“And they’re both in some niche major. Where do they even get the nerve to think they can take on our team?”

“Seriously, they have no idea how out of their depth they are!”

Shaking his head, Aiden turned and pushed the group upstairs.

Meanwhile, as Aiden pushed open Isaiah’s office door, Natalie was feeling restless in the lab, nerves on edge.

She’d finally managed to send Vincent and Jaden away, then rushed into the bathroom to call the hired trolls who’d been working for her.

Thankfully, she’d had the foresight not to use her usual phone when contacting them, and she’d even disguised her voice during the calls.

Now, all she needed to do was make sure those people kept their mouths shut and never admitted to taking money. Then she’d be in the clear.

As for the plagiarism, there was no way anyone could trace it back to her. There was zero evidence. She’d wiped every last trace from her computer.

She thought, “Those trolls are seriously the worst. They took 170 thousand dollars from me. That is two months’ living expenses! I am so upset.”

“One way or another, I am going to make Josie pay every cent of it back. That broke country girl probably doesn’t even have 30 thousand dollars to spend for a whole semester.”

Later that afternoon, Sean got a call from the Department of Student Affairs.

Sean looked at Josie. “Mr. Shepherd said they’ve got the results. However, it looks like there’s no way to tie this to Natalie. The plagiarism thing will just end up unresolved.”

Josie had already seen this coming. After all, Natalie wasn’t dumb enough to leave any evidence lying around for people to find. If she had been, she wouldn’t have managed to steal so many of Josie’s academic materials and papers in her previous life without ever getting caught.

As for the screen-monitoring software on her computer, they’d probably only be able to trace it back to some random hacker.

Unless they actually called the cops, there was no way they’d ever find out who it was. But it was just a regular exam paper. If she actually called the police over something like this, the school and David would probably say she was making it a bigger deal than it had to be. After all, at a top university like this, they care way too much about their reputation to let something like this blow up.

Josie said while shaking her head, “It’s fine. As long as everyone knows my computer was infected, my thesis got leaked, and someone tried to smear me online, that’s enough for me.”

Sean nodded. “You already knew this wouldn’t really go anywhere, didn’t you? You just stirred things up so no one could use this against you again, right? Now that we’ve caught the hired trolls and made it public that your computer was hacked, no one can make a fuss about these two things or use them against you anymore, right?”

“Exactly.” Josie nodded. “If I want to join Professor Wilcourt’s team, I need to come in clean. I don’t want to bring a bunch of unnecessary drama with me. Plus, I just wanted to mess with Natalie.”

“Whether or not we can prove she plagiarized, as long as everyone knows my computer was infected, it’ll be hard for her to clear her name. People are complicated. This bit of suspicion might not matter much now, but that doesn’t mean it won’t in the future. As more incidents like this happen, sooner or later, everyone will remember what happened today.”

Sean’s eyes darkened as he looked straight at her. “How do you know incidents like this will happen again?”

“Do you think people will truly change?” Josie said with a grin, completely unfazed by the investigation results.

She flashed Sean a smile and turned away, heading off to take care of her own business.

As he watched her walk away, the ever-serious Sean couldn’t help but let a faint, rare smile tug at his lips.

Sean thought, “What am I going to do with a girl this clever? She’s only getting more and more irresistible!”

Josie found herself thinking back on everything she’d learned about Natalie in her previous life.

Natalie was all show and no substance. She never had any real skills, just a knack for stepping on others to climb higher. Every day, she’d doll herself up and hop from one guy to another, milking their pity and scheming to make them her stepping stones.

Back then, Josie had been the perfect sucker, letting Natalie use her as a springboard to reach men way above their league.

Now, Josie couldn’t help but wonder what tricks Natalie would pull this time.