Sentenced to Marriage

Chapter 84

Our little investigation I knew that he said he would risk me falling in love with him, but this was all happening too fast. There was a thunderstorm within my heart, emotions bursting out in every possible way. I couldn’t pretend any longer- I was in love with Aren Lan. I felt that the way he touched me had become different. If there had been any boundaries between us before, they were all gone at that moment. I was free-falling down the rabbit hole. I only hoped that at the end of that way down, Aren would be there to catch me… Even though I enjoyed my kissing session with Aren, the more I tried to move, the more I felt that I needed to get some rest. That day was an emotional roller coaster, and I felt that my brain had to put everything in the right order. This time, I was the one who insisted on sleeping separately. I knew that I was going to wake up stiffer than my Grandma had ever been, and I didn’t need Aren around to laugh at me. Besides, my level of exhaustion made me almost certain that I would fall asleep in the weirdest position possible and wake up with a completely drooled pillow. Unfortunately, my plan to restrain Aren from seeing me the second I woke up didn’t exactly work out… “Good morning, sunshine.” His warm and highly seductive voice forced me to open my sleepy eyes. He was sitting on my bed, his one hand stroking my hair gently and the other holding a cup of coffee. I lifted my head and realized that, as I predicted, I was glued to my drooled pillow. How embarrassing. This was the exact situation I wanted to avoid. “Why are you here?” I knew this wasn’t the kind of greeting he wished to hear from me, but if I had been more conscious at that moment, I would have been pissed.

“I was worried about you, sunshine. I made you breakfast, and I can carry you into the shower and help you wash if you want me to.” I didn’t fail to hear the tone of amusement in his voice.

I groaned painfully, trying to sit up in bed. I could feel every muscle in my body, including those I had never known existed. “I can manage,” I muttered.

“I won’t force you, beautiful. Just know that it’s past seven, and unless you want to take a day off, you should try to get up,” he said, placing a gentle kiss on my forehead. I merely grunted a “thank you” as I started to dig in the breakfast he prepared and brought me to bed. I might have acted like a bitch, but I still thought that it was his fault that I could barely move. Of course, I could appreciate the fact that he

was caring, but I appreciated it inwardly, leaving him to taste all of my morning grumpiness. Unlike me, he was more cheerful and optimistic than I had ever seen him before, which made me curious to find out what put him in such a good mood.

By the time, I got into the shower cabin, I discovered another reason for my moodiness-my period, delightfully adding a stomachache to my stiffness and sore muscles. Yes, it was going to be a wonderful day… And yes, that was sarcasm. When I got to the office, I was in the perfect mood to kill everyone around me. That was why I decided to sit in front of my computer and focus my attention on the screen. I was committed to finding anything I could on Lester Packton, and, despite Aren’s and Jack’s warnings, I was

willing to do it even if I had to choose the not-so-legal way.

After nearly five minutes of research, I found more than enough to know that this guy was seriously dangerous. He used to work as an undercover agent, infiltrating drug and weapons dealer gangs. Due to a personal request, he was then moved to work among the investigating squads in a few different FBI field offices around the country. Each time, the reason for his transfer had been marked as classified. As I dug further, I found out the same information that Aren told me about. It was about the charges that were pressed against Lester Packton by his female colleague. She accused him of a physical assault on her but quickly withdrew her charges for unknown reasons…

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered under my breath.

I bet that the woman must have been either bribed or threatened, and as I continued my research, she surely wasn’t the only one… Lester Packton had been accused of using unnecessary violence, harassment, and physical assault several times throughout his career, and each time the charges against him were dropped. It seemed that he must have had a powerful backer-someone from the headquarters or someone with great political influence. The more I found out about him, the more I wanted to bring that bastard down.

“Guys… I might have to do something illegal now…” I said, shifting my eyes from Norton to Alan and back to Norton.

They knew exactly what I meant and knew that I would need their backup. Alan stood up and locked the door to our office. No one would be able to see us hacking into the Department of Justice… even if we were about to breach the light-level security. Alan and Norton were supposed to create a distraction, just in case, the system detected my breach. Using our code breaker that we’d designed for fun a few years ago, I got to the information about the cases against Lester Packton. It was easy to find one thing in common with all those cases-they had all been handled by the same prosecutor from the Department of Justice, Francis Marshall. “Cora… you should get out of there, the system detected our presence,” Alan informed, nervously typing commands on his computer.

“It’s OK,” I said, a wicked smirk crossing my lips. “I have all I needed to know.”

Fortunately, our team was exquisite in terms of erasing our tracks. It could take months before someone discovered which files were copied, not to mention that there was no chance that anyone could track us back. I could bluntly say that they could have found us only if they had security software as good as the one we created, yet ours was one of a kind.

“Let’s find everything we can on Francis Marshall, and what is his connection to Lester Packton, shall we?” I chuckled, glancing at the boys. We were all fired up, searching for anything that we could. After another hour of research, we could proudly call Aren and Neil to present what we had found. “I thought I told you not to do anything risky!” Aren roared as soon as he realized that I had to break into the Department of Justice to get the files he had just read.

“Handsome, don’t be mad. Without this knowledge, we found, we would only run around in circles,” I said, innocently blinking my eyes at him. “Don’t worry, Mr. Lan. We are way too good to be traced.” Alan chuckled, but that only earned

him Aren’s glare. Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

He cupped my cheeks and looked at me, frowning. “Don’t. Ever. Do. That. Again.”

My eyes darkened. “I’m warning you, husband. I’m on my period, which makes me twice as dangerous. Ignore the fact that I hacked the national department and just appreciate what we found.” Neil barely stifled a laugh. I could see him turning red as his cheeks pouted to restrain a chuckle. “Neil?” Aren’s voice carried an undeniable threat. He cleared his throat. “I agree with Mr. Lan, Mrs. Lan…” he muttered hesitantly until he faced my glower. “But of course, the evidence you found can become crucial for the investigation.” When Aren finally sighed with his hands gesturing his surrender, Alan and I could proceed with explaining what we had found. I drew the diagram of the connection on the whiteboard and then started my lecture. “Francis Marshall and Lester Packton studied the same year at Princeton University. They were also members of the same fraternity, so I’m guessing this is how they met. Marshall’s father is a member of the Republican Party, and he was always known to be an influential politician in the state of Massachusetts. There are rumors that he has the entire state judiciary in his pocket. It also isn’t a secret that he has connections to a few wealthy weapon manufacturers, while he himself is against restricting access to guns. And now for the best part…” I paused to clear my throat before turning my phone screen toward Aren and Neil. “We found a few photos of those businessmen posing with Marshall’s father and… Lester Packton. Surprising, isn’t it? What could possibly be the reason for the FBI agent, who used to infiltrate gun dealer gangs, a local politician, and businessmen selling guns to appear in one place?” I asked, grinning proudly. Alan carried on. “This case could be huge. Remember that this guy who wanted to kill Mr. Lan and organized Cora’s kidnapping had his own private army? We guess that it is all connected, and the whole case with Callan’s death was also orchestrated by Packton and the Marshalls family…”

I took a deep breath and stepped forward. “And now for the best part: Jack Collins’s accusation and suspension are the work of Robert Fabel, who is Francis Marshall’s protégé and his dear friend. We also found one more interesting detail… There was only one guard around Callan’s prison cell that night, and that guard turned out to be Nolan Marshall, Francis Marshall’s nephew.”