My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 158

The IP Lawsuit Filed

-Katia-

The filing landed at eight AM.

was

one hundred and fourteen pages, formally stamped Not as a call. Not as a message from Marcus. An actual document served to I* Technologies‘ registered legal address and simultaneously crailed to my personal account with a cover note from Victor’s lead attorney that was so professionally courteous it made my teeth hurt.

I read the cover note over my first coffee.

Then I made a second coffee and sat down and read all one hundred and fourteen pages.

It took forty–five minutes. I ate breakfast while I read eggs; toast; and the orange juice Sama had left in my refrigerator with a note that said, ‘Drink this, you won’t‘ — and I finished both the filing and the food at approximately the same time.

Victor had been thorough.

I had known he would be. He had been building this for five years, and he had filed it with the precision of someone who had

– Halo’s pre–startup architecture had checked every line seventeen times before signing. The claim was clean on the surface appeared in Meridian’s system, Meridian’s system had become I*‘s Invisible Shield; therefore, I* had been built on stolen property. He had documentation. He had expert witnesses listed. He had a timeline that looked, at first glance, completely airtight.

At first glance.

I had read it three times before I found the gap Sam’s team had flagged. The timestamp discrepancy was a filing date on one of Victor’s key exhibits that did not match the internal metadata of the document itself. Four days off. Small enough that most people would miss it. Large enough, if you knew what you were looking at, to suggest the document had been created after the date it claimed.

That was not an accident.

That was fabrication.

I put the filing down. I picked up my phone. I called Marcus.

“I’ve read it,” I said.

“All of it?” Marcus said.

“All of it,” I said. “Page seventy–three. The exhibit is dated the fourteenth. The metadata says the eighteenth.”

He didn’t answer right away. “We found that too,” he said. “We weren’t sure you’d-”

“Four days,” I said. “He fabricated an exhibit.”

“Allegedly,” Marcus said carefully.

“Allegedly,”

“I agreed. “Build me a case around that discrepancy. I want everything – chain of custody on that document, who filed it, when, what system it was created on. If he fabricated it, I want to be able to prove it with enough certainty that his legal team can’t argue their way out.”

“That will take time,” Marcus said.

“You have the thirty–day window,” I said. “Use all of it.”

I hung up.

My phone was already showing three missed calls from numbers I did not recognise. The filing had been leaked

Sam had

The IP Lawsuk filed

+25 BONUS

texted while I was on with Marcus. Three business publications had it. By nine AM it would be everywhere.

Victor had designed this for press coverage from the beginning. The lawsuit itself was almost secondary. What he wanted was the narrative – I* Technologies under legal siege, security questions, and now IP theft allegations. Three strikes of doubt against my company before the government contract renewal evaluation began.

He was very good at this.

I called Sam.

“The leak,” I said.

“All three publications are running it,” she said. “The FT piece is already live. The others will follow within the hour.”

“Draft a statement,” I said. “Short. We are aware of the filing. We are confident in our legal position. We will respond through the appropriate legal channels. Nothing else.” I paused. “And make sure it goes out before the second publication runs.”

“Already drafted,” she said. “Waiting for your approval.”

She sent it. I read it. Changed two words. Sent it back.

“Also,” Sam said. “Julian called.”

“I know,” I said.

“He called twice.”

“I know, Sam.”

“He’s going to keep calling.”

“I know.” I looked at the filing on my kitchen table. One hundred and fourteen pages

carefully formatted into a legal document. “I’ll call him now.”

I called Julian.

He picked up on the first ring.

“You read it,” he said.

“All of it,” I said.

“The exhibit on page seventy–three,” he said.

I paused. “You found it too.”

of Victor Hale’s five–year obsession

“Reid found it at six AM,” he said. “I’ve had my intelligence team running Victor’s document history since the threat in Chapter 130. The metadata discrepancy on that exhibit–Katia, that document was created on a system registered to a Halo subsidiary. Not to Victor’s original startup. That startup was dissolved.”

I was very still.

“He didn’t just fabricate the date,” I said slowly.

“He fabricated the document entirely,” Julian said. “The startup it supposedly came from did not exist in the form he’s claiming when the architecture was allegedly developed. I have the dissolution records. I have the registration history.”

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