Chapter 39

POV: Liam

​The silence in the Sterling Tower was absolute, a heavy, velvet pressure that made my ears ring. The resonance frequency had finally cut out, leaving the building in a state of eerie, post-vibration shock. The red emergency lights were the only thing illuminating the boardroom, casting long, bloody shadows across the faces of the men and women who had just stripped me of my authority.

​"A masterstroke, Liam," Miller said, her voice echoing in the gloom. She was standing by the window, watching the fleet of SUVs pull away from the curb. "The abstention was perfect. It gave us the legal window to activate the recovery order without triggering a lawsuit from the Vane estate. You played it like a textbook."

​I didn't answer. I stood at the head of the table, my hand resting on the back of the chair Isabella had occupied only yesterday. The leather was cold.

​"You've secured the firm's future," Sarah added, though her voice lacked its usual bite. She looked at me, her eyes searching for a sign of the man who had built this empire. "The board is already drafted a statement praising your 'unwavering fiduciary discipline.' By tomorrow, the market will see you as the adult in the room who let the 'unstable element' go."

​Unstable element.

​The words felt like a physical weight in my gut. I looked at my tablet. The media spin was already spiraling. I saw the headlines. I saw the way they were dismantling her, piece by piece, turning a brilliant woman into a cautionary tale of corporate madness.

​And I had given them the knife.

​I had told myself it was strategy. I had told myself that by abstaining, I was keeping my hands on the wheel so I could guide the search party, so I could find her before the DOJ did. But looking at the cold, satisfied faces of my board, I realized the cost. I hadn't just lost a CEO title; I had lost the only person who looked at me without a balance sheet in her eyes.

​"The search team is thirty minutes from the Connecticut bunker," Agent Vance said, stepping back into the room. He looked at me with a professional's curiosity. "The biometric ping is stable. She’s with Thorne. You were right—she went straight to Horizon."

​"Of course she did," I murmured. "She’s smart. She went to the only person who hates me as much as her father does."

​"The recovery will be quiet," Vance promised. "We’ll have her in the lab by midnight."

​I felt a sharp, sudden pang of regret, so intense it was a physical ache. I remembered her hand in mine on the bridge. I remembered the way she’d looked at me when she said she wasn't waiting for the legal department anymore. She had wanted a partner. I had given her a custodian.

​I looked at my phone. A dozen missed messages from her, all blocked by the system I had helped design. I had neutralized her. I had isolated her.

​"Liam?" Sarah asked. "You're bleeding."

​I looked down. My nails had dug into the palms of my hands so hard I’d broken the skin. I didn't feel it.

​"I need a moment," I said.

​I walked out of the boardroom and into my private office. The lights were out here, too, the city skyline a jagged graph of light beyond the glass. I sat at my desk and pulled up the secondary feed—the one the board didn't know I still had access to.

​I saw the broadcast start.

​I saw her face. She looked exhausted. She looked fierce. She looked like she was about to burn the world down just to stay warm.

​"My name is Isabella Vane," she said through the small speakers of my tablet. "And I am not an asset. I am the evidence."

​I felt the air leave my lungs. She wasn't running. She was counter-attacking.

​"In five minutes, I will upload the complete Medusa architecture..."

​"No," I whispered.

​I understood the math instantly. If she uploaded the architecture, she wouldn't just bankrupt Sterling Tech. She would trigger a national security protocols that would make her "recovery" impossible. The government wouldn't want her in a lab; they would want her erased. Total sanitization.

​She was committing corporate and personal suicide to win the argument.

​I stood up, my chair clattering against the floor. I had to stop her. Not to save the company—at this moment, I didn't care if Sterling Tech turned to ash—but to save her from the outcome of her own brilliance.

​I grabbed my coat and headed for the door, but a figure was standing in the shadows by the elevator.

​Eleanor.

​She had removed the veil. Her face was a landscape of elegant, terrifying age. She looked at me with a faint, chilling smile.

​"She’s quite spectacular, isn't she?" Eleanor said. Her voice was like silk over bone. "The way she uses the system against itself. She really is my best work."

​"Get out of my way, Eleanor," I said, my voice low and dangerous.

​"Where are you going, Liam? To Connecticut? You won't make it. The state police have the roads blocked for the 'recovery.' If you go now, you’re breaking the very law you just used to find her."

​"I don't care about the law," I said.

​"You should. Because Isabella doesn't realize what she’s holding. The Medusa architecture isn't just code. It’s a bridge. If she opens it to the public, she’s not just exposing the board. She’s exposing the source."

​Eleanor stepped closer, her eyes locked onto mine.

​"If she uploads that file, Liam, the kill-switch in her marrow will activate. It’s a containment protocol. She won't survive the upload."

​The world seemed to tilt. The regret I’d been feeling doubled, tripled, becoming a suffocating wave of panic. I looked at the tablet in my hand. The timer on her broadcast was at three minutes.

​"You knew," I said. "You let her go rogue so she would trigger her own destruction."

​"I let the variable play out," Eleanor said. "But you, Liam... you have a choice. You can stay here, be the 'disciplined' CEO, and watch her become a martyr. Or you can break every rule you’ve ever lived by and try to reach her before she hits 'send.'"

​She stepped aside, gesturing toward the elevator.

​"But remember," she added, her voice dropping to a whisper. "If you save her, you lose the company. You lose the legacy. You become the rogue asset."

​The elevator dinged.

​I looked at the timer.

​02:14.

​I didn't think about the board. I didn't think about the shares. I didn't think about the fourteen-day deadline. I thought about the ring I’d given her, the one she wasn't wearing anymore.

​I stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the garage.

​The cliffhanger wasn't my decision to leave. It was the message that flashed on my screen as the doors closed.

​INCOMING DATA: AETHELGARD SERVER BREACHED. SECONDARY TRIGGER DETECTED. SHE’S NOT UPLOADING THE CODE, LIAM. SHE’S DELETING HERSELF.

​The elevator dropped. I had two minutes to stop her from erasing the only thing that made her real.