Chapter 25

Isabella's POV 

The glass didn't fall inward; it disintegrated.

A high-velocity projectile, likely a non-lethal acoustic round from the lead drone, turned the pane into a cloud of lethal sand. I dove for the floor, shielding the sapphire box with my chest. Beside me, the laptop screen flickered as the wired hardline was severed by the blast. Eleanor’s face vanished into a smear of static.

"Down!" Liam’s voice was a bark. He shoved the mattress off the frame, creating a makeshift barrier against the open window.

I tasted dust. I tasted iron. I looked at the glass slide clutched in my palm. It was a thin sliver of history, stained with a dried, dark crimson smear. Look at the blood.

"Isabella, the stairs," Liam said. He was already on his feet, his posture low, one hand gripping the edge of the nightstand to steady himself. His injured shoulder was a map of red.

"The slide," I said, my voice thin. "Liam, if she isn't my mother, then the trust—"

"The trust is a ghost. We have thirty seconds before they breach the door."

A drone hummed in the gap where the window used to be. It was small, a surveillance model with a spotlight that swept the room like a searching eye. I didn't wait for it to lock on. I shoved the slide into the pocket of my coat and grabbed the sapphire box.

I wasn't the build. I wasn't the project.

I was the target.

We scrambled into the narrow hallway just as the front door was kicked off its hinges. No sirens. No shouting. Just the professional, heavy boots of a Vane tactical unit. Arthur didn't want a scene; he wanted a retrieval.

"Fire escape," Liam whispered.

"No. They’ll be watching the exterior. The roof is blocked." I looked at the floorboards. "The crawlspace. The bakery has a dumbwaiter in the back of the pantry. It’s narrow, manual. It leads to the cellar."

"Lead," he said.

We moved through the shadows of the apartment, avoiding the kitchen where the drones could see in. Every movement felt heavy, as if the air itself had thickened. My mind was a recursive loop of Eleanor’s face and Arthur’s note. If Eleanor wasn't my mother, then who was the woman in the white coat? Who was the woman who had burned on the island?

We reached the pantry. I shoved aside a stack of flour bags to reveal the wooden door of the dumbwaiter. It was a relic, a wooden box on a rope pulley.

"You first," Liam said.

"Liam—"

"Go. I’ll hold the pulley."

I squeezed into the small, dark space. It smelled of old grain and damp wood. As Liam lowered me, the rope groaned, a rhythmic straining that sounded like a countdown. I watched his face disappear as I descended into the dark. He looked like a man who was calculating the weight of his own lies.

The box hit the bottom with a muffled thud. I pushed the door open into the bakery’s cellar. It was freezing. The scent of yeast and cold stone hit me.

A moment later, the rope hissed. Liam dropped the last six feet, landing with a heavy, pained thud beside me. He didn't make a sound, but I saw his jaw lock.

"We have to move," I said. "The hardline was severed, but the relay is still active in the walls. If I can get to the bakery’s main terminal, I can spoof our location."

"The tower, Isabella," Liam said. He was leaning against a stack of crates, his breathing shallow. "Five minutes. Eleanor’s deadline. If we don't give her the frequency, the 48th floor becomes a graveyard."

"She’s bluffing."

"She doesn't bluff. She’s an engineer. She knows exactly where the stress points are."

I walked to the terminal in the corner of the cellar. It was an old machine, used for inventory, but it was connected to the building's grid. I pulled the glass slide out of my pocket. I needed to see. I needed to know why Arthur had kept this for sixteen years.

I looked at the light of the monitor. I held the slide up.

The blood wasn't just a smear. It was a sample. Under the backlight of the screen, I saw the microscopic etchings on the glass. It wasn't just DNA. It was a serial number.

Property of Vane Global: Project Medusa. Subject 0.

The air left my lungs.

"Liam," I whispered.

"What?" He moved closer, his shadow falling over the screen.

"Subject 0. The blood on this slide... it’s not from a person. It’s the original core logic. The biological blueprint for the Medusa system."

"The frequency," Liam said. "It’s not code, Isabella. It’s a signature. A blood-type match."

I looked at my own wrist. The small bruise from the pharmacy. The scar from the island.

"I’m not the build," I said, my voice trembling. "I’m the source. The frequency isn't in Zurich. It’s in me."

The realization was a physical blow. The trust, the marriage, the merger—it was all a shell game to keep the source under control. Arthur hadn't been protecting me; he had been protecting his patent. And Eleanor... she didn't want the legacy. She wanted the blood.

"Isabella, look at the feed," Liam said.

I turned back to the monitor. The bakery’s security cameras were still live. A black sedan had pulled up to the front. Not a Vane car. Not a Sterling car.

A woman stepped out. She wasn't wearing a white coat. She was wearing a simple, grey dress. She looked tired. She looked human.

She looked exactly like me.

"Who is that?" Liam asked.

I stared at the screen. The woman looked at the bakery door, then directly at the camera. She raised a hand, pressing a finger to her lips.

A message flashed on the inventory screen, overriding the inventory.

They’re coming for the source. The tower is already falling. Run.

The floor beneath us vibrated. A low, rhythmic hum began to grow, vibrating through the stone of the cellar. The sonic emitter. It wasn't just at the tower.

It was underneath us.

"The deadline," I said. "She moved it up."

"Isabella, we have to go. Now."

"Where? She’s everywhere."

I looked at the slide. I looked at the woman on the screen. The woman who shouldn't exist.

"The island," I said. "The lighthouse. The core started there. The override has to be there."

"We'll never make it out of Queens," Liam said.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a burner phone. It was ringing.

"Sterling," he said.

His face went pale. He looked at me, then at the terminal.

"How long?" he asked.

He hung up and looked at me. His eyes were no longer those of a CEO. They were the eyes of a man who had just seen the end of his world.

"The 48th floor," he said. "The vibration has reached the resonance frequency. The steel is liquefying. Sarah and the board have three minutes before the floor collapses into the 47th."

"And the woman on the screen?"

"She’s not your mother, Isabella. And she’s not a ghost."

He grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the cellar exit.

"She’s the reason the lighthouse burned."

The cellar door exploded inward.