Chapter Ten
Emmett
Emmett had spent most of his life stopping things before they crossed a line.
Pucks.
Players.
Questions from reporters.
His own feelings.
He had no idea how to stop a man who already possessed Piper’s private messages, client files, financial records, and four years of her life.
She sat in front of the Briar Bean office computer, staring at the device name attached to the edited recording.
PIPER-Q-MBP
The room had gone quiet around her.
Maren stood behind the desk with one hand pressed to her mouth. Griffin remained near the door, blocking Tyler from entering, though Tyler had stopped trying. Even he seemed to understand that this was no longer entertainment.
Emmett looked at Piper.
Her face was controlled.
Too controlled.
“What was on the laptop?” Maren asked.
Piper did not answer immediately.
Then she closed the file and opened a blank document.
“Client contracts. Vendor agreements. Tax records. Event budgets. Payment information. Staff files.”
Her voice was steady.
She typed each category as she said it.
“Passwords?”
“Some.”
“To what?” Griffin asked.
“Email. Scheduling software. Cloud storage. The Quinn Events payment portal.”
Emmett’s stomach tightened.
Piper continued typing.
“Personal photographs. Notes. Drafts. Private messages. Copies of identification for destination events. Possibly passport information.”
Maren pulled out her phone.
“I am calling Daniel.”
“Who is Daniel?” Emmett asked.
“My attorney,” Piper said.
Emmett looked at her.
“You have an attorney?”
“I own a business.”
“That was not what I meant.”
“I know.”
Maren stepped into the hallway to make the call.
Emmett moved closer to Piper’s chair.
“What do you need?”
Her fingers stopped above the keyboard.
He waited.
The question was becoming a ritual between them. Not a perfect one. Emmett still wanted to take her phone, call Owen, drive to his apartment, and personally remove every device from the building.
He wanted action.
Piper needed choice.
Those were not the same thing.
“I need to know whether the laptop is still connected to my accounts,” she said.
“Can you check?”
“Yes.”
She opened her phone settings and moved through several screens.
A list of devices appeared.
Her current phone.
Her current laptop.
A tablet used for client presentations.
The old MacBook.
It was still active.
The final connection time appeared beside it.
Eight minutes ago.
Emmett leaned closer.
“He is using it now.”
“Yes.”
“Can you lock him out?”
“I can remove the device from my account.”
“Do it.”
Piper’s hand froze above the screen.
Emmett heard himself.
The command.
The assumption.
He stepped back.
“Do you want to?”
Her eyes lifted to his.
The correction registered.
“So he can keep copying everything?” Griffin asked.
Piper looked at the active device.
“If I remove it, he knows I discovered the access.”
“He probably already knows,” Emmett said.
“No. He knows we identified the edited file. He may not realize the metadata exposed the laptop.”
Tyler appeared around Griffin’s shoulder.
“He will if the interview producer tells him.”
Everyone looked at him.
Tyler held up both hands.
“I understand this is serious. I also understand producers like confrontation and may warn Owen that we challenged the file.”
Piper looked toward the email from the producer.
“He could be deleting evidence right now.”
Emmett’s hands curled at his sides.
“Then lock it.”
Piper looked at him.
He tried again.
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to preserve proof before I remove him.”
“Can you?”
“Maybe.”
She opened a security dashboard attached to her cloud account.
The old laptop had accessed multiple folders in the previous hour.
Client proposals.
Private correspondence.
Summer Challenge documents.
The Quinn Events archive.
Piper clicked the activity report.
A list of downloaded files appeared.
Her face changed.
“What?” Emmett asked.
She turned the screen.
Owen had accessed the Arden wedding folder the morning the family canceled.
He had opened the contract.
The budget.
The private planning notes.
A file labeled FAMILY CONCERNS.
Piper read the access time.
“Seven twenty this morning.”
Maren returned to the room.
“Daniel is contacting a digital forensics attorney. He says not to remove the device until they preserve the activity logs.”
Piper nodded.
“The Arden family canceled at seven forty three.”
Griffin looked at the screen. “You think he contacted them.”
“I think he found the private notes.”
“What was in them?” Maren asked.
Piper’s mouth tightened.
“The bride’s father has concerns about her fiancé’s business partner. The family asked me to keep the information confidential while we adjusted seating and security.”
Emmett understood immediately.
“Owen threatened to release it.”
“Or he told them he had it.”
Maren swore quietly.
Piper scrolled through the access history.
More client folders.
More private information.
Two other upcoming events.
A corporate retreat.
A charity dinner.
Three years of invoices.
“He is not trying to embarrass me,” Piper said.
Her voice had changed.
The fear was still there, but something colder had moved beneath it.
“He is destroying my business.”
Emmett pulled out his phone.
Griffin caught his wrist.
