17. Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
Alexander
Alexander ended the call only after Nicole’s breathing had steadied and she told him she was ready to hang up.
The stolen video kept playing on the screen across from him.
Angela lunged, he pulled away, she followed, he stopped her.
The truth was there for anyone to see now.
Angela had kissed him without warning, and he’d rejected her.
Weeks ago, he would’ve called that proof.
He would’ve felt a hard, ugly relief and expected Nicole to feel it too.
He felt none.
His wife had thrown up in her father’s office because a stranger had entered her private life.
The intruder might’ve looked at photographs of Prim and Rose as newborns.
They might’ve read Nicole’s messages, opened financial records, or studied the family calendar.
Strangers were turning the worst moment in Nicole’s marriage into edits and arguments.
Alexander reached for the remote and shut off the screen. The room went dark except for his phone and laptop. He called Sofia. She answered on the second ring.
“I’ve got counsel and communications waiting. Security is trying to confirm how the intruder got in. How’s Nicole?”
“Terrified. Angry. She asked me to stay on the phone until she could breathe again.”
Sofia was quiet for a beat. “What did she authorize?”
The question mattered. Alexander looked down at the notes he’d made while Nicole spoke. In the past, he would’ve heard danger and turned his money and staff loose on it. He would’ve called that protection. Then he would’ve told Nicole what he’d decided for her.
“The studio response, lawyers, evidence, reports, investigation, and security,” he said.
“Her team controls her platforms. Nobody accesses her devices, accounts, messages, or files without her informed permission. Nobody enters the Larson house without it either. Nothing about Nicole, the girls, where they’re staying, or our marriage goes out unless she approves every word. ”
“Understood.”
“I want it written at the top of every instruction. If anyone needs more authority, they ask her. They don’t ask me to give it for her.”
“I’ll make that clear.”
“And Brittle doesn’t use this. No clips, no references in publicity, no statement about increased interest. Nothing.”
Sofia’s voice sharpened. “Already done. Anyone who tries it can explain themselves to me and legal.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me for basic decency, Alexander.”
“Fair.”
He called Nicole again before the first full meeting began. She sounded tired, but the panic had left her voice.
“I need to confirm a few things,” he said. “Not talk you into them. You can say no to any of it.”
“All right.”
“Security can help close the access to your Cloud account, but they need your permission before they touch anything. They can guide you while you do it, or one person can work with you directly. Your choice.”
“One person. A woman, if they have one. I want my content manager on the call too.”
“Done. They also recommend ending every active Cloud session, changing the account protection, and moving anything about the girls into protected offline storage.”
Nicole let out a strained breath. “Moving it doesn’t mean they get to look through it.”
“No. They’ll show you how. They won’t open a file unless you choose one and ask for help.”
“Then yes.”
“They want to check whether the preschool portal or any protected records were entered. That can be done through the school and the account logs without opening your personal files.”
“Yes. Call Little Oaks, but I want to speak to the director before anyone changes the girls’ routine.”
“You will. Security also recommends more coverage around your parents’ house and during preschool travel. Outside only. Nobody comes into the house.”
“I can accept that for now. I want names before anyone is assigned. And my parents need to approve anything on their property.”
Alexander wrote down every condition. “I’ll send you the list before anyone acts.”
“Thank you.”
The two soft words hurt more than anger. She shouldn’t have needed to thank her husband for remembering that her consent still belonged to her.
“You don’t have to thank me,” he said.
“I know. I still wanted to.”
He closed his eyes. Wanting to say he loved her rose so fast it almost escaped. He kept it back. This wasn’t the moment to turn her fear into a chance to reach for comfort.
“I’ll update you when we know something real,” he said. “Not every ten minutes.”
“Good. I can’t live inside this all night.”
“You won’t have to.”
The response moved quickly after that. Alexander kept the people involved to the smallest group that could do the work and began the meeting by reading Nicole’s conditions aloud.
The original account and upload disappeared after the reports reached TikTok.
Copies didn’t. The stolen recording had moved too far and too fast. Counsel sent removal demands where they could.
