Chapter 23

Liam's POV 

​The sound of the glass dissolving wasn't a crack; it was a sigh.

​A high-frequency vibration had turned the floor-to-ceiling reinforced pane into a curtain of diamonds. It fell in a silent, shimmering wave. The vacuum of the 48th floor did the rest. The air in the boardroom was sucked out into the night, dragging papers, tablets, and the collective breath of the Sterling board with it.

​I lunged across the table.

​My hand caught the edge of the mahogany. My other arm hooked around Isabella’s waist. She was light. Too light. The wind was a physical hand trying to peel us off the floor.

​"Liam!" Sarah’s voice was a thin reed, lost in the roar of the pressure change.

​I didn't look at Sarah. I looked at the man on the ledge.

​He wasn't a sniper. He was a delivery system. He wore a matte black tactical suit that absorbed the light of the city. He didn't have a weapon. He had a localized sonic emitter strapped to his forearm.

​He stepped into the room.

​The wind died as the building’s emergency shutters began to grind downward, heavy steel slabs fighting the air.

​I pulled Isabella behind me. My shoulder screamed—the bandage from the lighthouse was wet now, the skin pulling at the staples.

​"Risk assessment," Isabella whispered. She was leaning against my back. I could feel the frantic, steady drum of her heart.

​"Internal," I said. "The emitter is Sterling Tech. Prototype. It was supposed to be in the Zurich lab."

​"It was," the man said.

​He reached up and pulled back his hood.

​He wasn't Julian. He was younger. He had the Vane jawline—the same structural arrogance I had seen in Arthur for years. But his eyes were a flat, familiar grey.

​Eleanor’s eyes.

​"The board meeting is running late," he said.

​Sarah was cowering under the table. Miller, the woman in grey, was clutching the folder about the inheritance.

​"Who are you?" Miller barked. Her voice shook, but the institutional instinct was still there.

​"The variable you forgot to carry," the boy said. He looked at Isabella. "Hello, sister."

​I felt Isabella’s fingers dig into the sleeve of my suit.

​"Leo," she breathed.

​"I thought you were in the South of France," I said.

​I was scanning the room. The shutters were halfway down. We had ten seconds before the room became a tomb. The emergency exit was behind the boy.

​"The South of France is for people who want to be forgotten," Leo said. "I wanted the seat."

​"You don't have a seat," I said. "You don't have a claim."

​"The folder in Miller’s hand says otherwise."

​I looked at Miller. She was backing away, toward the side door.

​"Liam, the shutters," Isabella said.

​I looked up. The steel was three feet from the floor.

​"Now," I said.

​I didn't wait for her to agree. I grabbed her hand and ran.

​We didn't go for the boy. We went for the gap. I slid across the mahogany, dragging Isabella with me. We hit the carpet, rolling under the descending weight of the steel.

​The shutter slammed shut with a bone-jarring thud.

​The boardroom was sealed. We were in the hallway.

​"Liam, your shoulder," Isabella said.

​I looked down. A dark bloom was spreading across the charcoal wool.

​"It’s a flesh wound. Logic dictates we move."

​"Logic dictates he has the override codes if he has the emitter," she said. She was already moving toward the service stairs. "The elevators are a trap."

​"The stairs are forty-eight floors of exposure."

​"Then we go up."

​I looked at her. "To the roof?"

​"To the transmitter. If I can't unlock the core, I can at least broadcast the lockout. If everyone loses, no one wins."

​I followed her.

​My mind was a grid of collapsing options. Leo Vane. The second child. The secret Eleanor had kept even from the trust. It changed the math. It turned the merger into a fraudulent transaction.

​I was a CEO who had just married a ghost.

​The stairs were a concrete throat.

​We climbed in silence. Every step was a jar to my spine. I watched Isabella’s back. She moved with a strange, frantic grace. She didn't look back. She didn't ask if I was okay.

​She was an observer no longer. She was the driver.

​We reached the roof door. I pushed it open.

​The wind hit us again. Cold. Sharp. It smelled of ozone and the approaching storm. The Sterling transmitter was a needle of steel and blinking red lights, reaching toward the clouds.

​Isabella ran to the control hub at the base of the tower.

​"Isabella, wait."

​"I don't have time to wait, Liam. He’s in the building. He has the board. If he gets Sarah to sign a recognition of his claim, I’m a criminal by morning."

​"You're my wife. That's the legal shield."

​"A shield made of a lie," she said. She didn't look at me. Her fingers were flying over the keypad. "You knew about him. Miller had the folder."

