Chapter 3 - The Husband Who Was Sent to Marry HerIsabella didn't sleep.
By three in the morning, she had gone through every file on the flash drive three times.
Every road led back to Nathan.
But every answer created another question.
Marcus stayed in the security office with her.
Outside, police guarded the hotel.
No one knew whether Nathan was alive.
No one knew who fired the gun.
And no one knew why someone had tried to stop him from speaking.
At 4:12 a.m., the computer suddenly displayed a new notification.
ONE FILE REMAINING.
Isabella frowned.
“There wasn't another file.”
Marcus checked the drive.
The folder was hidden.
He clicked it.
A video appeared.
Nathan was sitting in a dark room.
Alone.
His jacket was off.
His face looked exhausted.
The recording date was three weeks before their wedding.
Nathan looked directly into the camera.
“If you're watching this, Isabella, then everything went wrong.”
Isabella's chest tightened.
Nathan continued.
“I need you to understand something.”
He paused.
“I didn't marry you for your money.”
Isabella almost laughed.
“What a convenient thing to say now.”
Marcus remained silent.
Nathan's recording continued.
“I married you because your father saved my family once.”
Isabella stared.
Nathan explained that years ago, his father had nearly been imprisoned for fraud.
Isabella's father had secretly intervened.
But he hadn't done it out of kindness.
He had discovered that Nathan's father was helping another group move stolen corporate assets.
A group called Eclipse.
Nathan's father had been ordered to find Isabella.
When he refused, the Blackwood family threatened him.
Nathan became involved.
Then Nathan looked into Isabella's life.
He learned everything.
Her company.
Her inheritance.
Her father's hidden trust.
Her mother's death.
He also discovered something no one else knew.
Isabella's father had hidden evidence somewhere before he died.
Evidence that could destroy Eclipse.
Nathan stared into the camera.
“I was ordered to get close to you.”
Isabella whispered,
“I knew it.”
But Nathan wasn't finished.
“I was supposed to marry you.”
Isabella's eyes filled with anger.
“That was real.”
“Yes.”
The video continued.
“The engagement was real. The wedding was real. The baby was real.”
Isabella touched her stomach.
Then Nathan said something that made her blood run cold.
“But the pregnancy changed everything.”
He explained.
Once Isabella became pregnant, the trust activated.
The Blackwoods suddenly realized the unborn child was the legal heir to her father's hidden fortune.
They wanted control.
Nathan was supposed to convince Isabella to sign everything over.
But he couldn't.
He had fallen in love with her.
Isabella scoffed.
“Then why did you do this?”
The video paused.
Nathan looked down.
“Because they threatened you.”
A new document appeared.
Photographs.
Isabella's mother.
Her dead mother.
Then photographs of people following Isabella.
Then photographs of Isabella leaving work.
Then photographs of her sleeping.
Someone had been tracking her.
For years.
Nathan's voice continued.
“They told me that if I refused to cooperate, they would kill you.”
Isabella stopped breathing.
Marcus looked at her.
“Nathan may have been trapped.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“He was still part of it.”
The video changed.
Nathan leaned toward the camera.
“I needed them to believe I was still loyal.”
He explained the accusation.
The ring.
The documents.
The staged humiliation.
Everything was designed to give him access to the Eclipse files.
But there was something he couldn't control.
Victoria.
She had decided to accelerate the plan.
She wanted Isabella convicted of theft.
Nathan had allowed it because it gave him access to the family security network.
The true plan was different.
The accusation was supposed to end quickly.
But Victoria had turned it into a public execution.
Then Nathan revealed the real reason he had brought the flash drive.
Inside was evidence that the Blackwood family had discovered something about Isabella's unborn child.
A genetic report.
Isabella stared.
“No.”
She clicked.
The document was titled:
PATERNITY CONFIRMATION
She read the first line.
Then the second.
Her face drained of color.
Marcus leaned in.
“Isabella?”
She couldn't speak.
The report did not question Nathan's paternity.
It confirmed it.
Then beneath the result was an additional line:
GENETIC MARKER MATCH: HART FAMILY LEGACY
Isabella frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Marcus didn't know.
Another file opened automatically.
A confidential medical report.
Her child had a genetic marker connected to her father's family.
That wasn't unusual.
But a second marker had been identified.
One associated with a neurological disorder.
The report had been altered.
Somebody had removed part of the data.
Isabella stared at the missing section.
“Why would they hide a medical result?”
Marcus shook his head.
“I don't know.”
Then the screen flashed.
WARNING: REMOTE ACCESS DETECTED.
Someone was trying to erase the files.
Marcus immediately disconnected the computer.
Too late.
One document vanished.
Isabella screamed.
“Which one?”
Marcus looked at the empty folder.
“The paternity report.”
“No.”
Then the lights in the security office flickered.
A notification appeared on Marcus's phone.
Unknown number.
One message.
STOP READING.
A second message appeared.
OR THE BABY DIES.
Isabella stared at the screen.
Then something inside her changed.
She was no longer afraid.
She was furious.
She stood.
“They want me powerless.”
Marcus looked at her.
“Yes.”
Isabella picked up the flash drive.
“Then we're going to find out exactly why.”
Before Marcus could answer, the hotel fire alarm began screaming.
Smoke filled the hallway.
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And from somewhere downstairs came the sound of a woman shouting:
“ISABELLA! DON'T LET THEM TAKE YOU!”
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