The Woman Who Cracked The Code のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 1 - チャプター 10

POV: LyraThe velvet box in my purse felt heavy, a small weight that represented five years of building a kingdom from the dirt, and I walked past the security desk with a smile, barely noticing how the guards looked away or shifted their feet. I had just finished the final lines of code for the ‘Aegis’ update, the very software that was about to make this company the undisputed leader in the tech world, so I felt like I was walking on air. I didn't knock when I reached the top floor because this was as much my office as it was his, but the moment the heavy oak doors swung open, the air in the room felt thick and wrong.My best friend, Chloe, was draped over the mahogany desk, her fingers tangled in the hair of the man I was supposed to marry, and the celebration dinner I had planned suddenly felt like a sick joke. I stood there for a second, waiting for the apology or the frantic explanation, but Elias didn't even jump or look ashamed as he slowly pulled away from her and straightene

POV: LyraThe revolving glass doors spun with a heavy thud, and I stepped out onto the sidewalk just as Elias was handing his car keys to the valet, but he stopped mid-motion when his eyes landed on me. He stared at my designer suit and my sharp, expensive bob, and for a second, he actually stumbled over his own feet while his mistress, Chloe, clung to his arm like a trophy she was afraid to drop."Lyra? What are you doing here, and why are you dressed like you actually have somewhere important to be?" Elias asked, his voice dripping with the same condescension that used to make me shrink, but today it just made me want to laugh."I do have somewhere to be, Elias, because I have a ten o'clock meeting with the board of directors at Thorne Industries, and I believe you’re here because you’re hoping Xavier will renew your server lease before it expires at midnight," I said, checking my watch before looking up at Xavier, who was watching the exchange with a cold, unreadable expression."Y

POV: LyraMy fingers stayed frozen around the phone long after the line went dead. I couldn't breathe for a moment. I couldn’t hear anything inside the office anymore....not the soft hum of the air conditioner or the faint clicking of Xavier’s keyboard. I couldn't hear the voices drifting in from the hallway.Everything faded into a thick, suffocating silence.All I could hear was Elias’s voice telling me " You met your daughter today…"My stomach twisted so violently I thought I might throw up.My daughter.The small girl with wide dark eyes and soft curls who had stood in the doorway holding Isabella’s hand like she belonged there… like she had always belonged there.My lungs finally dragged in a breath, but it came out shaking in violent tremors. “Lyra?”Xavier’s voice sounded far away. It felt like he was calling me from the other side of a river I blinked hard and forced myself to turn toward him.He wasn’t working on his laptop anymore. He was just watching me. His eyes wer

POV: LyraThe SUV was deadbeat when it arrived."It was all I could get at such short notice, Lyra." Dre had told me on the phone. "The driver is my boy and can be trusted. Besides, you don't need anything fancy and attention grabbing on such a move, or do you?""Anything you say and do is fine by me. I just need to get out of here." I replied "The nursing home is in a secluded area of the city and it's perfect. I know a lot of people there and they owe me favours." He told me.I knew Dre knew the streets. Anything he recommended was perfect. The old SUV bounced through the road in the dark with the innocent looking young man at the driver's seat. He didn't look like someone who would be in business with Dre. But having been on the streets myself looking for survival, I knew looks could be deceptive. Every time the SUV hit a pothole, I felt my mother flinch against my shoulder. I pulled her a little closer, careful not to disturb the oxygen tubes and it's bottle, and kept my eyes mo

POV: Lyra The pause was brief but it spoke volume. "You ran from Elias. You ran to this building. You ran an operation without telling anyone who might have helped you because telling someone would mean trusting someone and trusting someone would mean staying still long enough to be trusted back.""That's a very tidy analysis," I said, "of a situation you know about three percent of."" The night after the contest..." he said loud and quickly like he had to say it before he would stop himself. I went completely still. "That's not relevant," I said."You left before I woke up," he said. "You left a note that said five words with no phone number. That was it. Five words and you were gone. I spent longer than I am comfortable admitting.... trying to understand what I had done wrong.""You didn't do anything wrong.""I know that now. At the time I did not." He looked at me steadily. "And then I saw the announcement of your engagement to Elias and found out you were working for him.