looked like a man arriving late to a meeting he believed belonged to him.
Security moved forward.
I raised one hand.
“Let him speak.”
Mark looked at me like I had lost my mind.
Maybe I had finally stopped being afraid of what truth would cost.
Adrian smiled.
“You always were curious.”
“And you always mistook curiosity for weakness.”
His smile faded slightly.
Jessica stood frozen near the stage.
Adrian looked at her.
“You were supposed to leave before this.”
Mark laughed.
A small, broken sound.
“So it’s true.”
Jessica turned toward him.
“Not the way you think.”
“Which part? Sleeping with me? Taking my wife’s necklace? Moving company money?”
The necklace.
My grandmother’s diamonds caught the light between them.
Adrian glanced at it.
Then at me.
“That necklace contains something more valuable than stones.”
I felt cold.
“What?”
He smiled again.
Mark reached toward Jessica.
Not touching.
Just staring.
“What did you give her?”
Jessica stepped back.
“I thought it was just jewelry.”
For once, I believed her.
I remembered my grandmother wearing the Star of the North at Board dinners.
I remembered her saying it was “more useful than beautiful.”
I had assumed she meant sentimental value.
Maybe not.
Adrian continued.
“Your grandmother was paranoid.”
“She had reasons.”
“She hid access keys everywhere.”
Sterling whispered, “Elena.”
I already understood.
The necklace could contain a hardware token.
An encrypted seed.
Something small enough to disappear inside a setting.
Mark had taken it from my safe after claiming the clasp needed repair.
Had Jessica been wearing it accidentally?
Or because someone instructed Mark to give it to her?
I looked at him.
“Why did you take my necklace?”
His face collapsed.
“Jessica asked to borrow something impressive for tonight.”
The humiliation somehow became smaller than the stupidity.
“You gave her my grandmother’s heirloom because she asked?”
“I thought I’d put it back.”
Adrian laughed.
“That was all we needed.”
Jessica spun toward him.
“You told me you wanted access to the gala.”
“I wanted both.”
Her hand flew to the clasp.
Sterling stepped closer.
“Do not remove it.”
Everyone froze.
He called NovaStream security operations.
Within seconds, the Board confirmed something alarming.
At 7:42 p.m., minutes after Jessica entered the ballroom wearing the necklace, an old authentication system had registered a legacy cryptographic handshake.
Someone had tried to access NovaStream’s original model archive.
The request failed.
But only because a second authorization was missing.
Sterling looked at me.
“What second authorization?”
His face became grim.
“Yours.”
And then Mark’s phone began ringing.
May you like
The caller ID read:
MASON WREN.
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