Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 161 - Chapitre 170

THEO’S POVThe screens glow blue in front of me, numbers and graphs shifting faster than my eyes can follow. I don’t even bother trying to keep up. The system whispers the results in real time anyway, clean, efficient, almost smug. The Loop prototype is alive, and the city doesn’t even know it’s being watched, steered, corrected. Traffic flows like water. Emergency crews are cutting response times in half. Cameras tilt, sensors hum, cars move where they’re told to move, like a choreographed dance.The test city is breathing with Ashen’s Loop in its veins, and no one even realizes it yet. That’s the beauty. Invisible control.“Status?” I mutter, though the AI already pushed the report.“Stable,” the soft voice answers. “Zero glitches. Efficiency up twenty-two percent. Emergency backlog cleared in eight minutes.”I lean back, grin stretching without me even realizing. This is it. This is the bullet.My phone vibrates. Investors. Five messages stacked on each other, all with the same hun

KAIA (ALINA) POV I’m not sure what hour it is when Margot’s message lights up my phone, but the glow cuts sharp through the darkened office. My fingers hover before I open it, because I already know what it’s going to say. The cracks are spreading faster than anyone thought.Three lines. That’s all.Margot:Third class-action filed against Cross Industries. SEC involved. Elena under federal review. Nathaniel’s fixers have gone silent, distancing themselves. Board approved unanimous rollout.I read it twice, then once more, because somehow my brain doesn’t believe it. The words feel heavier than they should, like lead pressing against my chest. This is it. This is what I’ve been pushing toward, planning, bleeding for. The beginning of the end.But my body doesn’t move. My hands don’t fist the air, don’t throw the phone across the room in triumph. My throat doesn’t scream. My legs don’t dance on the ruin of their empire. I just sit.My chair’s turned toward the window wall, glass from

DAMIEN POVThe glow of the monitors is the only thing keeping me awake, but I don’t even need the light. Sleep isn’t an option. Not tonight. Not with the Cross family coming apart in public like a slow-motion car wreck, and me sitting here waiting for the other shoe to drop.The headlines update every five minutes. Bribery trails. Wire transfers. Elena Cross under federal investigation. Nathaniel Cross faces shareholder revolt.Their empire is bleeding out, and every reporter in the city has their teeth sunk into it. Screens flicker with their faces. Elena’s smile, frozen mid-lie on some campaign stage. Nathaniel striding out of a courthouse, cameras blinding him. Sasha trailing behind him, sunglasses on, trying to pretend she isn’t part of it.It should feel like victory.It doesn’t.I lean forward, elbows digging into the desk, eyes burning from staring at code too long. Something’s wrong. Too many gaps, too much silence in the places that shouldn’t be silent. People who normally sw

ELENA'S POV I can’t breathe.That’s the first thought in my head when I see my face plastered across the news feed again. Not the elegant, sharp-jawed image I used to carefully cultivate, not the polished politician, the mother of influence and untouchable wealth—no. They’re showing my mugshot from thirty years ago. My first arrest. God, the grainy black-and-white photo, the wild hair, the defiance in my eyes. They’ve dug up everything. They’re tearing me open piece by piece.I used to love seeing my name in headlines.It meant power. It meant attention. It meant I still mattered more than anyone else in this rotten city.But tonight, I can’t even look at the screen without wanting to throw something at it.“Elena Cross under federal investigation—”“Cross matriarch linked to decades of corruption—”“Whistleblower names Elena Cross in bribery scheme—”The anchors speak with that rehearsed tone of fake shock, but I see the delight in their eyes. They have been waiting years to tear m

KAIA (ALINA) POV The boardroom is humming like a live wire. Every wall screen flickers with updates, contracts finalized, governments signing on, markets going insane, data spilling across them, graphs rising, contracts signed in real time, ticker values flipping so fast my eyes can’t keep up. Ashen is no longer chasing Cross. We have overtaken them. Outvalued. Outpaced. Outplayed. Nations are calling, cities are locking in, journalists are scrambling like ants under floodlight.Our numbers climb so fast I can’t track them while Cross Industries is in freefall, bleeding out in real time. It should feel like victory. It should taste sweet. But all I feel is the press of heat in the room, the kind that says something’s about to go wrong.I stand at the head of the table, arms folded, pulse drumming too loud in my ears. My people are here, scattered across chairs, glued to their screens, typing like their lives depend on it. The rollout is flawless. Ashen has officially overtaken Cross