My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 230

The Spliced Trap

-Julian-

I hadn’t slept.

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I sat in the armchair in the corner of my bedroom, watching the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of Katia’s shoulders under the dark duvet. She was exhausted, her mind and body finally collapsing under the weight of the shock from yesterday afternoon. Every few minutes, her fingers would twitch against the fabric, her brow furrowing as her brain tried to process the phantom rush of wind and the quiet, heavy sound of Victor Hale’s body hitting the concrete twenty stories below.

*

She was safe here. I had brought her to the Windsor estate because the estate was a fortress, a place where the world could not reach her unless I allowed it. I had spent the night watching her, my hands still carrying the phantorn memory of the way she had trembled against my chest in the dark of the stairwell.

At exactly five–forty AM, my encrypted radio buzzed on the bedside table. A low static hum.

“Mr. Windsor,” my head of security, Marcus, whispered. “We have a situation at the main gate. NYPD. Three cruisers and two unmarked vehicles. They have a warrant.”

I was out of the chair before he finished the sentence. I didn’t look back at Katia. I walked to the door, my movements silent and deliberate, my blood pressure rising with a cold, steady heat.

“On what charge?” I asked, my voice a quiet, deadly rasp into the transmitter.

“Homicide, sir. They have a warrant for Katia Kensington.”

My grip on the radio tightened until the plastic groaned. “Hold them at the gate for exactly three minutes. Do not let them cross the driveway until I am downstairs.”

I slipped out of the room, pulling the heavy door shut behind me, ensuring the latch clicked softly so Katia wouldn’t wake. I didn’t put on a suit. I was in a black t–shirt and trousers, my sleeves rolled up, my hair unbrushed. I didn’t need the corporate armor today. I needed the raw, unyielding authority of a man who owned the land they were about to step on.

I reached the bottom of the grand staircase just as the tires of the police cruisers crunched onto the gravel of the circular driveway. The blue and red lights flashed against the high glass windows of the entrance hall, throwing jagged patterns of color across the stone walls.

The heavy front doors opened, and Marcus let them in. Two detectives in overcoats led the way, followed by four uniformed officers. The lead detective was Detective Reeves, a hardened, cynical investigator who had spent too many years looking at the worst parts of New York to be impressed by the Windsor name.

“Julian Windsor,” Reeves said, stopping ten feet from the base of the stairs. “We’re here for Katia Kensington. We have a warrant for her arrest.”

I didn’t descend the last three steps. I stood above them, my shadow stretching long and imposing across the stone floor. I looked down at him, my face a mask of absolute, frozen control.

“You’re on private property, Detective,” I said, my voice cutting through the quiet hum of the morning like a blade. “And you are standing in my house at six AM. Explain the warrant before I have my legal team remove you from this county.”

Reeves didn’t flinch, but the officers behind him shifted their weight, their hands resting uncomfortably near their utility belts. They knew who I was. They knew the resources I had.

“Victor Hale was pushed off the roof of the I* Technologies building yesterday afternoon,” Reeves said, pulling a folded document from his coat pocket. “We have the security feed from the adjacent building. It’s not a question, Mr. Windsor. We have the footage. Your guest pushed him.”

“That is a lie,” I said.

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“We have the tape,” Reeves repeated, pulling a rugged tablet from fits pocket. He tapped the screen and held it up, angling it so I could see the glow of the display.

I looked down at the screen. The footage was grainy, taken from a high angle camera across the alley. It showed Katia standing at the railing in her grey wool coat. It showed Victor lunging at her from behind. But thes, the frame skipped–a microscopic fraction of a second that only someone who had spent years analyzing digital surveillance would catch. In the next frame, Katia’s hands were on Victor’s chest, pushing his. The physics of the movement were completely wrong, her body didn’t shift its weight to support the momentum of a hundred–and–ninety–pound man, yet he was thrown back, over the iron bar, into the

empty air.