The evidence team preserved the original post, the account’s claims, and the information Nicole’s content team had saved before reporting it. A criminal report was started.
The digital-security lead spoke in plain language when Alexander stopped him from burying the problem in terms nobody else needed.
“Can we close the way the intruder got in?” Alexander asked.
“Yes. We believe we’ve found the stolen access route. Once Mrs. Cohan approves the reset, every active session ends. The intruder won’t keep access through the same route.”
“Can you tell what they copied?”
“No. We can identify some activity. We can’t prove what they saved elsewhere.”
Alexander’s jaw tightened. “Can you identify them?”
“Not from what we have. The account was disposable. The connections were concealed. We’ll keep working.”
He hated every uncertain answer. His instinct pushed at him to demand more people, more searches, more force. But an army couldn’t create facts that weren’t there. It could only make more noise around Nicole’s life.
“Keep working inside the permissions she gave,” he said. “If the next step requires her devices, her files, or a wider look at her private life, stop and ask.”
“Understood.”
With Nicole, her content manager, and the female security specialist on one call, every active session was ended, and the stolen route was closed.
Nicole secured her devices and accounts herself.
The specialist guided her through moving photographs, records, and other files concerning Prim and Rose into protected offline storage without reviewing the material.
Little Oaks found no sign that anyone had entered the preschool portal or accessed the twins’ protected records.
That news loosened something in Alexander’s chest, but not enough.
Nicole’s messages and calendar might still have contained the Larson address, school information, and pieces of the girls’ routine.
Nobody could promise the stalker hadn’t seen them.
One of the security people suggested pausing preschool until they knew more.
“No,” Alexander said.
The man glanced down at his notes. “Mr. Cohan, reducing predictable movement would lower exposure.”
“Then explain that option to Nicole. Don’t remove her children from school because it’s the easiest problem for us to solve.”
“I’m advising caution.”
“So am I. Their whole life has already changed. They left their home, and their mother had her privacy stolen. Prim and Rose don’t lose their teachers and friends because a stranger committed a crime against Nicole. Not unless Nicole decides the risk requires it.”
Sofia watched him from her square on the screen. “Then the goal is to make the existing routine safer.”
“Yes. Protection can’t mean locking them away until every threat disappears.”
He heard the hard certainty in his own voice and checked it. He wasn’t the one who got to define the risk Nicole had to live with.
“Put both choices in writing,” he said. “Plainly. She decides.”
Nicole and her parents approved added security outside the Larson property. Little Oaks agreed to tighter privacy and pickup precautions without changing the girls’ familiar day. Alexander received the names Nicole had approved, then got out of the way.
His next task was the public statement. Communications sent him a polished draft that led with his rejection of Angela and described him as the victim of an unwanted advance. It was accurate. It was also useless. Alexander deleted most of it.
He wrote until the words stopped protecting him:
“The private video circulating online was stolen from my wife. Sharing it again continues that violation.
Angela Stone kissed me without warning. I rejected the kiss immediately. There has never been an affair.
That truth does not excuse my conduct as a husband and father. My obsession with work made me absent from my family. I took part in public appearances that humiliated Nicole and allowed people to treat her as disposable. She did nothing to deserve that ridicule.”
He named Nicole as a California-licensed esthetician, an independent businesswoman, an exceptional mother, and his beloved wife.
He asked the public and press to stop naming, discussing, or searching for information about Prim and Rose.
He refused to discuss Nicole’s choices for her future.
Then he sent the draft to Nicole before communications, counsel, or his board saw it.
She called several minutes later.
“Did anyone else read this?” she asked.
“No.”
“Not even legal?”
“Not this version,” he assured her.
“They’re going to hate parts of it,” she said.
“They can survive.”
Her breath almost sounded like a laugh, but it didn’t become one. “Take out the sentence that suggests we’re living separately. I don’t want anyone guessing where the girls sleep or when they move between houses.”
“All right.”
“And change the last line. Don’t say we’re asking for space while we make decisions about our marriage. That tells them a decision is coming. It invites them to wait for it.”
Alexander deleted the line as she spoke. “What do you want instead?”