Ruined By Design Novels & Stories

Leave the design nothing but dead DNA. As the storm grumbled, testily, not liking this tangent at all, I thought about Kristin in her vast black gulf, alone and waiting. If I used the knife on Dianna and myself, where did that leave her? Lost forever? Were it all a fiction I was working on, I could imagine the design’s unraveling causing the void to expel her or to leave her behind as it was sucked back through the rift, but while it had the proportions of such, this was no fantasy. It was a highly sophisticated evolving organism to which I and my thoughts were less than microbes. Of course if that analogy was to be used, then microbes must be given their due as agents of often devastating d

"But then we'd take everything. Your designs. Your brand. Your legacy. Leave you with nothing but the memory of what you once had." "That's monstrous." "That's business. Shaw was the muscle. The aggressive investor who destroyed your confidence and your finances. I was the brains. The patient strategist who identified targets and planned the long game. Together, we built something beautiful. Terrible, yes. But beautiful in its efficiency." "You destroyed forty-two designers over forty years. Stole their work. Ruined their lives. For what? Money?"

Laughter echoing against concrete walls. We burned through prototypes. Melted metal. Shattered stones. Rebuilt designs from scratch. I pushed them. They pushed me back. Perfection became our enemy and our obsession. “Too safe,” Aria snapped, tossing a gemstone onto the table. “Too fragile,” Kai countered. “Too boring,” I said, ripping up a sketch. Theo slammed his laptop shut. “You want unforgettable? Then stop designing like you’re afraid of being seen.” Silence fell.

Limited collection available. The words blurred as rage clouded my vision. She was launching. Now. While my reputation was in ruins. While customers were desperate for quality alternatives. The timing was perfect. Too perfect. She'd planned this entire thing. Every step. The failed opening that I'd sabotaged. Her quiet retreat to perfect her designs. Joe's "escape" with continued access. The flawed specifications sent at exactly the right time. All of it orchestrated to lead to this moment. My destruction. Her triumph.

It had watched the Unmaking hold its calculation for three years, and it had watched the Unmaking arrive, at the end of the three years, at a conclusion. The conclusion was this. The Unmaking had decided to stop. Not because the design had defeated it. Not because it had been convinced that Balance was correct and its own philosophy wrong. Because it had watched, for three years, a distributed design growing in the hands of people who kept repairing what was altered and giving the correction to more people than had it before, and it had understood, with the patience of a thing that had been doing its own calculation for six centuries, that this specific design, in this specific form, with th

“He collapsed the system.” Ariana frowned. “How?” The Council woman stepped closer. “He followed logic without resistance.” That sounded wrong. Victor felt it instantly. “You mean without conscience.” The woman nodded once. “Yes.” Silence. Because now it made sense. Perfect balance without humanity becomes destruction. Ariana looked back at the image. “They tried to control everything.” “And lost everything,” Victor added. The Council member nodded. “That is why the second design changed.” Victor’s eyes narrowed. “Me.”

"Core is fried. Drives are physically damaged. The data's gone. All of it." Martin's legs gave out. He collapsed onto the floor, mumbling, "Gone… It's all gone…" The launch was an obvious failure. Not only was funding out of the picture, but the penalty clauses would also hit hard. The company was doomed. "Police! Over here!" A commotion erupted at the entrance. Martin suddenly snapped upright like he had been electrocuted. He pointed at me and shouted, "Officer, it's her! She sabotaged my company's servers and caused the business to collapse! Arrest her!"

"Oh, you're yelling at me? What exactly do you have that compares to Myra? All these years, she handled everything, and I just had to sign papers. I never had to lift a damn finger!" The two of them tore into each other without holding anything back. But no amount of screaming could fix the company's collapse. Soon after, Alan's company fell apart completely. To cover the financial losses, the court forced them out of the villa Alan and I once lived in together. It had to be auctioned off. And even with their lives falling to pieces, neither of them chose to actually work or rebuild. Instead, to maintain the lifestyle they were used to, they turned to gambling. It didn't take long for them t

he said, his voice a low, dangerous purr and was way to close for my liking. ​"It’s called resilience, Lucas. You should try it," I replied, sitting up and pulling my silk robe tighter around my chest. ​He didn't snap back. Instead, he leaned forward, resting his hands on the footboard. "I’ve spent the morning looking at a very interesting hole in my treasury. Ten million pounds, to be exact. It seems to have vanished right as it left your mother’s trust." ​I forced my expression to remain flat. "Computers fail, Lucas. Maybe you should have spent more on your IT team and less on the stupid retina scanners."

"You didn't know that Killian was the one who caused the complete financial crushing of your father's company? He orchestrated the entire collapse, just so he could swoop back in playing the savior, luring you into a desperate marriage while pretending to restore the very thing he ruined." 'I already know all of that, you obsessed freak..' Elara mentally scoffing.. Outwardly, however, she let her jaw drop. She forced all the blood to drain from her face, acting devastatingly betrayed. "What? He... he did that?" she gasped, her voice trembling perfectly. "Yes.." Cassius whispered, his eyes gleaming with twisted victory. "He was the architect of your ruin, Elara. So... do you still like him?"