Sweet Love 2x: Miss Ruthless CEO for our Superstar Uncle-Chapter 196: This Wasn’t Random

The sitting room had been set up before Gio and Daryll arrived.

Nothing formal. The table between the seats was cleared. Two tablets sat on top, both already on. Arianne sat on one side, back straight, one arm resting along the edge of the chair. Franz stood to her right, close enough to reach the table without moving.

The door opened.

Gio came in first. He walked straight to the table, put his device down, and looked at the screens already open—taking everything in before he said a word.

Daryll came in behind him. He set a folder on the table, then a tablet beside it. He was already talking before he sat down.

"We went through everything again."

"And?" Gio said.

Daryll turned the tablet toward Arianne and Franz. The screen showed a detailed report—timestamps, access records, internal file paths.

"The source goes back to the campaign archive. The raw files. Not the edited versions."

Arianne scanned the screen once, looking at the overall layout before the details.

"Access?" she asked.

"Incomplete. Parts of the record are missing. Not deleted. Just—" Daryll stopped. "Not there."

Gio leaned forward and tapped the screen to zoom in on one section. "They didn’t take anything from the public-facing files. No previews. No released material. They went straight into the internal archive."

Franz looked at the screen. "How many people had access?"

"Officially?" Daryll said. "Not many."

"And unofficially?"

"That’s where it falls apart. There’s no clear path showing how the files were pulled. No flagged transfer. No outside connection point. Whoever did this knew how to get around the tracking."

"Or they didn’t need to," Gio said. "If they already had access from the inside."

Arianne leaned forward to see the lower part of the report. And then—underneath all the log entries and timestamps—she saw it.

The image.

Her face. The raw campaign photo that had been everywhere for a week.

The one that was never supposed to see the light of day.

She had agreed to do the campaign as a favor to Franz. A replacement model when the original dropped out. She’d stood in front of the cameras, let them light her, let them frame her. But she’d made one condition clear: her face stayed anonymous. No name. No public connection. The campaign would be about the image, not about her. The brand had agreed. In writing.

Now her face was on every news site, every social media feed, every tabloid that could spin her presence into something it wasn’t.

She looked at the image longer than she meant to. Her fingers pressed flat against the edge of the table. Seeing it here, surrounded by access logs and file paths, was different from seeing it on her phone. This was hard evidence. Someone had gone into a system on purpose. Someone had pulled this file—this specific file, the one that showed her most clearly—and released it knowing exactly what would happen.

This wasn’t an accident. This wasn’t a technical glitch.

Someone had broken the agreement she’d made.

She looked away.

One second. Then she looked back.

"So they didn’t go through the normal system," she said.

Franz had seen it. The moment she looked away. His jaw tightened, once, then relaxed. He didn’t say anything. He took one step closer to the table, his shoulder moving level with hers.

Daryll nodded. "No."

"What about an internal review?"

"Already done," Gio said. "They flagged it as a breach. But—" He paused.

"But?"

"They can’t find where it happened." He didn’t soften it. "We don’t know who."

The room sat with that.

Daryll leaned forward. "Not yet," he said. When Gio said they didn’t know something, he tended to leave it there. Daryll kept looking. He was the one who kept pulling threads even when they went nowhere clear.

"The timing is the better lead," Daryll said, tapping a different part of the screen. "The files were accessed in a short window. Before any public release."

"How short?" Franz asked.

"Under an hour."

"They knew what they were looking for," Arianne said.

"Yes. But that doesn’t tell us who knew it." Gio’s voice stayed even. He wasn’t pushing back. He was keeping the facts straight.

He moved on. "The brand already reached out. Direct message, private. They said it was a breach. They apologized."

He pulled up the message. Arianne recognized the name—the luxury perfume house she’d done the campaign for. The one that had signed the agreement. The one that had promised her anonymity.

"They’re offering to cover costs. For both sides."

"They’re trying to limit their exposure," Arianne said.

"Yes. No public statement yet. They’re waiting to see what we do."

Franz rested his hand on the edge of the table. His knuckles were white. "How far did it spread?"

"Fast. Faster than I thought it would." Daryll looked up. "And then—" He tapped the screen again. "The Second Cut numbers came in this morning."

Gio didn’t react, but he was watching Arianne.

"Good numbers. Viewers held through the week. Reviews are solid." Daryll paused. "Season two is approved."

No one spoke right away.

Franz took it in. His hand was still on the table. His knuckles were still white.

