Chapter 68

POV: Isabella

The safe house was a cramped, two-bedroom apartment in Queens that smelled of stale coffee and industrial cleaner. It was a world away from the marble floors of the Vane estate or the glass-walled precision of Sterling Tower. There was no concierge, no security detail, and no cooling system humming in the walls. There was only the sound of the elevated train rattling the windowpanes every ten minutes and the low, frantic tapping of Marcus’s fingers on a laptop in the kitchen.

Liam sat on a moth-eaten sofa, his head tilted back against the wall. He looked thinner than he had twelve hours ago. The expensive silk of his shirt was wrinkled and stained with the salt of the city’s rain. He was a man who had just lost everything—his title, his fortune, and his name—and yet, he sat there with a strange, hollow peace on his face.

"You should sleep," I said, sitting on the edge of a crate that served as a coffee table.

"I've forgotten how," he replied, his eyes remaining closed. "The silence is too loud, Isabella. I keep waiting for the internal comms to ping. I keep waiting for a board member to call and tell me the world is ending. It’s hard to adjust to being a ghost."

"You aren't a ghost to me," I said.

I looked at the folder Marcus had tossed onto the crate earlier. It was a physical file, recovered from Julian Vane’s private vault during the chaos of the courtroom evacuation. Liam hadn't opened it yet. He had stared at the cover for an hour before setting it aside, as if he knew the contents were radioactive.

"What’s in here, Liam?" I asked, my hand hovering over the manila cover. "You said you found the truth in the archives. You said this was the only thing that could set me free."

Liam finally opened his eyes. There was a flicker of something old and painful in his gaze—a look of profound hesitation. "Some truths are like the Medusa core, Isabella. Once you see them, they change your biology. You can't go back to who you were before you knew."

"I’m already changed," I said, flipping the cover open. "I'm a girl with a dead machine in her chest and a mother who tried to purge her soul. I think I can handle a few more pages of paper."

I began to read. At first, it was standard trust law—amendments to the Sterling-Vane partnership, clauses regarding intellectual property and the distribution of dividends. But as I reached the middle of the stack, the language shifted. It became personal. It was a letter of intent, dated six months before my surgery in 2018.

My eyes skipped down the page, searching for Liam’s name. I expected to see the confirmation of his authority, the proof that he had been the one to steer the project.

Instead, I found a signature that made my blood turn to ice.

"This can't be right," I whispered.

"Isabella—" Liam started, reaching out to take the file, but I pulled it away.

"The primary beneficiary," I read aloud, my voice trembling. "In the event of Julian Vane’s death, the control of the Medusa patents and the governing authority over the Sterling family block does not pass to the son. It passes to the spouse of the partner."

I looked up at him, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. "Eleanor. She wasn't just the partner. She was the sole owner of the Sterling legacy. Your father didn't leave the company to you, Liam. He left it to her."

Liam didn't look surprised. He just looked tired. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together. "My father didn't trust me, Isabella. He thought I was too much like my mother—too soft, too prone to sentiment. He thought that if he gave me the power, I’d dismantle the project before it could be finished. He wanted a 'protector' who understood the value of the asset. He chose Eleanor because he knew she would never let a human life stand in the way of a breakthrough."

"You knew," I said, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. "All those months when I was screaming at you, blaming you for being a king in your own right... you knew you had no power. You were working for her. You’ve been her employee this entire time."

"I was a figurehead," Liam said, his voice flat. "She let me keep the title because it kept the markets stable. It looked better for the 'prince' to be in the tower than the 'widow.' But every decision I made, every bypass I attempted, had to be routed through her server. Why do you think I couldn't stop the surgery in 2018? I wasn't the one who signed the order, Isabella. I was the one who was ordered to stay in London so I couldn't interfere."

"Then why didn't you tell me?" I shouted, standing up. The chair scraped against the linoleum floor with a jarring shriek. "Why did you let me hate you? Why did you let me believe you were the architect of my nightmare?"

"Because if you knew she owned me, you would have fought her directly," Liam said, finally standing to face me. "And if you had fought her while you were still connected to the core, she would have killed you. I had to be the lightning rod, Isabella. I had to let you focus your anger on me so you wouldn't see her behind the curtain. As long as you thought I was the enemy, you were safe from her. She doesn't kill people she thinks she’s already won over."

"You let me think my husband was a monster to protect me from my mother?"

"I let you think I was a monster because a monster is easier to survive than a betrayal," Liam said. He stepped closer, his presence warm and overwhelming in the small room. "If I had told you the truth, you would have looked at me with pity. And pity wouldn't have kept you alive in that clinic. You needed the fire. You needed the rage."

I looked at the file again. I saw the dates. I saw the signatures. Every time Liam had "denied" me a request, every time he had "controlled" my movements, he had been navigating a minefield Eleanor had laid. He hadn't been a king; he had been a hostage who was pretending to be a guard.

"And the shares?" I asked. "The ones you signed over today in the courtroom? If she already owned the trust, what did you actually give her?"

Liam’s expression shifted. A touch of the old, dangerous wit returned to his eyes. "I gave her the legal liability. My father’s trust was a shell, Isabella. It held the title, yes, but it also held the indemnity for the 2018 bypass. By signing those papers, I didn't give her wealth. I gave her the criminal record. As of noon today, Eleanor Vane is the only person legally responsible for the human rights violations of the Medusa project."

"You trapped her," I whispered.

"I finished the job my father started," Liam said. "He built a bomb and told her it was a throne. She was so hungry for the power that she didn't bother to check the fuse."

The sound of the train rattled the windows again, but this time, it felt like a countdown. I looked at the man in front of me—the man who had sacrificed his reputation, his family’s memory, and his entire future to build a cage for a woman I called mother.

"You’re a terrible liar, Liam Sterling," I said, my voice catching in my throat.

"I’m the best liar you’ve ever met," he corrected, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I convinced you I didn't love you for three years. That’s a world record."

"I hate you," I said, even as I stepped into his space, my hands finding the lapels of his ruined suit.

"I know," he said.

"I really, really hate you."

He didn't answer with words. He reached out, his hands framing my face, his thumbs brushing away the tears I didn't realize were falling. He didn't kiss me. He just held me, his forehead resting against mine, our breaths mingling in the quiet of the safe house.

For the first time since the bridge, the silence wasn't thick or charged. It was just... empty. And in that emptiness, there was space for something new.

The cliffhanger hit when Marcus suddenly slammed his laptop shut in the kitchen.

"We have to move," Marcus said, his voice urgent. "Now."

"What is it?" Liam asked, pulling back but keeping his hand on my arm.

"The margin call didn't just hit Eleanor," Marcus said, pointing to the screen. "She’s not going down quietly. She’s just filed a 'lost asset' report with the private security firm. She’s claiming Isabella was kidnapped by an 'unstable former employee.' They’ve got a drone ping on the building’s Wi-Fi."

I looked at the window. A small, red light was hovering outside the glass, silent and unblinking.

"She’s not trying to arrest us," I said, the chill returning to my bones. "She’s trying to erase the evidence before the DOJ arrives."

Liam grabbed the file from the crate and shoved it into his jacket. "The back stairs. Marcus, get the car. Isabella, stay behind me."

As we ran for the door, I realized that the "truth" hadn't set us free. it had just made us the most dangerous people in the city. And Eleanor Vane was a woman who didn't believe in leaving survivors.