All Chapters of The Last Anniversary : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The phone on my desk continued to vibrate violently against the polished wood, its rhythmic buzzing sounding like a ticking bomb in the absolute silence of the room.The screen illuminated the dark walls of my office, casting a bright, regular flash over the final page of the federal forensic report.“The child Vanessa Reed is carrying was structurally engineered from the exact genetic material stolen from my body six years ago.”I stared at the text, my face entirely bloodless, my heart freezing into a block of pure, unyielding stone.The agonizing grief that had haunted my soul for three long years was gone, replaced by a cold, dangerous fury that completely filled my veins.They hadn't just stolen my youth. They hadn't just used my name to launder corporate capital.They had reached inside my unconscious body while I was helpless under general anesthesia, treated my motherhood as a biological asset to be harvested, and stored my future inside a laboratory

The opening bell of the stock exchange rang at exactly 9:00 a.m., but inside the primary boardroom of Carter Enterprises, it sounded like a funeral toll.The panoramic monitor wall was entirely lit with flashing red figures and warning indicators, tracking the instantaneous collapse of the company’s market value.CARTER ENTERPRISES (CRET): DOWN 7.2% — OPENING TRADES. TRADING HALTED TEMPORARILY PENDING REGULATORY UPDATES.Ethan stood motionless at the head of the long conference table, his knuckles pressed so hard against the mahogany wood that his hands trembled from the strain.His corporate tie was undone, his expensive suit jacket hanging loosely over the back of his chair, and the dark shadow of stubble on his jaw betrayed a man who hadn't closed his eyes in forty-eight hours.The heavy glass double doors of the boardroom violently swung open, and Marcus Sterling rushed inside the room, followed closely by three senior members of the corporate legal team.Marcus's face was complet

4:03 p.m.The numbers on my desktop interface glowed a steady, unyielding green.But the blood inside my veins had turned completely to ice.The 4:00 p.m. media release was officially live across major high-society blogs, financial terminals, and corporate news networks.But as the live feeds violently updated on my screen, I didn't see the simple, line-by-line financial autopsy of Ethan’s company that I had meticulously compiled.I sat perfectly frozen in my leather chair.My hands gripped the edges of the desk so tightly my knuckles turned white.A massive, secondary data packet had unsealed itself within the file.It carried a security encryption format I had never seen before.And the most terrifying part wasn't that it exposed a global wealth transfer involving Vanguard Media’s own parent conglomerate.It was that the packet contained raw data, internal files, and medical metadata that I had never uploaded.Someone had bypassed my pri

The elevator carriage dropped in complete silence, the sudden descent doing little to calm the frantic, erratic pounding of my heart.I clutched my leather briefcase tightly against my side as the thirtieth-floor office grid vanished behind the metallic doors.The weight of Ethan's words still vibrated through my bones, stripping away the cold, corporate reality of Vanguard Media and replacing it with a far deeper, more intimate terror.“I finally know why they chose you six years ago.”The doors slid open with a soft, mechanical chime, revealing the sprawling, marble-tiled ground floor lobby.The wide space was cast in long, dim shadows as the evening workforce prepared to depart, but the stillness was shattered the moment I took my first step forward.Mr. Bennett was standing near the central security turnstiles, his broad shoulders tensing under his dark tailored overcoat.He didn't move to block my path physically, but his sharp, calculating eyes lock

I turned the silver medal over in my hand, its cold weight pressing into my palm.The small desk lamp cast a stark shadow across the worn metal surface.Lily leaned closer, her eyes fixed on the tiny, raised contact point embedded in the rim.“If this is the physical key, Claire, how do we actually interface it with a modern terminal?” she asked quietly.I didn't answer right away.I carefully pressed the silver medal flat against the tablet’s integrated hardware scanner.The system hummed softly, a faint blue light tracking the circular edges of the metal.For three long seconds, the terminal went entirely silent.Then, the monitor flashed with a new, clinical notification.AUTHENTICATION OBJECT DETECTED.SECONDARY INTERFACE REQUIRED.I stared at the screen, my breathing shallow as my mind immediately began deconstructing the parameters.“A secondary interface,” I murmured, my voice dropping into a level whisper.“The contact point isn't built for a normal USB cable or a modern compu