Chapter 67

​POV: Liam

​The air in the courtroom didn't just feel cold; it felt thin, as if the oxygen was being sucked out of the room by the sheer weight of the betrayal unfolding. I watched Sarah Jenkins’s thumb hover over the tablet, the red icon glowing like a drop of digital blood.

​"Don't do it, Sarah!" I roared, my voice cracking as I lunged toward the medical table.

​The security guards intercepted me, their hands like iron clamps on my shoulders, shoving me back against the wood-paneled wall. I didn't care about the bruises or the loss of dignity. My eyes were locked on Isabella. She had collapsed against the petitioner’s table, her hands clutching her chest, her face contorted in a silent, agonizing scream. The shunt was no longer a hum; it was a visible vibration under her skin, a frantic light pulsing through the white fabric of her dress.

​"Sarah, look at her!" I pleaded, struggling against the guards. "You’re a doctor! You swore an oath! If you trigger that purge, you aren't protecting a patent—you’re committing murder on a live feed!"

​Sarah’s hand trembled. She looked at the tablet, then at Isabella, then at Eleanor. Eleanor stood perfectly still, her face a mask of aristocratic ice. To her, this wasn't a girl; it was a ledger that needed to be balanced.

​"The protocol is for asset security, Liam," Eleanor said, her voice a terrifying, quiet monotone. "If the integrity of the Vane-Sterling cloud is compromised by this... legal theater... the system must be purged. It’s what Julian would have wanted."

​"Julian would have wanted his daughter to breathe!" I shouted.

​"Your Honor!" my lawyer screamed over the din. "The doctor is attempting to execute the subject in your courtroom!"

​Judge Vance slammed his gavel with a force that sounded like a gunshot. "Bailiff! Secure that device! Now!"

​The bailiff moved with a speed that defied his age, wrenching the tablet from Sarah’s hands just as her thumb descended. Sarah didn't fight him. She slumped back into her chair, her face buried in her hands.

​But the damage was already initiated. The "Emergency Purge" warning didn't disappear. It turned yellow. Pending handshake. Internal battery active.

​I broke free from the guards, stumbling toward Isabella. I gathered her into my arms, her body feeling unnaturally hot, a furnace of static and bone. She was gasping for air, her eyes rolling back in her head.

​"Liam," she whispered, the word barely a breath. "Make it... make it stop. It’s too loud."

​"I’ve got you," I said, pressing my forehead against hers. "I’m right here. I’m not letting go."

​I looked up at the judge. "The internal battery has a five-minute cycle before it executes the purge. We need the physical bypass codes. They aren't in the cloud. They’re in the physical shares."

​"The shares?" Vance asked, leaning over the bench.

​"The Sterling private shares," I said, the words tasting like ash. "My father built a physical kill-switch into the certificates. A literal hardware key embedded in the paper of the majority block. It’s the only way to hard-reset the shunt without a cloud connection."

​"Then use it!" Vance shouted.

​"I can't," I said, my voice dropping. I looked at Eleanor. She was smiling now. She knew. "To activate the hardware key, the shares have to be signed over to the Vane Trust. It’s a 'loyalty' trigger. My father was a paranoid man, Your Honor. He wanted to ensure that if a Sterling ever tried to shut down a Vane project, they had to surrender their entire fortune to do it."

​The courtroom went silent. The reporters, the lawyers, the bailiffs—everyone stopped. They all knew what I was saying. To save Isabella’s life, I had to sign away the Sterling empire. Every share, every cent, every bit of the legacy I had spent my life protecting. I would be a man with nothing but the clothes on my back.

​"Liam, no," Isabella gasped, her hand finding my tie, her fingers clutching the silk. "Don't... don't give her... the win."

​"The money doesn't breathe, Isabella," I whispered, stroking her hair. "You do."

​I looked at my lawyer. "Do you have the transfer documents? The ones the board prepared for the 'Settlement'?"

​"I do, Liam, but you can't be serious. If you sign those, you lose your majority leverage. You won't just be stripped of the chairmanship; you’ll be stripped of your identity. You’ll be a pauper by noon."

​"Sign them," I said.

​The lawyer placed the documents on the table beside us. The ink seemed to shimmer under the courtroom lights. I didn't hesitate. I picked up the pen, my hand steady even as my heart felt like it was being ripped out of my chest.

​I signed the first page. Sterling Block A. Transferred.

I signed the second page. Sterling Block B. Transferred.

