Chapter 36

The monitor on the bridge of the Aethelgard flickered with the ghost of the boardroom feed before the signal died. I sat in the high-backed pilot’s chair, the hum of the ship’s servers beneath my boots feeling like a low-grade fever. The final frame was burned into my retinas: Liam, standing at the head of that mahogany table, looking into the lens as if he could see through the encryption, through the miles of water and fog, and straight into my marrow.

​I abstain.

​Two words. They weren't a "Yes," which would have been the final strike of the gavel on my coffin. But they weren't a "No," which would have been the shield I thought he’d hold until his arms broke. An abstention was a calculated retreat. It was the move of a man who valued the board's rules over the wife's humanity.

​"The vote is recorded," the man in the grey coat said from the doorway. He didn't move closer. He knew the temperature in the room had just dropped to absolute zero. "He didn't hand you over, Isabella. He neutralized the motion."

​"He neutralized himself," I corrected. My voice was a flat, dry thing. I didn't feel like crying. I felt like I was being laminated—layer after layer of thin, transparent ice coating my nerves. "He chose the procedure. He chose to stay clean while the board prepares the next subpoena."

​I stood up and walked to the console, my fingers moving with a precision that felt clinical. I didn't need a CEO. I didn't need a husband who balanced my life against a shareholder's dividend.

​"Isabella, he’s triggered the Dead-Man’s Switch," the man warned. "The tower is locking down. He's trapped in there with Eleanor."

​"He knew the protocols," I said. I pulled up the primary access hub for Aethelgard. "He built half of them. If he wanted to be out, he’d be out."

​I began the purge. One by one, I severed the back-door links I had left for him. I blocked the private encryption keys we shared. I revoked the emergency biometric handshake that allowed his servers to talk to mine. Every digital thread that connected Liam Sterling to Isabella Vane was cut with a keystroke.

​"You’re cutting off your only support," he said.

​"I’m cutting off the noise," I replied.

​I looked at the secondary monitor, where the world’s reaction was already beginning to hemorrhage. The news ticker on Global Finance was a jagged line of red.

​BREAKING: STERLING CEO ABSTAINS IN VANE-STERLING CLASSIFICATION VOTE.

ISABELLA VANE OFFICIALLY DECLARED “ISOLATED ASSET” BY BOARD.

SOURCES: STERLING-VANE ALLIANCE COLLAPSING AS CHAIR ABANDONS HEIRESS.

​The narrative was being written in real-time, and it was brutal. I wasn't the brilliant chairwoman or the survivor anymore. I was the abandoned experiment. The girl who was too "contaminated" for even her billionaire husband to defend. I could see Eleanor’s hand in the phrasing—the subtle use of the word abandoned. It made me look weak. It made me look like a liability that had finally been discarded by the only man powerful enough to carry it.

​"He didn't abandon you," the man in the grey coat insisted. "He’s buying time."

​"He’s buying his own reputation," I said. I turned to face him, my expression a mask of perfect, terrifying composure. "He had the chance to say I was a person. He had the chance to tell that board that I am his wife. He chose to remain 'neutral.' In a war like this, neutrality is just a slower form of betrayal."

​I felt a phantom ache in my chest, a memory of the way he’d looked at me in the lab, but I pushed it down. That Liam was a variable that didn't fit the current equation. He was a distraction.

​I pulled my phone from my pocket and looked at the last message from him. It was a string of coordinates and a single word: Wait.

​I deleted the thread.

​"Isabella?"

​"Set a course for the outer harbor," I commanded. "And bring the satellite link for the Horizon Group online."

​"Horizon?" The man’s eyebrows shot up. "They’re Sterling’s primary rival in the private equity sector. If you talk to them, there’s no going back. The board will treat it as treason."

​"The board already treated me as an asset," I said, walking toward the stern of the ship. The wind was picking up, tearing the fog into long, ghostly ribbons. "And assets don't commit treason. They just change owners."

​I looked back at the skyline. The Sterling Tower was visible now, a dark monolith against the grey sky. It was vibrating, humming with the frequency of my own voice, a trap I had set and Liam had triggered. It was a beautiful, catastrophic mess.

​My phone buzzed. A new notification from a tabloid feed.

​ISABELLA VANE: THE HEIRESS WITHOUT A HOME. IS SHE UNSTABLE?

​The photo was a graining shot of me leaving the tower, looking small and haunted. It was a lie. I wasn't unstable. I was finally focused. The blood in my veins might be "synthesized" according to their records, but the coldness in my heart was entirely my own.

​"I’m done being managed," I whispered to the wind.

​I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small, silver wedding band Liam had given me. It felt heavy. It felt like a tether. I looked at it for a moment, remembering the heat of his skin and the promise of a partnership that was supposed to transcend the boards and the bloodlines.

​I opened my hand and let it drop.

​It vanished into the churn of the East River without a sound. No splash. No ripple. Just gone.

​I walked back into the bridge and sat down at the secure terminal. I didn't look at the Sterling feed again. I didn't check the timer on the tower’s resonance. I didn't care about the forty minutes Liam had left.

​I typed in a new set of credentials.

​Recipient: Marcus Thorne. Managing Director, Horizon Capital.

Subject: The Medusa Architecture.

​I hit enter.

​I was no longer relying on Sterling Tech. I was no longer relying on a man who chose silence over a stand. I was the architect now, and I was about to build a new world out of the ashes of the old one.

​The man in the grey coat stood by the door, watching me. "You’re making a mistake, Isabella."

​"Probably," I said, my eyes fixed on the screen as the connection was established. "But it’s my mistake. Not his."

​The screen flickered, and a face appeared. Sharp, older, and hungry.

​"Isabella Vane," Marcus Thorne said. His voice was a rasp of pure ambition. "I heard you were looking for a place to land."

​"I'm not looking for a landing," I told him, my voice steady and cold. "I'm looking for a launch."