It was a splice. A high–grade, pre–programmed loop that had been overlaid on the original feed. Victor’s backup plan. If he failed to kill her, he was going to destroy her from beyond the grave.

“The footage is fabricated,” I said, my voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl. “The frame rate skips at the three–second mark The metadata is compromised.”

“The judge didn’t think so,” Reeves said, pocketing the tablet. “He signed the warrant. Now, bring her down, or we’ll go up and get her.”

Before I could answer, I heard a soft, bare–foot scuffle on the landing above.

I turned. Aiden was standing at the railing of the second floor, rubbing his eyes, his blue pajamas rumpled from sleep. He looked down at the flashing lights, his small face pale and confused as he stared at the uniformed officers in the lobby.

“Dad?” he whispered, his voice small and trembling. “What’s happening?”

The father instinct in my chest flared like gasoline. I didn’t want him to see this. I didn’t want my son to watch his mother being treated like a criminal in the house where he was supposed to be safe.

I took the stairs three at a time, reaching him in a second. I knelt, my large hands cupping his shoulders, blocking his view of the lobby below.

“Hey,” I said, my voice instantly shifting into something calm/steady, and entirely safe. “It’s okay. Some people from the city need to talk to Mummy about the court case yesterday. It’s just business.”

“Why are there lights?” Aiden asked, his eyes darting over my shoulder.

“They’re just standard security,” I lied, keeping my body positioned between him and the police. I looked over my shoulder and saw Gail standing at the end of the hallway, her face pale, already reading the situation. “Gail. Take Aiden to the guest cabin at the back of the property. Now. Get him some breakfast and keep him there.”

Gail nodded quickly. She ran forward, taking Aiden’s hand. Aiden looked at me, his eyes wide and trusting, before he let Gail lead him away toward the back stairs.

I watched them disappear until the door to the service stairs clicked shut. Only then did the composure slip back over my face, colder and harder than before.

I walked back down the stairs, each step heavy and calculated.

“She is coming down,” I told Reeves. “And you are going to treat her with the respect her position warrants. If a single hand is placed on her roughly, if you so much as raise your voice to her, I will personally ensure that your career ends in a desk job in upstate New York.”

I didn’t tell them she was my wife. If the press got wind of the Las Vegas marriage now, during a homicide investigation, it would turn into a media circus that would bury her. I had to keep my cards close to my chest. I had to play the role of the business partner, the Windsor, who was simply protecting his investment. But internally, every nerve in my body was screaming to rip the handcuffs out of Reeves’s hands and throw him through the glass doors.

A door opened at the top of the stairs.

The 44 S

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Katla came out. She was wearing a simple silk robe, her hair loose, Her face completely pale. She looked at the police, then at me. She didn’t panic. The CEO was back, her shoulders straight, her chin up, but I could see the slight tremor in her hands.

“Katia Kensington,” Reeves said, stepping forward. “You are under arrest for the murder of Victor Hale.”

Katia looked at the warrant he held out, then looked at me. I stood at the base of the stairs, my eyes locked on hers, sending her

a silent, unyielding message: I have you. Do not speak.

“My legal team is already moving, Katia,” I said, my voice steady and cold. “Do not say a single word. Not to them, not in the car, not in the interview room. You do not exist until my attorneys arrive.”

She nodded once. A slow, composed nod.

The detective stepped forward, turning her around to place the handcuffs on her wrists. The sound of the metal clicking into place the cold, sharp lock of the steel against her skin–made my vision go briefly red. I took a half–step forward, my muscles coiling, ready to strike, but I forced myself to stay still. I had to be the anchor. If broke the law now, I couldn’t protect her.

They led her past me. As she passed, our shoulders brushed. I looked down into her eyes, and the sheer, raw terror she was hiding behind that corporate mask made my stomach turn.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” I whispered.

She didn’t answer. They walked her out the front door, the cruisers‘ doors slamming shut, the sirens remaining silent as they pulled away down the long, private driveway.

The moment the doors closed, the silence of the house came back, heavy and suffocating.

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