Page 117 of My Husband’s New Fiancée

“None.”

Good. That could have been much worse.

Then he adds:

“But the biochemist later transferred his analysis notes to the internal network.”

Silence crashes down again.

Brutal.

“What?”

“He thought the files themselves were secure. He only reconnected the machine after completing the analysis.”

Irritation hardens into something far more dangerous.

Incompetent fools.

“How long has that machine been reconnected?”

“About twenty minutes.”

Twenty minutes. More than enough time for their tracking system to have already communicated with their servers.

Fuck.

“Shut down the internal network immediately. Isolate every affected machine. And find out what communicated externally.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And once that’s done… you’re fired.”

I hang up without waiting for a reply.

My phone rings again almost immediately.

The biochemist.

“What now?”

“The files we were looking for aren’t there.”

I go still.

“Explain.”

“The folders are labeled NRX-889, but the contents don’t match. They’re old research leads. Abandoned molecules. Incomplete protocols. Some of the data is even inconsistent.”

A trap.

I grip my phone so hard the screen cracks beneath my fingers.

They let us steal exactly what they wanted us to steal.

And meanwhile, they’re probably already tracing everything back to us.

“Keep looking,” I order.