My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 132

A Search For Catwoman

~Katia-

The message came through at eleven PM on a Wednesday.

It came from a contact I had used for three years, a woman named Priya who ran the communications network for the New York underground circuit. She never/reached out unless something was wrong. The fact that she was messaging at eleven PM told me everything before I read the words.

Bounty posted. Cash prize for anyone who unmasks Catwoman at the next NY event. Significant money. Thought you should know.

I read it twice. Then I called Sam.

She answered immediately. “I saw it.”

“How long has it been up?”

“Six hours. It went through three circuit forums simultaneously. Whoever posted it wanted maximum visibility.”

“Amount?”

“Two hundred thousand dollars,” Sam said. “Cash. Clean. Anyone who can provide a verified identity at the next event collects.”

I sat on the edge of my bed and looked at the city through the window.

Two hundred thousand dollars was not a random number. It was not the kind of money someone posted on a forum because they were curious. It was the kind of money that bought serious people — people with resources and contacts and the willingness to do things that required significant motivation. Two hundred thousand dollars said whoever put this up wanted a result and was not playing around.

“Trace it,” I said.

“Already started,” Sam said. “Give me until morning.”

Sam called at six AM with the full picture.

The money had been posted through three shell companies. The first two were clean dead ends registered in jurisdictions that made tracing difficult, structured deliberately to absorb time and resources. The third one had a crack in it. A filing error, a timestamp that didn’t match, and a director’s name that appeared once in a subsidiary document and shouldn’t have.

Sam had found it in four hours. It had taken her four hours because whoever built the structure was goodBut not as good as Sam. The thread led to a holding company registered in Cayman. The holding company had one client relationship that could be traced. That relationship connected to a consultancy. The consultancy had one named partner whose background check took thirty seconds.

Halo Systems.

Victor Hale had posted a two hundred thousand dollar bounty to unmask Catwoman at a New York underground racing event.

I sat at my kitchen table with my coffee, and I thought about that for a long time.

This was not a corporate attack. The eighteen months of contract interception, the fabricated audit failures, the planted article all of that was a business dispute. Brutal and calculated but a business dispute. You fought those with lawyers and data and counter–strategies, and you won.

This was different.

Victor did not want I* Technologies. He had made that clear in Dubai when his acquisition offer was the opening move of a

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conversation, not a genuine proposal. He wanted something else. He had been wanting something else all along, and the corporate attack had been running parallel to it, not instead of it.

He wanted to know who Catwoman was.

Why?

I turned that question over for twenty minutes and kept arriving at the same place. Victor had lost a government contract to Meridian Systems five years ago. Meridian’s proprietary algorithm, the one that had beaten Halo’s bid, had been built by two engineers who had been racing enthusiasts. The early funding for Meridian, before it attracted outside investment, had come from underground racing prize money.

If Victor had dug deep enough into Meridian’s origins and Victor dug deep into everything, he might have found that thread. Racing money. Underground circuit. An alias.

He might not know that Catwoman and Katia Kensington were the same person. But he suspected they were connected. And he was willing to pay two hundred thousand dollars to find out how.

If he found out if anyone at that New York event unmasked me the chain from Catwoman to the racing money to Meridian to I* Technologies to me would be complete. Victor would have everything he needed to dismantle I* ‘s’origin story publicly. Every contract, every government bid, everything we had built would be sitting on a foundation that Victor could crack open in front of the renewal committee.

I called Sam back.

“We go dark,” I said.

“How dark?”

“Thirty days. No racing. No underground events. No circuit appearances anywhere.” I looked at the city. “Cancel anything non- essential. WEG obligations only. I* board meetings and the London expansion review.”

“The New York event is in three weeks,” Sam said. “The circuit community is going to notice Catwoman’s absence.”

“Good,” I said. “Let them notice. Let them post theories. Let Victor’s two hundred thousand dollars sit there uncollected. “I paused. “If Catwoman doesn’t show up, there’s nothing to unmask.”

Sam was quiet for a moment. “He’ll escalate.”

“I know.”

“Going dark buys us thirty days. After that-‘

“After that we’ll have more information.” I thought about Julian. About the file and Sir Edmund and the contract renewal committee. About thirty days of working alongside Julian every day while the WEG–I* integration moved into its most complex phase. “Thirty days is enough to change the position we’re in.”

“What about the Daniel Osei pipeline?” Sam said. “The false data-”

“Keep it running. Victor should be receiving the Middle East expansion misdirection by the end of this week. Let that run while we go dark on the racing side.” I picked up my coffee. “He’s coming at us from two directions. We manage both.”

“Kat,” Sam said. Her voice had shifted. “Be careful. This isn’t just about I* anymore. He’s coming after you personally.”

“I know,” I said.

“That means he either already suspects who you are or he’s getting close.”

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