Chapter 33

Liam's POV 

The board meeting was a funeral without a casket.

The air in the room was thick with the scent of stale coffee, expensive cologne, and pure, unadulterated panic. Sarah was pacing the length of the mahogany table, her heels clicking like a metronome of doom. Miller was staring at the blank screens where the market data used to be, her face a mask of cold fury.

"The poison pill wiped thirty percent of our internal infrastructure," Miller said, her voice hollow and terrifyingly calm. "Our proprietary algorithms are locked behind an encryption wall we didn't build. The DOJ is accusing us of evidence tampering, Liam. They think we let her escape to protect the core secrets."

"I didn't let her escape," I said. I hadn't moved from my seat at the head of the table in six hours. I was still wearing the same suit I’d worn when she looked at me with that heartbreaking clarity in the lab.

"Arthur is at the gates," Sarah said, stopping her pacing to glare at me. "He’s filed a breach of contract suit and an emergency injunction. He says the guardianship was a sham and that you’ve 'disappeared' his daughter to maintain your monopoly on the Medusa tech. He’s calling for a full takeover of Sterling Tech to 'secure the asset' for the government."

"He can't take over a company he doesn't own," I muttered, though even I knew how weak it sounded.

"He can if the government deems you a threat to national security," a new voice interrupted.

I looked up. The board’s lead counsel, a man who had served the Sterling family for forty years, stood in the doorway. He wasn't carrying his usual briefcase; he was carrying a single, heavy document. He walked to the table and laid it in front of me with the solemnity of a judge passing a sentence.

RESTORATION OF FIDUCIARY DUTY.

"You have fourteen days, Mr. Sterling," the lawyer said. "The board has issued a formal ultimatum. Fourteen days to produce Isabella Vane-Sterling and the Medusa core. If you fail, the board will vote to dissolve the merger and move for a structured bankruptcy. Sterling Tech will be liquidated to pay the federal penalties. And you… you will be personally liable for the fraud."

"Fraud?" I asked, my voice cracking.

"You married her knowing her status was contested and likely synthetic," he said coldly. "You used her to pump the stock price and secure the Vane assets while hiding her true nature from the shareholders. That’s the DOJ’s narrative, and the board is not going to prison with you, Liam."

Fourteen days. It was a death sentence. In fourteen days, everything I had built, everything my father had built, would be stripped away. I would be a man without a name, without a fortune, and without a wife.

"Where is she, Liam?" Sarah demanded, leaning over the table until she was inches from my face. "If you know where she is, tell us. We can negotiate. We can find a way to make this look like a planned medical leave. We can save the company."

"I don't know where she is," I said. And for the first time in my life, I wasn't lying to the board. I was the CEO of the most powerful tech company on the planet, and I had no idea where the woman I loved had gone.

I walked out of the room, ignoring their shouts, and headed for the elevator. I didn't go to my office. I went back to the lab.

The room was empty now, the federal guards replaced by Sterling security. The grey jumpsuit she had discarded was still lying in a heap on the floor, a ghost of the woman who had been there. I sat on the edge of the cot and looked at the wall she had stared at. I tried to see the patterns she saw. I tried to understand the math of her escape.

My phone vibrated. A high-priority alert from the Jersey house—the place where this all started.

SECONDARY MECHANISM ACTIVATED. USER: ELEANOR_0.

I froze. My thumb hovered over the screen. I pulled up the remote feed, and my blood turned to ice.

The sub-basement beneath the Sterling Tower wasn't humming anymore. It was screaming. A high-frequency pitch that was vibrating the very foundation of the building, a sound that only the Medusa hardware could produce. It wasn't an emitter. It was a resonance spike.

It was a countdown.

12:00:00.

Eleanor wasn't waiting fourteen days for the board to decide my fate. She was forcing the hand now. The resonance was designed to destabilize the building’s structural integrity by targeting the specific steel alloys used in the tower’s frame. In twelve hours, the Sterling Tower would be a pile of glass and dust.

If I stayed to fight the board, the building would fall on my head. If I left to find Isabella, I would be a fugitive, losing the company and my freedom the second I stepped out of the lobby.

I looked at the jumpsuit on the floor. I thought about the bridge, the explosion, and the way her hand had felt in mine when we jumped from the roof of the burning car. I realized then that I had been trying to save a company that was already dead, and a marriage I had already sabotaged.

The choice wasn't between the company and the girl. The choice was between the cage and the fall.

I stood up and tapped my comms. "Felix. Clear the building. Fire drill, bomb threat, I don't care what excuse you use. Get everyone out of the tower. Now."

"Sir? What about the board?"

"Leave them. They’re vultures; they’ll find a way to fly," I said, my voice finally finding its edge again. "Get the car. We’re going to the docks."

"The docks, sir? Why?"

"Because that’s where the ghosts go," I said, checking the timer on my tablet.

11:55:00.

I wasn't trying to stop the clock anymore. I was racing it. I was no longer the CEO. I was a man looking for a variable that didn't want to be found.

I stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the garage. As the doors closed, I felt the first tremor shake the floor. The game had changed. The merger was over. The war had just begun