Chapter 171: The Second Copy

The second surviving copy of The CEO's Gentle Devotion arrived at the forensic laboratory in a sealed evidence bag.

Freya did not touch it.

The cover was identical to the copy sent to Awake Stories. The same title. The same author name: Bailey Shepard. The same professionally printed binding with no legitimate publishing information.

But when investigators opened it to Chapter 170, the sentence was different.

The first copy said: Freya finally understood that someone else was still writing.

The second said: Louis finally understood that Freya was not the only target.

Freya looked at Louis.

Neither spoke for several seconds.

Derek broke the silence. "This is deliberate."

Obviously.

Whoever created the books had printed at least two personalized versions.

Investigators compared every page digitally. Most chapters were identical, but seventeen sentences differed. The differences were subtle. One version emphasized Freya's decisions. The other emphasized Louis's reactions.

It was not merely surveillance.

Someone had constructed parallel narratives around them.

Claire joined the meeting remotely. When shown the comparison, she went pale.

"Mirror could generate reader-specific branches."

Mercer immediately asked her to explain.

Claire said Crosswind had experimented with adaptive fiction. A reader's interactions could influence which version of a chapter appeared. The system was primitive and never commercially released, but the underlying architecture existed.

Freya's stomach tightened.

"So Bailey Shepard is using Crosswind technology?"

"Maybe," Claire said. "Or someone rebuilt the idea."

The printing records provided another clue. The manuscript files for the two copies had been uploaded only eleven minutes apart.

Different accounts.

Different payment cards.

Same network route.

Derek's team traced part of the route to a public network near an abandoned Crosswind office.

Police searched the building.

It had been empty for years.

Almost empty.

Inside a locked storage room, they found a recently installed router, a cheap laptop, and stacks of blank paperback covers.

The laptop had been wiped remotely less than an hour before officers arrived.

Whoever was behind Bailey Shepard had expected them.

Freya felt the familiar pull to chase the mystery herself.

She resisted it.

Instead, she asked for the facts.

The router had been active for four months.

The laptop was purchased with cash.

Security footage from nearby businesses was being collected.

The blank covers had been printed locally.

Nothing supernatural so far.

That was good.

Then a forensic technician found one undeleted temporary file on the laptop.

It contained a chapter heading.

Chapter 171: The Second Copy.

Freya stared at the screen.

That was the title investigators had informally used only minutes earlier when discussing the evidence.

No one outside the room should have known it.

Louis's expression hardened.

Freya felt cold but forced herself to think.

A coincidence was possible.

A leak was possible.

A compromised device was possible.

Prediction was possible.

She would not call it fate.

Not yet.

She looked at the paperback again.

Someone wanted her to believe her life was being written in advance.

After everything Adrian had taught her, Freya knew exactly how dangerous that belief could become.

Investigators also confirmed that no one in the evidence room had searched the phrase "The Second Copy" online or entered it into shared case software before the temporary file was created. That removed one easy explanation but not every ordinary one. Freya wrote coincidence, leak, prediction, and manipulation on paper and refused to cross out any option prematurely.

Freya recorded the facts separately from her assumptions and continued with the next practical step. That habit had become one of the strongest protections she possessed. A dramatic explanation could wait; evidence could not. Louis understood the difference, and together they refused to let uncertainty turn ordinary decisions into reactions to a story neither of them had chosen.