Chapter 29

The light from the boardroom monitor was a clinical, predatory blue. On the screen, Arthur Vane had perfected the architecture of grief. He wore a dark sweater—casual, approachable—the kind of garment that suggested a quiet evening interrupted by tragedy. It was a lie, of course. He was sitting in a studio with three teleprompters and a team of crisis managers refining his every blink.

"I just want my daughter home," Arthur said. His voice cracked at the precise frequency required to trigger a sympathy rally in the futures market. "Politics and business aside, she is a young woman who has been through unimaginable trauma. The revelations about Eleanor’s… experiments… have devastated our family. Isabella needs care. She needs her father."

I stood in the center of the Sterling boardroom, the sapphire box heavy in my palm. Its velvet was worn, a relic of a life that felt like it belonged to someone else. The board members weren't looking at my face; they were staring at my hands, waiting for them to shake.

I tightened my grip until the edges of the box bit into my skin.

"He’s playing the family card because he’s losing the legal one," I said. My voice was a wire stretched to the breaking point, but it didn't snap.

Sarah shifted, the silk of her suit rustling in the stifling quiet. "Isabella, the optics are catastrophic. If you don't respond, the narrative becomes that Liam is holding a victim captive for her trust. The DOJ will use that as probable cause to freeze every Vane asset we have."

"I am responding."

I turned toward the camera mounted above the monitor. Felix stood by the terminal, his fingers hovering over the uplink. He waited for my nod, his expression unreadable. I hadn't fixed my hair. A smudge of soot still darkened my temple from the bridge. I looked like a survivor, which was the only currency I had left.

"Now," I murmured.

The screen split. On the left, Arthur’s pre-recorded sincerity continued its loop. On the right, my image flickered to life. I didn't look at the lens; I looked through it, imagining the servers across the city catching my pulse.

"My name is Isabella Vane-Sterling," I started, my voice echoing back at me with a slight delay. "I am the Chair of Vane Global. And I am speaking to you from the Sterling Tower."

The room fell so silent I could hear the hum of the cooling fans in the wall.

"Arthur Vane’s offer of reconciliation is not an act of fatherly concern. It is a corporate maneuver designed to bypass the fiduciary duties of the Vane Trust." I kept my sentences short, staccato. "My father is not grieving. He is litigating."

In the corner of my eye, I saw Miller, the woman in grey, lean forward. Her eyes were fixed on the ticker.

"The documents leaked today—the photos of the Medusa project—did not come from a whistleblower," I said, lifting the sapphire box. "They were released by the Vane estate to destabilize this merger. This is not a family drama. It is an institutional betrayal. I am not a patient in need of an evaluation. I am a shareholder in need of transparency."

"Isabella, stop," Liam’s voice came from the shadows behind me. He sounded tired, his usual authority replaced by a jagged edge of warning.

I ignored him.

"I decline the offer of reconciliation," I addressed the camera. "I decline any medical intervention sanctioned by the Vane estate. I am staying at Sterling. I am staying with my husband. And I am staying in control of the core."

I signaled Felix. The red light on the camera died.

For several seconds, the only sound was the sleet rattling against the glass like birdshot.

"You just called your father a liar on a global broadcast," Sarah whispered.

"I called him a competitor," I corrected, setting the sapphire box on the mahogany table with a hollow thud. "There's more honesty in that."

Liam stepped into the light. He didn't move toward me. The distance between us felt structural now, a gap in the blueprint that no amount of steel could bridge. He looked at his tablet, his thumb scrolling through the initial market reaction.

"The market likes the defiance," he said, his eyes not leaving the screen. "Vane Global is down four points, but Sterling is stabilizing. For now."

"And Arthur?"

"Arthur just filed a motion in probate court." Liam finally looked up. His expression was a mask of cold calculation. "He’s claiming your statement was made under duress. He’s asking for a temporary restraining order against me. He wants to bar me from having any contact with you."

The coldness that settled in my chest had nothing to do with the winter outside. "He’s trying to isolate the source."

"He’s trying to win the chair," Liam replied.

My phone buzzed in my pocket—a sharp, insistent vibration. I pulled it out, expecting another headline. Instead, it was a document. A birth certificate. I scanned the lines, my breath hitching as I reached the bottom. The page was stamped with a seal I’d never seen before.

PROPERTY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE. EXPERIMENTAL SUBJECT 0. BIOLOGICAL ORIGIN: NON-HUMAN SYNTHESIS.

The headline above it was a jagged blade: BORN IN A BEAKER: THE TRUTH ABOUT THE STERLING HEIRESS.

"Liam," I whispered, turning the screen toward him.

The reputational counterattack hadn't taken ten minutes. It had taken ten seconds. The world didn't just think I was a victim anymore. They thought I was an object.

The elevator at the end of the hall chimed. The security doors hissed open, admitting a man in a sharp, dark suit. He carried a leather briefcase like a weapon.

"Mr. Sterling," the man said. He was flanked by two federal agents. "We have a warrant for the seizure of the Medusa asset. Please step away from the subject."

I looked at Liam. I waited for him to move toward me, to claim me, to tell them they were wrong.

He didn't move. He took a single, deliberate step back.