My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 145

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Victor’s Ultimatum

~Katia~

Victor called on a Tuesday morning.

Not through a lawyer. Not through a mutual contact. Directly, on my personal line, which told me he had been patient long enough and had decided that patience was no longer serving him.

I answered on the third ring.

“Katia.” His voice was the same as it had been at dinner: warm, unhurried, the voice of a man who had decided long ago that composure was more powerful than volume. “I haven’t heard from you.”

“No,” I said.

“The seventy–two hours passed.”

“They did.”

He paused as if registering that things didn’t go his way. “I take it that means your answer is no.”

“My answer is no,” I said,

Something shifted in the call. Victor was too controlled for drama. But the warmth dialled back, degree by degree, until what was left was still polished and still professional and entirely without the charm he had been deploying for months.

This was the version of Victor Hale that had spent five years building a methodical campaign against a company he believed had wronged him. This was the version that had posted a two hundred thousand dollar bounty and planted a journalist and run an eighteen–month operation without leaving a clean fingerprint.

“Then I’ll see you on the other side of the filing,” he said.

“What filing?” I said.

“Intellectual property theft,” he said. “The seed company you acquired three years ago was built on proprietary architecture that originated in my systems. I have documentation. I have expert witnesses. I have a timeline that will hold up in court.” A pause. My lawyers will be filing within three weeks.”

I said nothing.

“I told you at dinner that I wanted acknowledgement,” he said. “I meant it. I still mean it. But if you won’t give me that, then a court will have to decide.” Another pause. “I am sorry it has come to this, Katia. Genuinely.”

“No, you’re not,” I said.

A beat of silence.

“No,” he said. “I’m not.”

He hung up.

I called my legal team before I had put my personal phone down.

Marcus answered on the first ring. I told him what Victor had said about the IP theft claim, the three–week window, and the documentation Victor claimed to have. Marcus was quiet for thirty seconds. The quiet of a lawyer receiving information and immediately beginning to build the shape of what it meant.

“Can he win?” I said.

– a legitimate paper trail “That depends entirely on what he has,” Marcus said. “It his documentation is what he says it is showing his proprietary architecture appearing in Meridian’s systems – then yes. It is a winnable claim.” He paused. “But Katia,

Victor’s Ultimatum

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for that paper trail to exist cleanly, someone would have had to transfer that architecture deliberately. We are talking about a person. An action. A date.” Another pause. “Evidence of that kind has gaps. It always has gaps.”

“Find the gap,” I said.”

I hung up and called Sam.

She was already in my office when I arrived eight minutes later

she had her laptop open and her coffee and the expression

she wore when she had been waiting for something to happen and it had finally happened.

“Victor filed an IP theft threat,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “Marcus called me thirty seconds after you hung up.”

I sat down. “Pull everything we have on the seed company. Meridian’s original ownership. The algorithm development timeline. Everything from before I acquired them three years ago.”

“Already pulling,” she said.

“Victor’s claim is that someone transferred his proprietary architecture into Meridian’s systems. Which means there is a transaction. A date. A person.” I looked at her. “Find me the documentation around Meridian’s algorithm development. Every version, every timestamp, every name attached to any part of the build.”

최

Sam typed without looking up. “Victor has three weeks before he files. Which means his lawyers are already prepared. He has been sitting on this documentation for months – he built it while he was building everything else.”

“I know.”

“Which means this was always the plan,” she said. “Not the acquisition offer. Not the alliance. Those were pressure. This is the actual weapon.”

“I know that too,” I said.

I looked at the window. Brooklyn is doing its Tuesday thing outside, indifferent and unhelpful as always.

Victor had told me at dinner that what he wanted was acknowledgement. That he wanted someone to say out loud that what had been done to him was wrong. I had sat across from him and listened and not believed him fully and not disbelieved him fully and had come home and told Sam he was either telling the truth or the best liar she had met since her mother.

Now he was threatening litigation.

Which meant one of two things. Either he had the documentation he claimed to have and was confident enough to take it to court. Or he was bluffing–pushing hard because Katia had called his bluff on the alliance and he needed to escalate to maintain

pressure.

I did not know which one it was yet.

I needed to know before his lawyers filed.

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