?Chapter 507:

    If he’d been even a few minuteste, she would’ve been tossed into a trunk and vanished. God knows where they’d have taken her. And here she was, saying she meant for it to happen?

    Seeing the fire in William’s eyes, Ste raised a hand. “Wait, just listen. After you warned me, I caught Shaun meeting with Haley on the street. That’s when I started keeping my guard up.”

    William raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

    “Today, I went with Shaun to see what he was really up to,” Ste said. “He thought he got his hands on my core tech, but I nned everything in advance. What I actually did was steal the Smith Group’s confidential files—they’re all on my USB.”

    The second she plugged her drive into their system, it auto-copied everything—core files, encrypted data, the whole setup. What Shaun got was a dummy version. Stripped-down. Useless. Nothing but an empty shell.

    He was so sure of her, so smug about her trust, it never even crossed his mind that she might be ying him.

    William looked at the USB in her hand and gave her a hard stare. “So you walked into the lion’s den just to steal the Smith Group’s secrets?”

    “Kind of,” Ste said. “But not exactly. If Shaun hadn’t yed his hand today, I wouldn’t have gone through with it. I was just… keeping my options open.” She wasn’t trying to burn anyone—just protect herself in case things went south.

    William leaned back in his seat, eyeing her in disbelief. “And you weren’t worried they’d kidnap you? Kill you?”

    He hadn’t realized how daring she could be until now. She faced down an entirepany without blinking.

    Ste paused. Then, with a sheepish smile, admitted, “I honestly didn’t think that far.”

    That was the hole in her n. She figured once Shaun had her tech, she’d be useless to him and he’d let her go. She hadn’t expected he’d try to lock her up.

    William stared at her, eyes narrowed, lips pressed into a tight line. He didn’t say anything, just looked.

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    Feeling the weight of his silence, Ste squirmed and muttered, “I know I didn’t n it all the way through. But I wasn’t ignoring your warning.”

    William exhaled quietly, then pulled the car back onto the road.

    “You should stay in the dorms for a few days. Shaun knows where you live. If he tries to pull something again, you won’t have time to call for help.”

    Ste blinked. He was right. She’d be a sitting duck at her apartment.

    Only problem was, when she moved out, she’d cleared the dormpletely. With no nkets and sheets in the dorm, how was she supposed to stay there?

    “I don’t have any bedding or sheets left in there,” she said.

    William shot her a quick nce. “Yeah, you cleared it out real good.”

    He parked and stepped out first. Ste followed him into the building.

    “I’ve got some extra stuff at my ce,” he said as they got into the elevator. “You can use it.”

    In the mirrored walls of the elevator, Ste caught William’s reflection and suddenly spoke up. “You know… you gave me the idea for this. You approached Willow with an agenda too, didn’t you?”

    Back when she still lived at the institute, she’d seen theming and going more than once. That hadn’t been nothing.

    William’s expression tightened. “The Lawson family is tied to smuggling. There was no way I’d ever marry into that.”

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