Victoria’s hands tightened against the cashmere blanket, her eyes flashing with a sharp, ancient fire that matched her son’s. "Corporate espionage? Director Francis dares to lock a woman bearing the Sterling name in an interrogation room?"
She looked up at Damian, her voice dropping into a commanding register. "Go, Damian. A member of Sterling does not sit under bright lights like a common criminal. Fix this mess immediately."
Damian didn’t waste another second. "Keep the guard outside her door," he commanded Marcus as he stormed out of the bedroom, his dark coat billowing behind him like the wings of a vulture.
"Call the senior legal partners. Tell them to meet me in the basement wing in ten minutes. If anyone speaks to Anastasia before I arrive, they’re fired."
_______________________
Meanwhile, inside the suffocatingly cold interrogation room at the headquarters, Ana sat beneath a harsh fluorescent light. Director Vance slammed a thick stack of papers on the metal table.
"Sign the confession, Miss Anastasia," Vance pressured, her voice cutting. "The digital logs don’t lie. Your account sent the encryption keys to our competitor. If you sign now, we can settle this quietly without involving the police."
"I didn’t do it!" Ana shouted, her voice trembling but defiant. She pressed her hands against the cold table to hide her shaking. "I don’t even know how to bypass the firewall to send external data! Someone framed me!"
"Then explain why the timestamp matches the exact minute you uploaded the file," Vance countered, leaning in maliciously. "Without proof, you are looking at a ten-year federal sentence. Sign it."
BANG!
The heavy electronic lock on the steel door shrieked as the door was violently thrown open, slamming against the concrete wall.
Damian stood in the doorway, his towering frame completely blocking the light from the hallway. His face was a mask of pure, unadulterated fury. Behind him stood four of the city’s most expensive, ruthless corporate attorneys.
"Step away from my wife, Francis," Damian’s deep baritone rumbled, sending a visible shockwave of fear through the Internal Affairs officers.
Vance stood up, trying to maintain her bureaucratic composure. "Mr. Sterling, with all due respect, this is a formal compliance investigation. The digital footprint traces directly to..."
"Traces to a spoofed IP address routed through Mr. Harris’s personal terminal," Damian interrupted smoothly, stepping into the room.
One of his lawyers immediately placed a tablet on the table, displaying a live network map. "Did you really think I wouldn’t notice a secondary encryption mirror on my own company’s secure server? I authorized the Aegis project upload specifically to track the digital leak that has been bleeding our marketing data for three months."
Ana’s breath caught in her throat. She looked from the tablet up to Damian’s cold, calculating eyes.
"Mr. Harris has already been detained by security downstairs," Damian continued, his gaze drifting down to lock onto Ana’s pale face. He extended a large, commanding hand toward her. "The investigation is over. Stand up, Anastasia."
Trembling, Ana stood and walked into his space. The moment her hand touched his, his fingers clamped around her wrist with an iron, possessive grip, pulling her out of the interrogation room.
He dragged her down the long, silent corridor of the basement, his steps fast and furious.
"Damian, wait," Ana breathed, struggling to keep up in her heels. "You... you knew about this? You knew someone was going to leak it today?"
Damian stopped abruptly outside the private executive elevator, spinning her around until her back pressed against the wall. He leaned down, his face inches from hers, a dark, dangerous glint in his eyes.
"Of course I knew, doll," he whispered against her ear, his breath hot and chilling all at once. "Mr. Harris was sloppy. But did you really think I brought you into this company just to watch you sort paper?"
Ana stared at him, her mind racing. Damian had caught the traitor, and officially, it was all on Mr. Harris. But Ana wasn’t a fool.
Harris had no personal vendetta against her... he was just a tool. It had to be Vivian. Vivian was the one standing by the elevators with that triumphant smile.
Vivian was the one pulling the strings behind the scenes, using Harris to do her dirty work so her own hands stayed clean.
"You used me," Ana whispered, a sudden wave of bitterness washing over her as she looked into his dark eyes. "You used me as bait to catch Harris."
Damian didn’t deny it. A slow, chilling smirk pulled at the corner of his lips as he reached out, his thumb firmly gripping her chin. "I protected you, Anastasia. But on my board, everyone plays their part."
He released her jaw and gestured toward the private executive elevator. "Move. We’re leaving."
"Leaving? Don’t I have to sign release forms or talk to HR?"
"I am HR," Damian said flatly, pressing the button for the underground garage. "Now get in the elevator."
The ride down was suffocatingly quiet. The moment the doors slid open to the private garage, Damian gripped her wrist again, pulling her directly toward the waiting Maybach.
Once inside the car, Ana pressed herself against the opposite door, her mind still spinning. Harris was a text-book corporate snake, but he had no reason to target a new intern.
"It was Vivian, wasn’t it?" Ana spoke up, turning to face him. "Harris didn’t do this on his own."
Damian didn’t look up from his tablet. "The digital footprint traced to Harris. The case is closed."
"Don’t play dumb with me, Damian! You know exactly who put him up to it."
Damian finally turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto hers with a freezing, absolute authority. "What I know doesn’t matter to you right now. What matters is that you are completely incompetent at playing defensive. You walked right into a bloodbath on your second day."
"You always did this , you always take her side. Today happened because you left me completely unprotected!" Ana snapped, her voice trembling with anger. "You knew something was coming, and you just vanished!"
"Stop accusing anyone without any proof... and I had an actual emergency to deal with," Damian growled low in his throat, his jaw clenching.
"What emergency? You won’t even tell me where you went!"
"Because you don’t need to know," he cut her off, his voice dripping with finality.
Ana let out a sharp, frustrated breath and whirled back to the window, refusing to speak another word. She hated him.
She hated how he controlled everything, how he kept her in the dark, and how her heart still raced whenever he got too close.
The car drove through the city gates and finally pulled up the long, winding driveway of his massive private estate. The sprawling stone mansion loomed ahead in the twilight, looking more like a luxurious fortress than a home.
The car ground to a halt. Damian threw his door open, stepping out into the cool evening air.
He didn’t wait for her. He walked straight up the grand stone steps, throwing a cold command over his shoulder.
"Get inside, Anastasia. We’re going to finish exactly what that phone call interrupted last night."
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