“No.” He let the word hang, quiet but certain. “I expect you to believe your own eyes.”
He tapped the keys again, images flicking past, financial records, offshore accounts, Oliver’s signature on documents that tied him too neatly to be a coincidence. Each piece slotted into the next until even Clara’s denial faltered.
Her chest rose and fell in sharp bursts, her eyes fixed on the screens as though staring long enough might force them to lie.
“I don’t…” Her voice was small now. “I don’t understand.”
He turned one of the smaller monitors toward her, softer this time. “That’s why I brought you here. So you could start to.”
Her gaze flicked to him, raw and uncertain. For a moment, she looked at him as though he might be the only solid thing in a world tilting out from under her.
And for the first time, Watchdog felt the shift. Not trust, not yet, but something close enough to feel like the first step.
Clara’s fingers pressed to her mouth as though to hold back a sound. Her eyes darted over the screens again and again, trying to find a gap, a seam, a thread she could pull that would unravel what he had shown her. There was none.
Her hand dropped, her face hardening. “You don’t know him. Oliver would never…” Her breath hitched. “He asked me to marry him. He’s giving me security, a future. He—”
“He’s giving your parents security,” Watchdog said quietly, cutting through without raising his voice.
Her head snapped towards him, eyes flashing. That spark of defiance caught in his chest like a blade, because it wasn’t anger at him, not really. It was desperation.
“You don’t know anything about my parents.”
“I know they’re drowning in debt. I know the house is in Oliver’s name now, not theirs. I know your engagement secures their safety, not yours.”
Her chin trembled before she locked it tight. The sight pulled at something deep in him, sharp and unwelcome.
The words landed like a strike. Clara’s jaw worked, her arms crossing tight across her chest as though bracing herself. “And what was I supposed to do? Watch them lose everything? Let them be humiliated?”
Her voice cracked at the end. He felt it like a physical blow, an echo of every time he’d thought the same about himself, about his team, about his mother. “No,” Watchdog said softly. “But sacrificing yourself won’t save them.”
She laughed bitterly, a sound far too sharp to be amusement. The bitterness sliced through him because it was armour, and he recognised armour too well. “Easy for you to say. You don’t know what it’s like to live with the weight of someone else’s survival pressing down on you every second.”
He went still. His breath caught, the ghost of iron chains clanging in his ears, the echo of his mother’s voice calling him by a name that was never his. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I do.”
The words stopped her cold. For a long moment, they simply stared at each other, her chest heaving, his steady only because he forced it to be. Inside, the echo of her pain rattled against his own, threatening to tear him open.
Her eyes shone, anger warring with something rawer, fear, grief, a tiny spark of desperate hope. “Then tell me what I’m supposed to do. Because if I walk away, my parents lose everything. And if I stay—” She broke off, swallowing hard. “If I stay, I marry a man who has been lying to me from the start. How do I live with either choice?”
Every muscle in his body wanted to close the distance, to steady her trembling shoulders, to take some of that weight. But he stayed where he was, his voice the only thing he could offer. “You live by remembering none of this is your fault. His choices are his. Your parents’ mistakes are theirs. You don’t carry the blame for them.”
Her hands curled into fists, her knuckles pale. “But I carry the consequences.”
He inclined his head. “Yes. But not alone.”
The words slipped out before he could stop them. They were too honest, too revealing. He watched them land, saw the crack ripple across her expression, the tears she’d been holding back brimming over.
She turned away sharply, pressing her palms to the desk as if the cold surface could anchor her.
Watchdog let the silence hold, forcing himself to stay still when every part of him wanted to step forward. The hum of servers filled the air, matching the rhythm of his pulse.
At last she spoke, her voice thick. “I don’t know if I can believe you.”
He nodded once, accepting it. “Then don’t. Believe the proof. Believe what you’ve seen with your own eyes.”
Her shoulders trembled as she drew in a shaky breath. He saw the moment she steadied herself, the moment she decided not to collapse under it.
When she looked back at him, her face was pale but set with determination. “If what you’re saying is true, then Oliver is dangerous. Which means my parents are in danger too.”
