Chapter 163: Confess

"That can’t be true," I said into the receiver, my voice low, dangerous, and sharp. "Chloe, every single stitch, sketch, and silhouette came out of Benita’s head and our atelier."

"I know, Ethan," Chloe replied swiftly, the sound of keyboard keys clacking furiously over the line. "I already submitted an emergency counter-claim the second the injunction hit my desk. But whoever pulled this knew what they were doing. They provided predated trademark filings and preliminary sketch archives backdated months ago. On paper, it looks like their designs were locked in way before we even registered UncuT."

"Who filed it?"

"I’m sending the full legal brief and the attached evidence files to your secure tablet right now," Chloe said, her voice tight. "Look at the signature on the claim."

I ended the call, my knuckles white around my phone.

The silence in the suite was suffocating. Every single eye in the room was locked onto me—Jean-Luc holding the half-filled champagne glass, Rick with his brow furrowed, and Sarah standing frozen with her tablet in hand. The live pre-order metrics were still ticking up on the massive projector screen, blissfully unaware of the sledgehammer that had just been dropped on us.

Benita stepped forward, her voice barely a whisper. "Ethan... what is it? What did Chloe say?"

I took a slow, deep breath, setting my glass down on the side table with a hard, hollow thud.

"We’ve been hit with an emergency cease-and-desist," I said, looking straight at her. "They’re claiming copyright infringement and structural IP theft. They’re alleging that seven of the twelve designs in our lineup were stolen."

Benita’s breathing completely stopped. The color drained from her face so fast she looked like she was going to faint right onto the hardwood floor.

"What?!" she gasped, clutching her chest, her eyes wide with total shock and horror. "That’s—that’s impossible! Seven designs?! I drew those! I draped those fabrics with my own two hands! I bled over those patterns! How could anyone claim they owned them?!"

"Because someone backdated draft sketches to make it look like you copied them," I said cold-bloodedly, my tablet pinging as Chloe’s file officially downloaded.

I unlocked the screen, swiped past the legal jargon, and brought up the claimant’s company header and signature.

A slow, toxic smirk pulled at my lips as I read the name at the bottom of the lawsuit.

"O.R. Atelier," I murmured quietly, my eyes narrowing into razor-thin slits. "Oliver Rick."

The room turned to pure ice.

I swiped through the high-resolution evidence scans Chloe had just sent over, comparing the backdated filings with our internal atelier blueprints. My mind clicked the pieces together with terrifying speed.

"Wait..." I murmured, my voice dropping an octave as I looked up from the screen. "These aren’t just similar concepts. Every single file attached to this claim is a carbon copy of our exact CAD renders and raw pattern sheets. The ones generated right here in this room."

Benita’s head snapped toward me, her eyes wide with realization. "What? But how? Ethan, the only people who ever had access to those raw files are the people standing right here!"

In a flash of panicked rage, her eyes locked straight onto S. Rick. The old legend looked thoroughly mortified, his jaw clenched in deep, burning embarrassment over his grandson’s pathetic move.

"Was it you?!" Benita gasped, her voice trembling with betrayal. "Did you take my work to Oliver?!"

"No," I cut in sharply, stepping between them before Rick could even speak. "It wasn’t Rick."

"Ethan, who else—"

"I know exactly who did it," I said, turning my body slowly away from Rick and Benita.

My gaze swept past Sarah, past the digital screen, and locked dead onto the man standing by the back bar.

Jean-Luc froze. The champagne bottle slipped slightly in his grip, the glass in his hand trembling just enough to make the liquid ripple. The dramatic, loud-mouthed French master tailor had suddenly gone completely, dead silent.

I took one slow, heavy step toward him, my hands buried in my pockets, my voice so cold it could freeze blood.

"Confess."

Jean-Luc’s face turned paper-white, but he tried to put on his usual dramatic act, holding his hands up in frantic defense.

"Ethan! Non! How could you even think such a thing?!" he sputtered, his voice cracking. "I am Jean-Luc! I gave my life to this atelier! I would never—"

"Shut up, Jean-Luc," I said, my voice dead, flat, and absolute.

I held up my tablet, flicking through the metadata Chloe had extracted from the leaked files.

"The CAD pattern exports sent to O.R. Atelier were pulled from the server at 2:14 AM three weeks ago," I said, stepping closer until I was towering right over him. "The server logs show access via a local terminal—the exact workbench station in the rear sewing bay. Sarah was at home. Benita was asleep in her apartment. I was in a board meeting across town. The only keycard swiped into the building at 2:10 AM belonged to you."

Jean-Luc opened his mouth, but no words came out. His eyes darted nervously toward the exit.

"And it gets better," I continued, leaning in close. "Two days ago, an offshore account tied to a shell entity in Cyprus received a wire transfer of five hundred thousand dollars. The source? A subsidiary owned by Oliver Rick. You sold out our core lineup for half a million dollars."

I leaned in, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper that chilled the entire room.

"You have ten seconds to confess, Jean-Luc. If you open your mouth and tell me everything right now, I let you walk out of this building on your own two feet before Chloe destroys you in court. If you lie to me again... I will ruin your name, your career, and every single cent you’ve ever made so completely that you’ll be sewing buttons on street corners for the rest of your life."

The pressure in the room was suffocating. Jean-Luc’s knees visibly buckled. The champagne glass finally slipped from his fingers, crashing onto the floor and shattering into a hundred pieces.

"I... I..." he stammered, his eyes wide with pure, pathetic terror, tears instantly welling up. "Oliver... he reached out to me! He said UncuT was going to fail! He paid me... he paid me to send the preliminary pattern sheets before you filed the official copyrights! I’m sorry! Mon dieu, Ethan, I’m sorry!"

The silence that followed his confession was deafening.

Before I could even react, a shadow blurred past my shoulder.

Benita marched straight past me, her eyes burning with pure, unadulterated fury. Without saying a single word, she whipped her arm back and delivered a brutal, echoing SLAP right across Jean-Luc’s cheek.

The crack echoed off the concrete walls like a gunshot. Jean-Luc’s head snapped to the side, stumbling back against the bar counter, clutching his bright red face in absolute shock.

"You Judas," Benita hissed, her chest heaving as she glared down at him. "Get out of my atelier."