Chapter 6 - The Woman in Red Was Never His Mistress
Genevieve’s silence told Sebastian everything he needed.
That was the problem with intelligent people.
They recognized intelligence in others.
And Sebastian had spent decades learning to watch faces.
“You remember,” he said again.
Genevieve forced her expression flat.
“No.”
“Your mother gave you something before she died.”
“She gave me hundreds of things.”
“Something personal.”
“My mother was my mother. Everything was personal.”
Sebastian stepped closer.
Gideon moved between them.
The men above shifted.
Sebastian smiled.
“There he is.”
“Let Arthur go,” Gideon said.
“Still giving orders.”
“You used to follow them.”
“I used to pretend.”
Genevieve looked toward the upper walkway.
Eight men visible.
Possibly more.
Gideon had entered alone.
At least he appeared alone.
She was beginning to understand that appearances around Gideon Vale were rarely reliable.
Sebastian looked at him.
“You knew Rosalind would follow my financial transfers eventually.”
“I hoped.”
“So you used your own wedding as cover.”
Genevieve turned sharply.
Gideon’s face remained unreadable.
Sebastian laughed softly.
“Oh. She doesn’t know.”
“Stop talking,” Gideon said.
That was all the confirmation Genevieve needed.
“You used our wedding?”
Gideon looked at her.
“Not like that.”
“That phrase has never improved anything.”
Sebastian seemed delighted.
He leaned against a crate.
“Perhaps I should explain. Gideon suspected for months that someone inside Vale Holdings was moving money through shell companies.”
Genevieve looked at Gideon.
“You told me you suspected Sebastian.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t tell me you were investigating during our wedding.”
“The reception gave Rosalind access to people who normally wouldn’t gather in one place.”
Genevieve almost couldn’t believe it.
“My wedding reception was an intelligence operation.”
“Our wedding reception.”
“That distinction is not helping you.”
Sebastian laughed.
Gideon ignored him.
“Rosalind has worked with my family for years.”
“As your mistress?”
“No.”
“Then what is she?”
A female voice came from the warehouse speakers.
“Insulted, mostly.”
Genevieve looked up.
Rosalind Hastings appeared on the upper walkway behind two of Sebastian’s men.
Her red dress was gone.
She wore black now.
One of the men turned.
Rosalind pressed something against his neck.
He dropped.
The second man reached for a weapon, but a Vale security officer appeared behind him.
Within seconds, the walkway erupted into confusion.
Gideon grabbed Genevieve and pulled her behind a shipping container.
Arthur remained tied near the center.
Sebastian disappeared through a side door.
“Stay here,” Gideon said.
Genevieve glared.
“I am beginning to hate that sentence.”
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
Gideon moved toward Arthur.
Rosalind descended the stairs.
Several of Sebastian’s men surrendered once they realized Vale security had entered through the loading tunnels.
No gunfire.
No dramatic battle.
Just swift containment.
Gideon cut Arthur free.
Genevieve ran toward her father.
Arthur hugged her tightly.
For several seconds, the secrets between them didn’t matter.
He was alive.
That was enough.
Then Genevieve turned toward Rosalind.
The woman everyone believed had destroyed her wedding stood ten feet away.
Rosalind raised both hands.
“Before you say anything, I would like to formally state that I advised your husband not to leave the reception with me.”
“He is not currently my husband.”
Gideon looked pained.
Rosalind nodded.
“I heard.”
Genevieve stared at her.
“What are you?”
“Private intelligence.”
“For Gideon?”
“For myself.”
Rosalind glanced at Gideon.
“Occasionally for him.”
Gideon added, “She specializes in financial crime.”
Genevieve laughed once.
“This is absurd.”
Rosalind folded her arms.
“You should see my expense reports.”
“You let everyone believe you were sleeping together.”
“Useful cover.”
“For years?”
“Extremely useful cover.”
Genevieve looked at Gideon.
“You could have told me before the wedding.”
“Yes.”
The immediate answer surprised her.
“No excuse?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He looked toward Arthur.
“Because someone had access to Winterborne communications.”
Arthur lowered his eyes.
Genevieve caught it.
“What?”
Her father said nothing.
“Dad.”
Rosalind stepped in.
“Gideon didn’t know whether your father was compromised.”
Arthur’s face tightened.
Genevieve looked between them.
“You suspected my father?”
“Yes,” Gideon said.
“And you still married me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Gideon took a breath.
“Because every path led back to you.”
She stared.
He continued before she could misunderstand.
