Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss novel Chapter 123

Chapter 123

Chapter 123

KISAREL

Nessa listened to all I had to say without an ounce of impatience on her face. She didn’t rush me.

She also asked questions where she needed clarification.

“We don’t know everything.” I responded to her question. “That’s the problem. There were calls. People he might have been speaking to before he died. Elgin found things that didn’t sit right with him.”

Nessa leaned in a little. “What kind of things?”

“A number. Maybe more than one. Gerald had been trying to tell them something, I think.” My voice dropped without meaning to. “It was around the same time everything started feeling like someone was watching me.

Nessa’s hand stilled over mine.

“Did Elgin go to the police?”

“He tried. But there wasn’t enough proof that something was wrong. There never seems to be enough.” I swallowed.

For a moment, Nessa only looked at me.

Then she said, very softly, “Arel, has anyone checked who entered Gerald’s house that night?”

one.”

I laughed weakly. “There was no footage. Elgin looked. I think even the nearby cameras didn’t show anything useful.” “Leave that part to me,” She said. “I have ways of finding footage other people swear doesn’t exist. I’ll find this

I narrowed my brows. “But, how?”

“Maybe not from the house.” Her voice stayed calm. “But houses aren’t the only things that record people. Doorbells across the street. Delivery vans. Traffic cameras. Stores nearby. Even ride–share dashcams if someone passed at the right time.”

I stared at her.

“How do you know all this?”

She gave a small shrug, but her eyes didn’t quite smile. “I’ve had reasons to look for things people didn’t want found.”

It felt relieving talking to someone about all that was happening around me.

I know Elgin will be furious about this, especially knowing that I was allowing a woman he didn’t trust to dig into his grandfather’s death, but Nessa might be able to find something. Maybe we could finally get some headway with all that’s been happening.

“Just promise me one thing,” Nessa said, pulling me back.

I looked at her.

“Don’t give Oceans an attitude yet. He’s not the bad guy–not until we have proof. Right now, all you have is a ring that looks familiar and a phone that pinged near his building.” She held my gaze. “That’s not nothing, but it’s not enough to burn a bridge you might still need.”

I started to speak. She squeezed my hand.

“And don’t confront Reeves either.” Her voice was firm but gentle. “If he’s involved, confronting him tells him you’re

OGO

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Chapter 123

watching. If he’s not, you’ve made an enemy of someone who works for a man who already has too much control over your

life”

I swallowed.

“You could be wrong about him,” she added. “And if you’re wrong, you’ll have damaged something that might have been innocent. Let me dig first. Let me find something solid. Then you decide what to do.”

I nodded slowly.

“Okay”

Nessa released my hand and leaned back.

“Then let’s go home. You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

***

OCEANS.

My knuckles split open somewhere around the fiftieth punch. And by the sixtieth, blood had started staining the black leather of the punching bag in uneven marks, but I did not stop.

The bag swung back, and I met it again before it could settle, the impact traveling up through my wrists and into my

a pain while shoulders where it had stopped registering as

ago.

Sweat dripped from my hair into my eyes, burning harshly, but I didn’t wipe it away. I wanted to feel something other than the helpless rage sitting in my chest like a second heartbeat. Same reason I punched with my bare fist.

Fuck!

I hit again.

Fred and Jace had sat at that table and moved her wedding forward like they were rescheduling a delivery, and I had sat across from them with my hand flat on the wood and done nothing, because there was nothing I could do that wouldn’t cost me something I couldn’t afford to lose yet.

That was the part that kept the rage moving through my arms with nowhere to go.

I hit the bag again. And again. The chain groaned against the ceiling mount.

I had never once been in a room I couldn’t move, nor had I ever faced a problem that money or pressure or a little threat couldn’t dismantle.

And now a greedy old man and the spineless boy he kept on a leash were marching the only woman I wanted toward an altar, and my hands were tied by a board, a debt, and a memory…

And I still didn’t have the documents or the full proof I needed. Still didn’t have enough to walk into Kisarel’s tite and tear Jace out of it without looking like a jealous lunatic who couldn’t stand losing his mistress to her fiancé.

My hands were tied.

I hated that thought so much I punched harder.

My phone lit up on the bench against the wall and buzzed once.

I stopped, breathing hard, blood dripping from my hand onto the mat. For a second, I thought it was Kiss.

Stupid.

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Chapter 123

I didn’t want to look. But a man in my position never gets the luxury of not looking, so I crossed to it, dragging the back of my bleeding hand across my jaw, and turned the screen toward me.

It was a text. Just a short one.

‘It’s becoming too obvious. Remove her before this becomes impossible to contain

I read it once. Then again. And the cold that moved through me had nothing to do with the sweat cooling on my back.

It was Harold. Of course. Always the voice of reason, who was always certain he knew what was best for me better than did

“Fuck!”

I flung the phone onto the floor, and it skidded under the bench.

I went back to the bag and hit it again.

Remove her.

Like she was a file, a liability, or a piece of furniture no

Fucking asshole.

The door opened behind me.

I didn’t need to turn to see who it was.

longer needed.

eded.

“If you value your life, Reeves, this interruption had better be worth it.

“It always does.”

I hit the bag again. “Report.”

“I’m still working Fred and Jace.” He said.

“That isn’t a report.”

He came farther into the room, stopping a safe distance from the swinging bag. “It is when Harrington’s office suddenly locks down access twelve hours after I start pulling at their courier records.”

I stopped punching.

His eyes briefly dropped to my bleeding knuckles befoing

“Explain.”

to my face.

“The courier who delivered the Kellerman–Harry packet to Jace’s house is gone,” he said. “Supervisor says he’s on sick leave. No hospital record. No doctor’s note. Phone switched off. Apartment empty.”

My hand curled slowly at my

side.

“So someone moved him,” I stated.

“That’s what it looks like.”

“Fred?”

“Could be Fred. Could be Harrington protecting himself. Could be Jace panicking. I don’t have enough yet.”

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Chapter 123

MO

I looked back at the bag, breathing hard. “And the documents?”

“Still inside Harrington’s system. The titles are there, but the files are restricted now. Someone changed the access level this morning.”

That was new.

And worse.

“But be assured that whatever they’re doing, they’ve only built it to survive a glance. It certainly won’t survive me. It’s just going to take a little more time.”

“I don’t have time.”

“I know.”

He let a beat pass before he spoke again. “There’s something else.”

“Say it.”

“The number.” He watched me carefully. “The one that was sending you those messages. It’s gone quiet for a while now.”

I wiped my hand on the towel hanging off the rack and said nothing, because I had noticed.

But all that stopped mattering the moment I found Moon and kept her under my close watch.

“It doesn’t sit right with me, sir.” He continued, taking a step further into the room. “A person who builds a private tool just to reach you without being traced, who puts in that much effort to get inside your head – that person doesn’t simply lose interest. People go quiet for one of two reasons. Either they got what they came for.” He paused. “Or they stopped needing to talk, because they moved on to doing.”

He was right.

But one thing kept messing with my head each time I thought about it.

The woman who had saved my life… Moon.

None of those threats had ever touched her. Even before I found out she was the one I’d been looking for. The threats had never materialized into action against the woman I was supposed to protect.

Why?

Why threaten for months and then disappear without acting, even for once?

It all doesn’t make any sense.