Sentenced to Marriage by MadlainQ

A lie | kept staring at Alan, blinking my eyes in disbelief. “Letget this straight... You made a perfect clone of Callan’s phone, and then you erased all the nude pictures and the video from it?” “That is correct,” Norton confirmed.

“And this phone is the one that the FBI agents have taken?” “Yup.” Alan grinned wickedly. “And the original is still in our hands, and we can complete the retrieval of data that got erased by the burner app?” “Yes,” they replied simultaneously. | collapsed on the sofa and burst out into laughter, relieved and happy to have those two freaks by my side. Aren stood beside me, smiling and gesturing a thumbs-up to Alan and Norton. | smiled at my husband and shrugged. “I guess, we will notify Jack if we find something useful.” “Good idea.” Aren nodded before turning to the boys. “Good job, guys.” “It was the right thing to do,” Norton said, confidently raising his chin.

| knew | owed them a good dinner with high-quality alcohol, at least for what they did. As soon as Aren, Neil, and the lawyer left, | hugged both of them.

“Thank you, guys. I've no idea what | would do without you,” | said, on the verge of sobbing. “Chill babe!” Alan chuckled. “You are our boss's wife. It is only natural that we'll make sure that no fucker messes with you.” Norton nodded, approving Alan’s words before he sat back behind his desk. “We still have work to do,” he said, shifting his eyes to a computer screen. He was right. There was a chance that computer geeks working for the FBI would discover that what those agents took was a mere copy of Callan’s phone, and they would cback to search for the real one this time. We had to make sure that we retrieved all the files we could before that happened.

All three of us worked relentlessly for the next hours, correcting algorithms to get the best possible results.

Finally, it all started to pay off... “I got one message!” Alan exclaimed. “It was sent two days before your kidnapping, and it was sent to an unidentified recipient, supposedly a burner phone.” “Letsee it,” | said, pushing myself to ride my office chair closer to his screen and then read the message aloud, “I've given the universal key to your man just like you wanted. Just remember that afterward, Cora is mine.” Chills ran down my spine. | was glad that the message appeared to be one more piece of evidence of Callan’s involvement in my kidnapping and the whole attack, but it had little use when Callan had already died. My excitement gave way to a wry smile. We needed to dig deeper, hoping to recover something with a nor a place at least. After another hour, | dug into an incoming message from two weeks ago. | read it to the boys, “I know you want him dead just as much as | do. He will pay for what he has done to my family. I'll make sure he pays.” “Wow... this guy is serious!” Alan commented, widening his eyes.

“You should show it to your husband. Maybe it will give him a clue.” My lips stretched into a grimace. “I doubt it. It's not too specific, and the thing about the family... Aren must have taken a lot of companies over the years. | bet there must be thousands of families who hate him for losing their jobs or their wealth.” “Fuck, you're right.” Alan lowered his head and turned his eyes back to the screen. Before midnight, we retrieved a few other text messages, but none of them brought anything new. | was starting to feel that we were running in circles. The mastermind behind the attack was wise enough not to use any specific names in the messages, giving us little to no information about who he was. If it weren't for the fact that | had talked to him, I could have assumed that the perpetrator might have been a woman as well. | heaved a sound of frustration as | finished reading another nothing changing text. “Maybe we should call it a day?” Norton suggested.

“I'll second that.” Alan raised his wobbly hand. “Fine...” | muttered, blinking at the screen with my exhausted eyes. | texted Aren. He askedto wait a few more minutes so that we could go htogether. | did as he askedto. | went down to the parking lot and sat in the car. The fifteen minutes passed, and Aren didn’t cdown. | shrugged, thinking that he must have answered a last minute phone call. | used that tto read a few articles on my phone, but when it was almost 1 AM and he wasn’t there, it gotslightly worried. | was about to call him when he showed up, walking out of his private elevator and heading toward the car. He looked pale and nervous. | could see that something was clearly off, but as he got inside the car, he gavea warm smile as if nothing had happened. “Are you all right?” | asked, stroking his cheek. “Of course.” He chuckled, touching my hand on his cheek. “Why wouldn't | be?” He lied. | knew him well enough to know that. Perhaps he didn’t want to worry me, but | hated not knowing what was going on. Besides, it scared the hell out ofto see him that nervous. | had never seen him in any other way but confident. What kind of news could have made him this anxious? As we drove up to the street, he suddenly yelled to Marcus, “Stop!” Marcus pulled over, and Aren got out of the car and started looking around as if he was searching for something or someone on the still-crowdy Manhattan sidewalk. If | tried to ignore his previous behavior, then this t| couldn't. | got out of the car and frowned at him. “Aren, what is wrong? Don’t lie to me. If we are in any danger, then just-" “There is nothing wrong. We are not in danger,” he assured, still looking around on both sides of the street.

“You are lying. Tellwhat's wrong,” | urged, crossing my arms over my chest. “Nothing that concerns you, God damn it!” he yelled, makingdumbfounded.

That hurt like a punch in the stomach. It wasn’t because Aren raised his voice at me, but he excludedfrom knowing something, something that bothered him. After | had spent the whole day trying to find out who wanted to kill him, doing everything for him, those words sounded especially painful. | got inside the car. He got back a few seconds later. We stayed silent all the way to the penthouse. After Aren closed the door behind us, | went to the kitchen to get swater. He followed me.

“I didn’t mean to yell at you, sunshine,” he murmured, huggingfrom behind.

“It’s OK.” | guess it was tforto lie. “You just surprised me...” He nuzzled my back and left a couple of kisses on my spine. “I had a lot of work today, and then on the sidewalk, | thought | saw someone.” | chuckled faintly. “It must have been someone terrifying. You looked like you saw a ghost.” “It was someone who wasn’t supposed to be here. That's all,” he said, stepping away from me.

| restrained my curiosity to ask him more questions. | just hoped that he would tellhimself once he calmed down. | smiled and wanted to put my arms around him when suddenly, he stepped away from me. “Let's just...

spend this night alone, shall we? It was an extremely long day.” | nodded, pretending that his words didn’t feel like a slap in the face. | had to take a thirty minute shower before | finally regained my composure and was ready to drift into a dream, or at least that was what | thought... I lay in bed tossing and turning for hours, getting more and more frustrated. | hated the feeling that there was something unfinished betweenand Aren. Before | realized it, | was standing in front of his door, ready to knock, when suddenly | heard his whisper. | pressed my ear against the door. “Aren?” | asked faintly, but he didn’t reply. | waited a few more seconds before | heard him calling, “Lanfen!” The tone of his voice was painful. It scaredenough to open the door and run to his bed.

“Lanfen! Buyao zou, Lanfen! “he kept calling out while his eyes were closed. His hands were reaching out, trying to grab the air above him. He kept crying out that one nas if he was in agony. | sat on his bed and gently stroked his cheek, hoping to calm him down.

“Lanfen... Lanfen...” he muttered in sleep.

My heart ached for him. “Aren, wake up,” | whispered. “You are having a nightmare; wake up.” He opened his eyes with a heavy gasp. Tears flew down his cheeks uncontrollably while his face was completely pale. “You had a nightmare, handsome,” | said softly as | wiped away his tears.

He didn’t say a word; he just grabbed my hand and kissed it. | sat there on his bed, stroking his hair, smiling at him, and trying to give him comfort, even though | was all shaking inside. | led an inside battle as each corner of my mind was occupied with one question: who the hell was this Lanfen?