Semua Bab The CEO's Undercover Heiress : Bab 71 - Bab 80

POV: IsabellaThe silence that followed my announcement wasn’t quiet. It was the sound of an empire’s heart stopping. The server room, usually filled with the comforting, mechanical hum of progress, felt like a tomb where the oxygen had just run out.Eleanor stood frozen, the violet glow of the override terminal still reflecting in her eyes, though the light was dimming as the system realized it had lost its grip. She looked at the laptop on my lap, then at me, then at the heavy, iron door. For the first time in my life, I didn't see a queen or a monster. I saw a woman who had just realized she was standing in a house of cards during a gale."You sent it?" she whispered. The word was thin, fragile. "To the employees?""One hundred thousand people, Mother," I said, my voice steady despite the lingering vibration in my chest. "The people you stole from. The people whose futures were used to buy your gowns and your marble foyers. They don't need a judge to tell them what you are. They ha

​POV: Isabella​The mailbox sat on the corner of the quiet Brooklyn street like a blunt, blue anchor. I watched it through the cafe window, my fingers tracing the rim of the paper coffee cup. Across from me, Liam—or "Lee," as the air between us was trying to learn—wasn't looking at the box. He was looking at his hands, the gauze over his palms looking stark against the cheap Formica table.​"He wouldn't have come here if it wasn't urgent," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "Marcus doesn't do house calls for social reasons."​"Marcus doesn't exist anymore," Liam replied, his eyes finally shifting to the street. "If he’s still moving, it means the board didn't just collapse. It means the secondary players are scavenging the remains. He’s not working for the Sterling name. He’s working for the contract."​"And who holds the contract now?"​Liam didn't answer. He stood up, his movement lacking the usual effortless grace of a man who owned the air he breathed. He looked stiff, pained, and

POV: IsabellaThe world was no longer made of data. It was made of cold air, the sharp scent of ozone, and the terrifying, heavy weight of my own limbs. The "Hum"—that constant, electric companion that had lived in the marrow of my bones for years—was gone. In its place was a silence so absolute it felt like a physical pressure against my eardrums.But the silence was a lie."The Share, Liam," my mother’s voice cut through the dark, sharp as a glass shard. "The gold foil. Place it on the table and step back, or I’ll find out exactly how much a human heart can take before it simply quits."I blinked, my vision slowly adjusting to the beam of the flashlight. The barrel of the gun was a dark, hollow eye inches from my face. My mother stood behind it, her lab coat stark and white, her face as motionless as the steel cabinets surrounding us. She wasn't a doctor anymore. She wasn't a CEO. She was a woman who had lost her godhood and was trying to buy it back with a bullet.Liam didn't move.

POV: IsabellaThe port of Reykjavik didn't look like a sanctuary. It looked like the end of the world. Sharp, volcanic rock met a sea the color of bruised slate, and the air carried a chill that didn't just bite—it felt like it was trying to hollow you out from the inside.Liam held my hand as we stepped off the freighter's gangway. The dock was empty, save for a single, silver car idling near a stack of rusted shipping containers. There were no customs officials. No police. Just the low, haunting moan of the wind through the harbor cables."The manifest said they were expecting us," Liam said, his voice tight. He hadn't let go of the tablet. "But 'Reykjavik Control' isn't a person. It’s an automated relay.""My father’s voice, Liam," I whispered. "I know it. I lived with it in my head for years. That wasn't a recording. The inflection... it responded to the ship’s call sign.""We’ll find out," he said.We walked toward the car. The door opened automatically. There was no driver. The

POV: IsabellaThe Virginia air was thick, heavy with the scent of damp earth and pine—a suffocating blanket compared to the sharp, clean ice of Iceland. We weren't flying private. We weren't even flying as the Rossis. We had crossed the border in the back of a refrigerated truck, buried under crates of produce, two ghosts returning to a haunt we had never actually lived in.Liam stood beside me in the tall grass of the valley, his eyes fixed on the structure ahead. It wasn't a tower. It wasn't a glass fortress. It was an old, converted farmhouse, surrounded by a high electric fence and a sea of black-eyed Susans. To a passerby, it looked like a rural retreat. To me, it felt like the source of a wound."This is where it started," I said. My voice was low, steady. "The 2014 trials. Before the Sterling money made it shiny.""Marcus was right," Liam said. He was holding a handheld thermal scanner Arthur had given us. The screen showed a massive heat signature deep beneath the floorboards