Taming My Sugar Mommy
Chapter 106: Isabella revelation

Chapter 106: Isabella revelation

The rain continued its assault against the windows, the metronomic drumming providing a soundtrack to the chaos that had erupted moments before. Isabella stood alone in the trashed hotel suite, staring at the aftermath—the overturned coffee table, the wine soaking into the cream carpet, the single shoe Liam had lost in the struggle. Her fingers trembled slightly as she pushed her hair back from her face.

"It’s not too late to come home," David had said.

Home. As if they’d ever had such a thing between them. Their marriage had been built on adrenaline and ambition, punctuated by private islands and penthouse suites—extravagant way stations, never a home.

Isabella moved toward the window, her reflection fragmenting over the cityscape below. Behind her, on the side table that had somehow remained upright during the struggle, sat a small velvet box she hadn’t noticed until now. It hadn’t been there before the attack.

Her heart beat a rapid tattoo against her ribs as she approached it. With careful fingers, she lifted the lid.

The diamond bracelet caught the light, sending prisms dancing across the walls. Seven perfect marquise-cut diamonds, arranged like stars—the bracelet she’d lost seven years ago during their final argument before his arrest. The night she’d told him she wanted out.

"Bastard," she whispered, snapping the box shut.

Isabella pulled her phone from her robe pocket, quickly dialing a familiar number.

"Pick up, Marcus," she muttered as the line rang. "Pick up, pick up..."

Voicemail.

"Damn it!" She ended the call and immediately dialed another number. Christina would know what to do. Christina always had contingency plans.

But Christina’s phone also went straight to voicemail.

Isabella’s pulse quickened as the implications hit her. If David had found Marcus and Christina too...

Panic clawed at her chest, threatening to overwhelm her carefully constructed composure. She closed her eyes, inhaling deeply through her nose, holding it for four seconds before releasing it slowly—the same technique she’d used before facing hostile boardrooms and skeptical investors.

When she opened her eyes again, Isabella Ashworth, CEO of Ashworth Events Luxury, had replaced the frightened woman of moments before. She strode to the bedroom, discarding her silk robe as she went. Within minutes, she had dressed in black slacks and a charcoal turtleneck, her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. Professional. Controlled. Ready.

She tucked her phone into her pocket and retrieved a second, slimmer device from the false bottom of her makeup case. This phone—untraceable, unregistered—had only one number programmed into it.

Diana answered on the first ring. "I’m assuming this isn’t a social call."

"David has Liam," Isabella said without preamble, her voice steady and cold. "And possibly Marcus and Christina. I need everything you have on Harrison’s movements since his release. And I need the Archer Hotel’s security camera feeds from the last twenty-four hours."

A pause. Then: "Give me ten minutes."

While she waited, Isabella methodically packed a small go-bag, her movements efficient and precise. Cash. A change of clothes. The burner phone. A small caliber handgun from the hidden compartment in her suitcase. The velvet box with the bracelet, after a moment’s hesitation.

Her tablet chimed with an incoming secure message. Diana had delivered.

Isabella positioned herself at the desk, tablet propped in front of her as she began scrubbing through the hotel’s security footage. Lobby cameras. Elevator cameras. Hallway cameras. Floor by floor, hour by hour. She worked backward from the attack, searching for David’s arrival, for any sign of his team scoping the building.

There—in the lobby, 4:36 PM. David walked through the revolving doors, pausing briefly at the reception desk. No luggage, just the elegant overcoat he’d draped over the chair upstairs. He moved with the same fluid confidence she remembered, as if the world arranged itself according to his expectations.

She followed his digital ghost through the hotel. The bar, where he’d ordered a scotch and made a call. The business center, where he’d used a computer for exactly twelve minutes. The elevator to the ninth floor—not their penthouse level.

And then... nothing. For two hours, David Harrison had disappeared from the hotel’s extensive security network.

Isabella frowned, rewinding and replaying the footage. There—at the 18th-floor service corridor. A barely perceptible glitch in the feed. If she hadn’t been looking for it, she would have missed it entirely. The timestamp jumped ahead by two seconds, the image subtly shifting as the digital loop reset itself.

She zoomed in, frame by frame. Just before the glitch, a blurred figure appeared at the edge of the frame—too distorted to identify clearly, but present nonetheless. Someone who knew exactly where the cameras were and how to avoid them.

Isabella leaned back, her mind racing. It wasn’t just David and his men. Someone else had been involved—someone with intimate knowledge of the hotel’s security systems.

Her gaze drifted to the neatly packed go-bag on the bed, and suddenly she was transported back fifteen months, to another hotel room in another city.

---

She hadn’t meant to find the drive.

Isabella had been looking for David’s passport—they were supposed to leave for Santorini the next morning, and she needed to confirm their flight details. His home office had yielded nothing, so she’d moved on to the bedroom safe.

The small black device with its distinctive red stripe had been nestled beside David’s grandfather’s watch and her grandmother’s pearls. Nothing special about it at first glance—just another encrypted storage drive in a tech executive’s collection.

But Isabella had never seen it before, and that made her curious.

Later that night, while David slept beside her, she’d connected it to her secure laptop. Most of the files were heavily encrypted, beyond her capability to access. But a few folders had opened, revealing fragments that made her blood run cold.

Lazarus wasn’t just a project—it was a weapon. Banking systems, power grids, transportation networks—all vulnerable to a program that could slip past firewalls undetected, lying dormant until activated. A digital parasite designed to control the very infrastructure of modern civilization.

Isabella remembered sitting there in the blue glow of her laptop, heart pounding as she realized what David had created. What they had built together, unknowingly—her innovative network architecture forming the perfect delivery system for his infiltration protocols.

Two days later, the FBI had raided their home, arresting David for drug trafficking. They’d found evidence of cocaine distribution through his import business—shipments hidden in art pieces from South America. But they’d found nothing about Lazarus.

Because Isabella had taken the drive.

She’d told herself it was to protect their company. To ensure that Nexus survived David’s fall from grace. That the technology they’d developed—the legitimate applications—wouldn’t be lost.

But the truth was more complicated. She hadn’t trusted anyone with the knowledge of what Lazarus could do. Not the authorities, who might weaponize it further. Not her board members, who might be tempted by its power. Not even Liam, who had come into her life six months later, brilliant and loyal and seemingly untouched by the ambition that had corrupted her husband.

She’d kept the drive close, using components of the code to develop Nexus’s groundbreaking cybersecurity platform while keeping Lazarus itself locked away, neutralized but intact. Insurance, she’d told herself. Protection against the day David inevitably returned.

---

Isabella blinked, pulling herself back to the present. Her reflection stared back at her from the tablet’s darkened screen—determined, focused, harboring secrets even from those closest to her.

She scrolled through the information Diana had sent about David’s post-prison activities. Shell companies. Private security contractors. A villa in Montenegro. Meetings with former business associates, including several who had disappeared mysteriously afterward.

He was rebuilding his empire, piece by methodical piece.

And now he had Liam.

Isabella’s fingers curled around the velvet box containing the diamond bracelet. David’s message was clear: I’ve taken something of yours, just as you took something of mine.

But if David thought Liam was merely a pawn to be exchanged for the drive, he had severely miscalculated. Liam wasn’t just her assistant turned lover; he was the only person who had seen parts of the Lazarus code, even if he didn’t understand its full implications. The only person besides herself who could potentially reconstruct certain elements of the program.

And if that blurred figure in the security footage was who she suspected it might be...

"This isn’t just about Liam anymore," Isabella whispered to the empty room, tucking the velvet box into her go-bag. "David’s after something bigger."

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