"That makes him more visible," Arianne said.

Him. Noah Hart. The name Franz had built, the career that had put his face on billboards and his voice in stadiums. The Second Cut was his project—the tv series that had pulled him back into public view after months of silence. Now season two was approved. Which meant more press. More attention. More eyes on everything connected to him.

Including her.

"The timing fits," she said.

Daryll looked between them. "You think it’s connected?"

Franz looked back at the tablet. "This wasn’t random."

Daryll started to say something. Gio put up a hand—small, barely visible. Let him finish.

"Not just targeted. Built. They picked the source. Picked the material. Released it at the right moment for it to travel. They didn’t take anything half-finished. They didn’t put something out to test how people reacted. They released something that people would recognize right away."

Daryll sat back. Gio exhaled. Neither spoke for a moment.

Arianne looked at the tablet again. At her face. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"The raw files."

"Yes. They wanted it to be clear. They wanted people to know it was her. Not some stand-in. Not a body double. Her."

Daryll exhaled. "So they knew exactly what they had."

Franz looked at him. "They knew what they were putting out. And they knew who was in it. They knew the agreement she had with the brand. And they broke it."

"Someone on the inside," Arianne said. Not a question. She was working through it out loud.

The missing parts of the record. The clean path. The narrow window. Someone who knew the system well enough to move through it without being tracked. Someone who knew which files would cause the most damage and which to leave behind. Someone who knew about the anonymity agreement—and chose to violate it.

She looked at the gaps in the log. The spots where the record just stopped.

Whoever did this wasn’t sloppy. They weren’t moving fast and hoping nothing would flag. They understood exactly what they were hiding and why. That kind of care came from experience. From someone who knew how the system worked because they’d worked inside it.

She didn’t know who. But the way it was done felt familiar. The precision. The timing. Taking only what was needed and nothing extra.

She noted it.

Gio’s face tightened. "That changes things."

"It makes things clearer," Arianne said.

Daryll rubbed his jaw. "If they know who’s involved, this isn’t just about the photos."

"No," Arianne said.

"Then what is it?"

"Pressure."

Daryll looked at her. "On who? Her—" He paused. "Or Noah?"

The question sat there.

Franz moved closer. A small shift. Gio and Daryll probably didn’t notice. She did.

"It should be Noah," Franz said. "He’s the one the public is already paying attention to. The coverage fits around him better. And he’s the one with something coming—season two, press, visibility."

Gio nodded. "He has more to lose right now. Especially with the announcement."

Daryll looked at Arianne. "And her?"

Franz answered first. "I won’t have her carry the reaction."

No raised voice. No extra weight put on the words. Just a clear statement. His hand was still on the table. His knuckles were no longer white. He’d relaxed them without seeming to notice.

Arianne glanced at him once. Then she looked back at the table. She didn’t argue.

If the pressure was meant for Noah, then responding as if it was about her would only split their focus. But if they treated it as what it was—an attack on him that used her as the vector, that used the agreement she had made with the brand as a weapon—then they could shape the response instead of reacting to it.

"Then we control how it lands," she said.

That settled it.

Gio leaned forward. "We can adjust how he’s positioned. Manage how the story gets received."

Daryll nodded. "Cut off the spillover."

"Not cut off," Arianne said. "Steer it. The story is already out. We can’t put it back. But we can control what comes next."

Daryll accepted that.

Franz kept his hand on the table. "Whatever they do next won’t be the same as this."

Gio looked up. "You think there’s more coming?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"They didn’t release everything. Only what they needed. They’re holding something back. Or waiting."

"For what?" Gio asked.

Arianne met his eyes. "To see how we respond."

Silence.

Daryll exhaled. "Then we don’t give them anything."

"We give them something we control," Franz said.

Gio nodded. "That keeps us ahead of it."

No one touched the devices. The tablet on the table stayed lit, the image showing on the screen.

Arianne looked at it.

Her face. The photo pulled from a private archive by someone who knew exactly what they were doing. Someone who had access. Someone who understood the system. Someone who had chosen her—or chosen him—and was waiting to see what happened next.

She thought about the agreement she’d made. The promise the brand had broken. The face she’d never wanted public, now everywhere.

She thought about the gaps in the log. The places where the trail just stopped.

Whoever was behind this was patient. They hadn’t needed an immediate reaction. They had put this out and waited. Watching to see how everything would play out. Watching to see what moved.

She closed the tablet.

The image went dark.

The gap didn’t.