The CEO's Rejected Wife And Secret Heir novel Chapter 180

Chapter 180: Chapter 180 – The Attempt

Aria’s POV

The call came at eleven forty-three on a Wednesday morning, It was Noah’s school. Ms. Pearce, his classroom teacher, her voice careful and controlled.

"Mrs. Blackwood," she said. "Noah is completely safe, i want to say that first."

The world went very still around me. "Tell me," I said.

I was in the car before she’d finished explaining, my security detail moving without me having to ask, the driver already pulling out of the Monroe Global parking structure while I sat in the back with my phone pressed to my ear and my other hand flat against my stomach — not thinking about it, just doing it, the instinctive gesture of a woman protecting two children at once.

Ms. Pearce had noticed him at eleven-fifteen.

A man she didn’t recognize, wearing the lanyard and pale blue polo of the school’s after-care staff, moving through the corridor toward the younger classrooms. She’d almost let it go, almost told herself she just didn’t recognize him from her end of the building, except that she did know all the after-care staff, had worked alongside them for years, and something about the way this man moved was wrong in a way she couldn’t name but couldn’t ignore.

She’d stepped into the corridor and asked him directly: "Can I help you find something?"

He’d said he was looking for the Year One reading room.

She’d said she’d walk him there.

He’d left. Quickly, back the way he came, through the side exit that opened onto the car park, and by the time the school’s security guard reached the door he was gone — dark jacket, medium build, the camera footage showing a man who had kept his face angled away from every lens in the building as though he’d studied the layout in advance. Because he had.

Noah had been in Ms. Pearce’s classroom the entire time, sitting on the reading rug with four other children.

When I arrived, he was still on the rug. He looked up when I walked in and said, "Mama, we’re in the middle of the story," with the mild reproach of someone whose schedule had been interrupted, and I crossed the room and pulled him into my arms and held on with everything I had.

He tolerated it for approximately four seconds before squirming. "Mama. The story."

"I know, baby." I pressed my face into his hair and breathed. "I know."

Damien arrived a few minutes after me, which meant he’d been moving before I’d called him, which meant Barnes had already been in contact, which meant the security apparatus we’d built around our family had been running silently in the background this entire morning and had done exactly what it was built to do.

He walked into the school office where I sat with Ms. Pearce and the principal, and the first thing he did was look at me — a full, direct look, the kind he used when he needed to confirm something with his own eyes rather than someone else’s report.

I nodded once. I’m fine.

His shoulders dropped a fraction. Then he sat beside me, took my hand on the table, and turned to the principal with the controlled intensity of a man who was very angry and managing it carefully.

"Walk me through the camera coverage of every entrance," he said.

Barnes met us at the penthouse a few hours later, Noah installed in the living room with Mrs. Dora and a city’s worth of LEGO, far enough away that the conversation in Damien’s office wouldn’t reach him.

"The lanyard was a replica," Barnes said, setting a photograph on the desk — the school’s official after-care ID beside a near-match, slightly wrong in the font, the colour marginally off. "Good quality. Someone who either had access to the original or a very clear photograph of one." He paused. "The school posts staff photos on their parent portal. Including lanyard shots."

I closed my eyes briefly then opened them.

"Charles gave him portal access," Damien said.

"Working assumption. We’re pulling the login records now." Barnes reached into his folder again. "He left in a hurry and hurrying makes people careless."

He set down a second photograph: a mobile phone with a cracked screen, sealed in an evidence bag.

"Dropped it in the car park. Pay-as-you-go, unregistered. But it hadn’t been fully wiped when we recovered it." Barnes looked between us. "There are partial texts. Two numbers — one almost certainly Charles and the other we’re running now."

"The second number," Damien said. "Who?"

"We don’t know yet. The texts suggest it’s whoever fed Charles the school layout. Someone with inside access." Barnes closed the folder. "Twenty-four hours and we’ll have a name."

The office was quiet. Through the door, Noah’s voice drifted in — he was explaining something to Mrs. Dora about structural load-bearing in LEGO, with the authority of someone who had been watching Damien review building plans and absorbed considerably more than anyone realized.

"He was a few metres from Noah’s classroom," I said.

"I know." Barnes’s voice was steady.

"If Ms. Pearce hadn’t trusted her instinct"

"She did," Damien said quietly beside me, his hand finding mine under the desk. "She did, Aria."

I pressed my lips together as I nodded.

Barnes gathered his folder and left the office quietly, the door clicking shut behind him. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

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