“Shipping changes occurred after you approved routine schedules. Security leaks happened after meetings you attended. Contracts were copied from systems using your credentials.”
Genevieve went cold.
“You thought I was involved.”
“At first.”
The answer hurt.
Then he added, “For approximately two days.”
“What changed?”
“I met you.”
She hated how easily that sentence reached her.
Gideon continued.
“You asked questions a guilty person wouldn’t ask. You argued against contract provisions that would have benefited the leak. And when I deliberately gave you false routing information—”
“You tested me?”
“Yes.”
“You are unbelievable.”
“The false information never leaked.”
“So?”
“So I knew somebody was using you.”
Genevieve remembered assistants.
Drivers.
Executives.
Her father’s advisers.
Sebastian had access to almost everything.
Rosalind spoke.
“We believed the wedding would force him to move.”
“It did,” Genevieve said.
“Yes.”
“And nobody considered telling the bride.”
Rosalind looked genuinely apologetic.
“I argued for it.”
Genevieve turned toward Gideon.
“Of course she did.”
“I was wrong.”
That stopped her.
Gideon Vale did not look like a man who said those words often.
But he did not avoid them.
“I was wrong,” he repeated. “I thought information would put you at greater risk.”
“It did the opposite.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
Genevieve stepped closer.
“You protected me so thoroughly that I had no idea what game I was standing inside.”
He absorbed that.
No defense.
No anger.
Just silence.
Arthur watched them.
Then said, “Genevieve.”
She turned.
Her father looked older than he had yesterday.
“There’s something you need to know about Elena.”
“The music box.”
His eyes widened.
So she was right.
“It contains something.”
Arthur nodded slowly.
“The second ledger.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“The box is too small.”
“Not the files themselves.”
“What, then?”
“The original decryption token.”
Rosalind stepped closer.
“A physical cipher?”
Arthur nodded.
“Elena never trusted digital keys. She created a phrase encoded through the music mechanism.”
Genevieve thought about the tiny ivory music box.
Her mother had given it to her two days before the accident.
For seventeen years it had sat on her bedroom dresser.
When opened, it played a simple melody Elena used to hum.
Except—
Genevieve remembered something.
The song had always sounded wrong.
One note repeated strangely.
A pause where there shouldn’t have been one.
She had assumed the mechanism was damaged.
It wasn’t.
“The melody is the code.”
Arthur nodded.
“And Sebastian knows about the box now,” Gideon said.
Genevieve’s stomach dropped.
Winterborne House.
Beatrice.
Staff.
All vulnerable.
“We need to get there first.”
Rosalind looked toward Gideon.
“Sebastian escaped through the east loading corridor. We have cameras tracking vehicles.”
“Which direction?”
Rosalind checked her phone.
Then looked up.
“Winterborne estate.”
Genevieve was already moving.
Outside, the sky had brightened.
The first full morning of her marriage.
Or former marriage.
She no longer knew.
Gideon followed her toward the SUV.
“Genevieve.”
She kept walking.
“I’m going with you.”
“I assumed.”
“I need you to understand something.”
She stopped.
“What?”
“I did not leave our reception because Rosalind mattered more than you.”
Genevieve looked at him.
“Then why did you?”
“Because we intercepted a message saying someone intended to kill you before morning.”
Silence.
Even Rosalind stopped.
Gideon continued.
“The message appeared to originate from her network. I had to verify whether it was real.”
Genevieve’s anger wavered.
“And when you returned?”
“I still didn’t know who inside the house could be trusted.”
“So you left again.”
“To move the source before Sebastian reached him.”
“And you couldn’t tell me.”
“I should have.”
That mattered.
Not because it fixed anything.
Because he finally stopped defending the mistake.
Genevieve turned toward the vehicle.
“We can discuss our disastrous marriage later.”
Gideon followed.
“Is that encouraging?”
“No.”
“Not even slightly?”
She looked back.
“You are currently annulled.”
“The process isn’t complete.”
“Do you want me to finish it faster?”
“I’m quiet now.”
Rosalind whispered to Beatrice, “I like her.”
Beatrice replied, “So does he.”
Genevieve pretended not to hear.
Forty minutes away, at Winterborne House, a man wearing a familiar security uniform walked through the front entrance.
The staff let him pass.
He climbed the main staircase.
Turned toward Genevieve’s childhood bedroom.
And placed his hand on the music box her mother had left behind seventeen years earlier.
Sebastian Crowne had lost the bride.
May you like
But now he had found the key.
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