​"I had it for five minutes."

​"Five minutes is an eternity in a merger."

​"I was protecting the stability of the stock."

​"You were protecting the seat."

​She hit a final key. The hub hummed. A blue light began to pulse at the top of the transmitter.

​"There," she said. "The lockout is public. The frequency is now a dead-man's switch. If I don't check in every hour, the Zurich servers self-destruct."

​"You’ve just destroyed the value of the company," I said.

​"I’ve leveled the playing field."

​She turned to face me. The wind whipped her hair across her face. Her eyes were bright. Terrifying.

​"Now," she said. "The question."

​"Isabella, this isn't the time."

​"It’s the only time. We’re on a roof. We’re bleeding. The world is watching the ticker hit zero. Tell me the truth. Not the CEO truth. Not the risk-management truth."

​I looked at the city.

​I thought about Chapter 1. The first time I saw her at the gala. She had been wearing white. She had looked like an asset to be acquired. A piece of the Vane puzzle that would complete my map.

​I had spent years building a world where people were variables. Where a heartbeat was just a rhythm to be synchronized with a market.

​"I didn't stay for the core," I said.

​The words felt like stones in my mouth.

​"I know," she said.

​"I stayed because the room felt empty without the noise of your math."

​I reached out. I didn't touch her face. I touched the cold steel of the transmitter between us.

​"The 'Heir Apparent' clause... I kept it because I didn't know how to ask you to stay. I only knew how to build a cage that wouldn't let you leave."

​Isabella didn't move.

​The silence wasn't a vacuum this time. It was a bridge.

​"You're a coward, Liam Sterling," she whispered.

​"I'm a CEO."

​"Same thing."

​She took a step toward me.

​For a second, the structure held. The city, the board, the boy with the emitter—they were all outside the circle.

​Then the roof door exploded.

​It wasn't Leo.

​It was a drone. A swarm of them. Small, black shapes that looked like hornets. They hovered in a semi-circle, their cameras trained on us.

​"The press," I said.

​"No," Isabella said. "Look at the underside."

​I saw the glow.

​Not red dots.

​Blue.

​"The DOJ," I said. "They’re not here to talk."

​A voice boomed from a speaker on the lead drone. It was distorted. Institutional.

​"Liam Sterling. Isabella Vane. You are under suspicion of corporate espionage and the illegal manipulation of a national security asset. Stand down and move away from the transmitter."

​"They think we’re the ones who dissolved the glass," I said.

​"Leo's play," Isabella said. "He stays in the room with the victims. We’re on the roof with the transmitter. We look like the terrorists."

​I looked at the ledge.

​It was a long drop.

​"Isabella."

​"I know."

​"We can't go down the stairs."

​"I know."

​I looked at her.

​"The 'Heir Apparent' clause," I said. "If we’re arrested, it triggers. You lose everything."

​"I’ve already lost everything, Liam. I’m just deciding what to do with the wreckage."

​She reached out and took my hand. Her grip was iron.

​"Do you trust the math?" she asked.

​"I trust the gravity."

​The drones moved in. The blue lights turned to a strobing amber.

​"Final warning," the voice boomed.

​I looked at Isabella.

​"If we make it," I said. "The marriage is real. No annulment."

​"Negotiating until the end," she said.

​She didn't smile.

​But she didn't let go of my hand.

​We stepped toward the ledge.

​The wind caught us. The city was a blur of gold and black.

​I looked back one last time at the transmitter.

​The blue light was still pulsing.

​1:00.

​0:59.

​Cliffhanger:

​As we neared the edge, my phone vibrated in my pocket.

​A text from a blocked ID.

​Check the basement again, Liam. You missed the best part of the gift.

​I stopped. My heels were inches from the drop.

​"Liam?" Isabella pulled at my arm.

​"The basement," I said. "The laptop."

​"What about it?"

​"It wasn't a live feed of the boardroom. It was a recording."

​I looked at the drones. I looked at the boy I thought was Leo.

​The realization hit me like a physical blow.

​"He’s not in the room," I said. "He’s already downstairs."

​I looked down.

​At the base of the Sterling Tower, a single black sedan was pulling away.

​And in the backseat, I saw a woman.

​She wasn't Sarah.

​She was wearing a white coat.

​"Isabella," I whispered. "Your mother. She’s not in the hospital."

​The drones fired.

​Not bullets.

​A net.

​I pulled Isabella toward the ledge.

​"Jump!"

​We hit the air.