Betrayed By My Fiancé And My Father

"Happy anniversary, beautiful," Julian said, stepping into the entryway of our penthouse.

He held out a massive bouquet of white roses. His smile was flawless, reaching all the way to his eyes. If I hadn't stood outside his office three hours ago, I would have believed the adoration on his face.

"You remembered," I said, taking the flowers.

My fingers brushed his knuckles. I forced my muscles to remain loose, suppressing the urge to yank my hand away.

"How could I forget?" He pulled me into a hug.

His cologne smelled like cedar and expensive gin. I patted his back, counting to three before stepping out of his embrace.

"Liam mentioned you were swamped today," I said, turning toward the kitchen island to set the roses down.

"Just wrapping up the final launch details," Julian replied, loosening his silk tie. "Chloe had me running in circles."

"She works hard."

"She's alright. A bit demanding, but she gets the job done." He pulled out a barstool and sat. "I'm off the clock now, though."

"Good. I ordered takeout from that Italian place you love."

Julian fished his phone from his pocket. "Perfect. I just need to approve one vendor invoice before dinner."

I opened a cabinet to grab a crystal vase. Turning back, I walked up behind him to fill it at the sink. My eyes darted to his phone screen.

It wasn't an invoice portal. It was a banking app.

He typed in a quick sequence. A wire transfer confirmation popped up. Fifteen thousand dollars. The recipient name flashed for a fraction of a second before he locked the screen.

Apex Solutions.

"Vendor?" I asked, keeping my voice light.

"Yeah, server maintenance," Julian said smoothly, slipping the phone back into his pocket. "The costs keep climbing, but we need the bandwidth for the new algorithm."

"Whatever you need to make the launch successful."

"Speaking of success," he said, catching my hand and pressing a kiss to my palm. "I can't wait for Friday. The big dinner."

"I'm looking forward to it. You mentioned a surprise?"

"It wouldn't be a surprise if I told you." He winked. "Just know it's going to secure our future."

I offered him a soft, practiced smile. "Our future. Sounds serious."

"You mean everything to me, Elara. This company, this life... I couldn't have done it without you."

"I know, Julian. I know exactly how much you need me."

I handed him a glass of Merlot. He clinked it against my water glass, entirely oblivious to the trap snapping shut around him.

The next morning, I sat across from Nora in her downtown office.

"Marcus told me you canceled the final document review," Nora said, sliding a cup of black coffee across the mahogany desk.

"Marcus doesn't know the half of it," I replied. I ignored the coffee and opened my laptop.

"Start talking. You look like you want to murder someone."

I recounted the conversation I overheard at Mercer Tech. I repeated every word Julian and Chloe exchanged, keeping my tone flat and clinical.

Nora leaned back in her leather chair. "He's planning to dilute your shares to zero point five percent? That's bold. And incredibly stupid."

"He thinks I'm a naive bankroll. He told Chloe I'd sign the restructuring agreement without reading a single page."

"Who is Chloe?"

"The marketing director. And apparently, his new partner in every sense of the word."

Nora cracked her knuckles. "Let me access the corporate ledgers." She turned to her dual monitors. "You're the majority shareholder. I still have backdoor access to the accounting software from the initial funding round."

"Look for small asset transfers. Last night, he approved a fifteen-thousand-dollar invoice for 'server maintenance' right in front of me. The payee was Apex Solutions."

Nora's fingers flew across her keyboard. "Let's see... Pulling up the vendor payouts."

The screen populated with hundreds of rows of financial data.

"Here it is," Nora pointed at a highlighted cell. "Paid to Apex Solutions."

"Run the LLC."

Nora opened a new tab and accessed the state business registry. "Registered agent... Chloe Davis."

I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. "He's not even trying to hide it."

"There are dozens of these," Nora said, her voice dropping an octave. "Five thousand here, eight thousand there. All funneled to Apex over the last six months."

"Total it up."

"You're looking at nearly two hundred and forty thousand dollars."

I crossed my arms. "He's bleeding the operational budget to fund their side accounts."

"That's corporate fraud, Elara. We have him dead to rights."

"I want more. Pull the partnership agreements. I need to see exactly how he's manipulating the supplier contracts."

Nora clicked through a series of encrypted folders. "He's been altering the profit-sharing margins. The hardware suppliers are taking a five percent cut, but the books show ten. The difference is being routed to another shell company."

"Let me guess. Owned by Julian."

"Bingo. JM Holdings."

"What about the new algorithm? He mentioned forging my initials on the patent application."

Nora navigated to the legal filings portal. She scanned the documents submitted last week.

"He wasn't lying to her," Nora confirmed, turning the monitor so I could see. "Your name is entirely scrubbed from the patent. It lists Julian as the sole creator, assigned directly to Mercer Tech."

"Print it all," I demanded. "The forged patent filings, the fake invoices, the altered partnership agreements. Bind it nicely."

"What are you going to do?" Nora asked, the printer whirring to life in the corner of the office.

"Julian wants to present me with a document at our anniversary dinner. I think I'll bring some reading material of my own."

Nora offered a grim smile. "I'll have the embezzlement charges drafted by Thursday. We can file an emergency injunction to freeze his assets."

"Make sure the police are on standby for Friday night."

Nora's desk phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID and raised an eyebrow.

"Speak of the devil," Nora said. "It's Julian."

"Answer it. Put him on speaker."

Nora pressed the flashing button. "Nora speaking."

"Nora, hey. It's Julian." His voice echoed through the quiet office, bright and full of false charm. "Just checking on the restructure documents for Friday. Are we good to go?"

"Everything is proceeding exactly as it should, Julian," Nora replied smoothly.

"Perfect. I really appreciate you pushing this through. Elara is going to be so thrilled when she sees the final setup."

"I'm sure she will be completely surprised," Nora said.

"Have a great week, Nora."

He hung up. The line went dead.

I stared at the phone, a cold knot tightening in my stomach.

"He has no idea," Nora said, stacking the freshly printed evidence.

"Not yet," I replied, sliding the papers into my leather bag. "But I need one more thing to completely destroy him."

"I think two hundred grand in fraud is enough to put him away, Elara."

"It's not about putting him away. It's about taking back what he stole."

Nora frowned, clicking back to the main server directory. "Wait. Elara, look at this."

"What is it?"

"I just found a hidden sub-folder in the equity drive. It's heavily encrypted, but the metadata shows a pending transfer scheduled for Friday at midnight."

"A transfer of what?"

Nora's face paled as she read the file extensions. "He's not just stealing money. He's selling the entire Mercer Tech source code to a third party."

"Who?" I demanded, leaning over the desk.

"A company called Vanguard Dynamics," Nora said.

"Vanguard? My father spent five years trying to run them out of the valley."

"Julian is handing them the keys to your algorithm. If this transfer goes through on Friday, Vanguard will own the tech before your launch even happens."

"He's burning the company to the ground," I said, the reality of his betrayal sinking deeper. "He doesn't just want to push me out. He wants to cash out entirely and leave me holding an empty shell."

"This changes things," Nora warned. "If he sells the source code, the fraud charges won't matter. Mercer Tech will be worthless by Monday."

"Can you block the transfer?"

"Not from here. The encryption is tied to his physical terminal in the penthouse. You have to stop it from his office."

I gripped the edge of the desk. "Then I guess I'm breaking into his office tonight."