“No.”
“I am calling him.”
“The athletic department ordered you not to contact Owen.”
“I am not calling as a hockey player.”
“That will be difficult to explain during the suspension meeting.”
Emmett looked at Griffin’s hand.
Griffin released him.
Piper stood.
“No one contacts him.”
“He is inside your accounts.”
“And if you threaten him, he becomes the victim again.”
“I do not care what he becomes.”
“I do.”
The answer stopped him.
Piper stepped closer.
“I need evidence. I need the clients protected. I need him to keep believing he is ahead of me.”
“He is hurting you now.”
“Yes.”
Emmett could hear the strain beneath her words.
She was not asking him to approve the plan.
She was asking him to trust her inside it.
He put his phone away.
“What is the plan?”
Piper exhaled slowly.
“First, we preserve the logs. Then we change access to every account he may know without disconnecting the old laptop from the cloud. We create a new empty archive and let him think he still has access.”
“A trap,” Tyler said.
Piper looked at him.
“A controlled environment.”
“A professionally named trap.”
“Fine. A trap.”
Tyler nodded with satisfaction.
Griffin pointed toward the hallway.
“You are still not part of the cyber investigation.”
“I understand digital betrayal.”
“You once posted the team Wi-Fi password publicly.”
“It was community access.”
Emmett ignored them.
“What goes into the empty archive?” he asked.
Piper looked toward the computer.
“Something he cannot resist.”
Maren’s expression sharpened. “The interview.”
Piper nodded.
“We create a file that looks like our preparation notes. Questions. Planned answers. Information Emmett does not want discussed.”
Emmett folded his arms.
“What information?”
“Nothing real.”
“Then he may recognize it as false.”
“Not if part of it is true.”
Piper met his eyes.
Emmett understood.
She needed something convincing enough that Owen would use it.
Something private.
Something dangerous.
“No,” he said.
Her eyebrows rose.
He corrected himself.
“I do not want you risking anything real.”
“That is different.”
“Yes.”
“Better.”
He disliked being graded on emotional development.
He disliked more that Piper looked almost proud of him.
“We use the punch,” she said.
“Owen already knows.”
“Not all of it.”
Emmett’s body tightened.
“There is nothing else.”
“You told me what Owen said before you hit him.”
“Yes.”
“He does not know I know.”
Emmett looked toward the others.
Griffin had the decency to look uncomfortable.
Tyler did not.
Tyler looked like someone had handed him the final page of a mystery.
Piper continued. “We create interview notes saying I plan to reveal the insult and explain the punch as a reaction to Owen’s emotional abuse.”
“That makes me look unstable.”
“It makes Owen look cruel.”
“He is cruel.”
“That is why he will believe I am planning to say it.”
Emmett read her face.
“You are baiting him into responding.”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
“Proof that the punch happened for another reason. Or another edited video. Or a witness.”
Griffin nodded slowly. “If he accesses the file and then uses information only available inside it, we prove he is still inside Piper’s account.”
Maren looked at Piper. “That does not prove he contacted the Arden family.”
“No, but it proves ongoing unauthorized access.”
Piper sat again.
Her hands moved quickly over the keyboard.
Emmett watched the change take over her.
She was afraid.
She was also brilliant.
Those things could exist together.
He wished someone had told her that earlier.
Piper created a new folder inside the Quinn Events archive.
LIVE INTERVIEW PREPARATION, CONFIDENTIAL
Inside it, she opened a document.
Maren read over her shoulder.
“What are you writing?”
“Questions we expect.”
“Are these real?”
“Some.”
Piper typed.
Did Piper emotionally cheat on Owen?
Did Emmett pursue Piper before the breakup?
Did Emmett attack Owen at the Founders Gala?
Was the fake relationship created to improve Emmett’s contract value?
Then she added:
Does Piper plan to reveal what Owen said before Emmett punched him?
Emmett’s mouth flattened.
Piper looked up.
“Still okay?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to remove it?”
His first instinct was yes.
The second was more difficult.
“What do you need it to do?”
“Make him nervous.”
“It will.”
“Then?”
Emmett looked at the sentence.
He hated seeing Owen’s insult reduced to evidence.
He hated knowing the words had hurt Piper before she heard them.
He hated that every honest part of their relationship had become usable material.
“Keep it.”
Piper’s gaze softened.
“Thank you.”
She added another heading.
PRIVATE INFORMATION COOPER WILL NOT DISCUSS
Then she stopped typing.
Emmett looked at the blinking cursor.
“What goes there?”
“I do not know.”
Tyler leaned through the doorway.
“Secret injury?”
“No,” Griffin said.
“Family scandal?”
“No.”
“Fear of birds?”
Emmett looked at him.
Tyler took one step back.
“Noted.”