Chapter 34

The fog on the East River was thick enough to swallow a fleet. I stood on the deck of the Aethelgard, a refurbished research vessel that served as a mobile, offshore server farm. The air smelled of salt and the metallic tang of high-powered cooling fans. Somewhere behind the grey curtain of the morning, the Sterling Tower was vibrating itself to death, but here, the only sound was the slap of dark water against the hull.

​My phone buzzed on the railing. It wasn't a call. It was a formal service of process, delivered digitally via an encrypted Sterling Tech portal.

​PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION AND COMPLIANCE ORDER: MATTER OF VANE-STERLING.

​I swiped through the pages. The board wasn't just coming for my shares; they were coming for my existence. The document, signed by Sterling’s lead counsel and rubber-stamped by a friendly judge in a closed-door session, labeled me a "Non-Human Biological Liability."

​It was a masterclass in institutional gaslighting. They weren't claiming I was a person who had committed a crime. They were claiming I was an experimental prototype that had malfunctioned, thereby voiding my marital rights, my fiduciary standing at Vane Global, and my right to public speech.

​"They’re moving faster than the markets," a voice said behind me.

​I didn't turn. I knew the cadence of the man from the bakery. "The board needs a villain to explain the stock dip. If I'm a 'security risk' instead of a wife, they can justify every cent of the liquidation."

​"It’s not just the board, Isabella," he said, stepping up to the railing. He handed me a tablet. "Look at the secondary conditions of the injunction."

​I scrolled to the bottom. My pulse stayed flat—a benefit of the recalibration. The terms were brutal. To avoid immediate federal seizure and "decommissioning," I was required to surrender to a third-party custodial facility for "biometric stabilization."

​But it was the signature line that stopped my breath.

​The injunction hadn't been initiated by the Sterling board alone. It had been co-signed by an independent ethics consultant: The Vane-Aethelgard Foundation.

​"Eleanor," I whispered.

​The woman who had built me was now signing the order to dismantle me. Or, at the very least, to put me back in a box she controlled. The board thought they were protecting Sterling’s reputation. In reality, they were doing Eleanor’s housekeeping.

​"You have an hour to respond to the uplink," the man said. "If you don't acknowledge the service, they’ll trigger the 'Red-Flag' protocol. Every news outlet in the city will receive the Medusa files. They’ll frame your escape as a public health threat."

​"They want me to sign an NDA that deletes my history," I said, scanning the fine print. "They want me to admit I’m a synthesized asset with no claim to the Vane inheritance."

​I walked into the ship's bridge. The monitors were a sea of data—Liam’s servers were still reeling from my poison pill, but the board’s legal wing was a separate beast. They were using the law like a scalpel, trying to cut me out of the narrative before the fourteen-day deadline Liam had been given.

​I sat at the terminal. My fingers hovered over the keys.

​"What are you doing?" the man asked.

​"I'm not signing," I said. "And I'm not running anymore."

​"Isabella, if you challenge the injunction, they'll freeze Aethelgard. You’ll be penniless in twenty minutes."

​"Money is just a signal," I said. "Reputation is the frequency."

​I opened a direct, high-bandwidth channel to the Sterling Board’s legal counsel. I didn't send a letter. I sent a file. It was a recording of the boardroom meeting from Chapter 29—the moment Liam had stepped back. But I had layered it with the biometric data from the core, showing the exact moment the board’s collective heart rates spiked in greed as the Medusa photos leaked.

​I added a short, typed note: If I am an asset, then you are guilty of insider trading with government property. If I am a person, this injunction is a human rights violation. Choose your deposition carefully.

​I hit send.

​The response was almost instantaneous. My screen turned red. A new window popped up. It wasn't the lawyer. It was a private message, routed through a secure Zurich node.

​Isabella, the message read. The board is a blunt instrument. I am the architect. You are currently holding a position that belongs to the Vane lineage. The Sterling merger was a test of your durability. You failed the moment you sought Liam’s protection.

​I stared at the screen. The subtext was a punch to the gut. This wasn't just about a company. This was a culling.

​"She's watching the vote," I said, my voice cold. "The board meeting starts in fifteen minutes. They’re going to decide whether to ratify this injunction and strip my shares."

​"Liam has the tie-breaking vote," the man reminded me.

​"No," I said, watching a new line of code bleed across my monitor. "Liam has a choice between his father’s legacy and a woman he’s already betrayed once."

​I looked at the final condition of the ultimatum that had just appeared. If the board voted to categorize me as a "threat," a pre-set legal trigger would automatically transfer my Vane Global voting rights to a "Neutral Trustee."

​I checked the trustee's identity.

​Arthur Vane.

​The board wasn't just working with Eleanor. They were handing the keys back to the man who had tried to kill me on the bridge.

​The clock on the wall ticked toward the hour. My phone buzzed again. This time, it was a text from an unknown number.

​Don't go to the docks, Isabella. The ship is the cage.

​I looked at the man in the grey coat. He was looking at his watch.

​"We need to move," he said.

​"I'm stayng," I said, locking the bridge doors from the console. "I want to see how he votes."

​The cliffhanger wasn't whether I would survive. It was whether there was anything left of Liam Sterling worth saving. I leaned into the monitor, my eyes fixed on the live-stream of the Sterling boardroom.

​The meeting was called to order. I saw Liam walk in. He looked like a ghost in a five-thousand-dollar suit. He didn't look at the camera. He didn't look at Sarah. He looked at the empty seat where I should have been.

​And then I saw the person sitting behind him in the gallery. A woman in a veil.

​Eleanor.