My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 245

Delia’s Hand is Forced

Delia’s Hand is Forced

-Delia~

I was a ghost in my own home, but ghosts still had hands, and they still knew how to burn a house down.

For seventy–two hours, the silence in my wing of the Windsor estate had been absolute. Julian had ignored me since the night he dragged Katia out of the precinct, brought her to my dining table in cuffs, and fed her as if I weren’t even standing in the room. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t speak to me. When our paths crossed in the long, vaurted corridors, he walked straight past me, his eyes cutting through me as if the space I occupied were completely empty.

I was trapped in luxury, isolated in a sprawling stone fortress while the man who was supposed to be my husband spent his nights elsewhere, and my sister ran a multi–billion–dollar empire. Julian didn’t even bother to restrict my spending or block my cards; he simply didn’t care enough to look at my accounts.

I was left with my own inheritance and the unproven Windsor connection that felt like a mockery every time I looked in the mirror. Without a marriage certificate to show the world, the title of ‘Mrs. Windsor‘ was just a desperate whisper I kept to myself, a claim that nobody in this city actually believed.

I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I couldn’t get into Julian’s private study–the biometric locks on his doors were completely beyond my reach, and the security team stationed in the hall watched me with the quiet, assessing eyes of guards waiting for an intruder to make a mistake. I couldn’t go back to Tessa Sterling, either; the humiliation of her threat to have me thrown into the street was a burning, raw wound in my throat that I refused to reopen.

But I had weapons of my own. Victor Hale was dead, but the secrets he had left me, the venom we had cultivated together in his penthouse, were still sitting in my mind, waiting to be unleashed.

I sat at the antique writing desk in my bedroom, the curtains drawn against the bright afternoon light. My hands were shaking slightly as I opened my personal laptop. I didn’t have Katia’s proprietary algorithms. I didn’t have her secure corporate routing

numbers.

But I had her reputation. And in our world, reputation was the only thread keeping the money in the room.

The Brooklyn Grand Prix was scheduled to begin in less than twenty–four hours. I* Technologies was the headline sponsor, their sleek logos already plastered over every billboard, every barrier, and every digital screen along the waterfront. Katia had built her entire corporate identity on being pristine, untouchable, and disciplined—the brilliant, young, self–made :nother who had survived her family’s dismissal to conquer the tech sector.

If I took that away, if I dragged her back into the mud where she belonged, the Grand Prix sponsors would panic. The committee would pull the contracts. And Julian’s board would be forced to sever all ties with her to protect WEG’s public brand.

I opened an encrypted browser window and dialed a number I had kept memorized for six months.

The phone rang three times before a low, gravelly voice answered. It was Richard Vance, the senior editor of The New York Ledger’s investigative gossip column–a man who had built his career on buying the secrets of elite families and turning them into public executions.

“Delia Kensington,” Richard said, his tone instantly shifting into a smooth, predatory alertness. “I didn’t expect to hear from you. Is the Windsor chase finally hitting the rocks?”

I bristled at the use of my maiden name, but I forced the anger down. “This isn’t about my marriage, Richard,” I said, my voice eold, steady, and entirely empty of warmth. “I am giving you something much better. Something that will make your front page for the next three weeks.”

“I’m listening,” he murmured. I could hear the faint, rhythmic clicking of his keyboard in the background as he settled in.

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“Kalja Kensington,” I said, leaning closer to the screen, my eyes locked on the white glow of the blank document. “The pristine, brilliant CEO of I* Technologies. The woman currently standing at the center of the Brooklyn Grand Prix.”

“Your sister?” Richard let out a dry, unbothered laugh. “We’ve run her profile, Delia She’s a boring story. No scandals, no public meltdowns, just a quiet tech company and a son.”

“She’s a suspected murderer, Richard,” I whispered.

The clicking of the keyboard stopped instantly. The silence on the other end of the line was heavy, thick with the sudden, sharp realization of a journalist who had just smelled blood in the water.

“Say that again,” he commanded quietly.

“Victor Hale,” I said, my venom pouring out now, hot and fast. “The CEO of Halo Systems. He didn’t just fall off the roof of the I * Technologies building in Brooklyn on Wednesday morning. He was pushed. The NYPD has an active homicide investigation open, and Katia Kensington was arrested for it at the Windsor estate. They have the security footage, Richard. They have a video showing her hands on his chest, shoving him over the railing.”

“If she was arrested, why isn’t it on the police wire?” Richard asked, his professional skepticism kicking in.

“Because Julian used his personal lawyers and his connection to the DA to push through an emergency, closed–door bail agreement within three hours,” I hissed, my knuckles turning white as I gripped the edge of the desk. “They buried the arrest record. But she was in a cell. She was in a scratchy grey jumpsuit and silver handcuffs, locked up like the criminal she is.”

“An active homicide charge,” Richard murmured, the excitement in his voice rising. “That’s massive. But we need more than just an arrest record to run a headline like that before the Grand Prix. We need an angle. Something that makes her look like a systematic liar.”

“I have the lie,” I said, a slow, highly vicious smile touching the corners of my lips. “Her marriage. The legendary, mysterious husband she has been claiming to have for seven years. The Las Vegas ring she wears on her finger to protect her reputation so society wouldn’t judge her for being an unmarried mother with Aiden.”

“The husband situation,” Richard noted. “We’ve tried to track him down before. He doesn’t exist on any registry.”

“Because he is a complete fabrication,” I pushed, leaning in. “She got pregnant in a cheap Las Vegas chapel seven years ago, came back with a ring she probably bought herself, and invented a husband to protect her pristine corporate armor. She’s a fraud, Richard. She’s been lying to her board, her stakeholders, and the public for seven years to hide her shame. And now, she’s facing murder charges for pushing her competitor off a twenty–story building.”

I paused, breathing hard, my chest rising and falling as the raw excitement of my revenge settled in my stomach.

“I have the arrest booking number,” I continued, typing the digits I had memorized from Julian’s desk documents into the secure chat window. “And I have the names of the detectives on the case. Reeves. NYPD. Run the files, Richard. Put it on the wire by five o’clock tonight.”

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