​With every stroke of the pen, I felt the tower in Midtown falling. I felt the private jets, the Hamptons estate, the offshore accounts—all of it—dissolving into Eleanor’s grasp. I was selling my soul to buy her heart.

​"Here," I said, shoving the papers toward Eleanor’s lawyer. "Now give me the hardware key."

​The lawyer looked at Eleanor. She nodded once, a slow, regal tilt of her head. She had won. She had taken everything I owned.

​The lawyer reached into a secure briefcase and pulled out a single, ancient-looking share certificate. It was made of thick, vellum-like paper with a gold-foil seal. In the center of the seal was a small, recessed button—a piece of 1990s tech that looked like a relic but held the power of life and death.

​I snatched it from his hand. I pressed the certificate against the back of Isabella’s neck, right where the base of the shunt met the spinal column.

​"Hold on, Isabella," I whispered. "This is going to hurt."

​I pressed the gold seal.

​There was a sharp, electronic crack, like a spark gap jumping. Isabella’s body arched in my arms, a stifled cry escaping her lips. For a second, her eyes went wide, and then, the light beneath her skin—the frantic, red pulse of the purge—flickered and died.

​The heat began to dissipate immediately. Her breathing slowed. The rigidity in her limbs melted away, and she slumped against me, her head resting in the hollow of my shoulder.

​The courtroom was silent. No one cheered. The weight of what had just happened was too heavy for celebration.

​"Is it done?" Judge Vance asked, his voice barely a whisper.

​"The shunt is offline," I said, my voice sounding hollow. "It’s a hard-reset. She’s... she’s just Isabella now."

​I looked down at her. She was alive. She was breathing. But she was looking at the papers on the table—the documents that had just made me a ghost.

​"You gave it all away," she whispered, a tear tracing a path through the dust and sweat on her cheek. "Liam... why?"

​"Because the empire was a cage," I said, trying to smile through the exhaustion. "I just decided to open the door."

​I stood up, lifting her in my arms. I didn't look at the board. I didn't look at Halloway or Miller. I didn't even look at Eleanor, though I could feel her eyes on me, savoring the victory of my financial ruin.

​I walked toward the doors of the courtroom. The reporters surged forward, their cameras flashing, their questions a wall of noise.

​"Mr. Sterling! Are you officially bankrupt?"

"Is the Vane-Sterling merger finalized now?"

"Isabella, how do you feel about the transfer?"

​I didn't answer them. I just kept walking. I reached the elevators, but my security badge—the gold-plated one that gave me access to every floor in the city—didn't work. The red light flashed on the reader. Access Denied.

​I was already being deleted.

​"Liam," Isabella said, her voice gaining strength. "Put me down. I can walk."

​"I've got you," I said.

​"No," she said, her feet hitting the floor. She stood tall, her white dress stained but her eyes burning with a new, fierce light. She looked at the elevator, then at the stairs. "We don't need their lift. We’ll take the stairs."

​We walked down the six flights of stone steps, the sound of our footsteps echoing in the stairwell. By the time we reached the lobby, my phone had already been remotely wiped. The screen was a blank, white slate.

​We stepped out into the rain. There was no car waiting for us. No driver. No security detail. We were two people standing on a sidewalk in Manhattan, soaked to the bone and completely, utterly alone.

​"What now?" I asked, looking at the street.

​Isabella looked at me. She reached out, her hand sliding into mine. Her skin was cool. Her touch was human. No sparks. No data. Just her.

​"Now," she said, looking back at the courthouse where her mother was currently counting her new billions. "We go to the one place she can't buy."

​"Where’s that?"

​"The truth," she said.

​The major cliffhanger hit as a black sedan pulled up to the curb. It wasn't a Sterling car. It wasn't a Vane car. The door opened to reveal Marcus. He didn't look like a bodyguard anymore; he looked like a conspirator.

​"The shares you signed over?" Marcus asked, looking at me. "They were the ones tied to the offshore debt, wasn't it?"

​I looked at Isabella, a small, dangerous smile finally touching my lips. "I gave Eleanor the majority block. I just forgot to mention that the majority block comes with a twenty-billion-dollar margin call that’s due at midnight."

​Isabella’s eyes widened. "Liam... you didn't."

​"I told you," I said, stepping into the car. "I’m not a king anymore. I’m just the man who knows where the bodies are buried."

​As we pulled away, I looked back at the courthouse. The reporters were still there, but they weren't looking at us anymore. They were looking at their phones. The stock market was beginning to realize that Eleanor Vane hadn't just inherited an empire.

​She had inherited a bomb.