Chapter 285

No.1

Elisa must have dozed off in the uncomfortable visitor's chair, her head resting on her arms next to her grandfather's bed. She was jolted awake by a nightmare, a fragmented memory of being a small child, left in a cold, dark room, the sound of rain lashing against the windowpane. She woke up with a gasp, her body slick with a cold sweat.

She looked around the ICU room. It was empty.August was gone.

The only sign he had ever been there was his tailored suit jacket, neatly folded over the back of the chair opposite her. The faint scent of cedarwood still hung in the air, a ghost of his presence.

She pressed her fingers to her throbbing temples.As she did, her thumb brushed against something sharp on her ring finger. She looked down.

It was the pink diamond ring from Thorne.

She hadn't even noticed it was still there. Sometime during the chaos of the fal, the flight, the hospital,the delicate platinum setting had been knocked askew. A tiny, almost invisible scratch marred the

surface of the massive stone, catching the light in a fractured, imperfect way. A symbol of a flawed,damaged alliance. The sight of it filled her with a sudden, inexplicable irritation.

The door to the room opened, and a cheerful-looking resident came in, holding a chart.

No.2

"Good morning, Ms. Wilder," he said with a warm smile. "Just came to check on Mr. Wilder. His vitals are excellent. He's responding well."

He made a few notes on the chart. "And just so you know, you don't need to worry about any of the financials. Everything has been taken care of."

Elisa frowned. "Taken care of? By whom?"

The doctor flipped a page on his clipboard. "A Mr.Chambers handled it all last night. A very generous donation to the hospital's research fund as well. He listed himself on the official paperwork as 'grandson-in-law'!"

The words hit her with the force of a physical blow.Grandson-in-law. It wasn't an act of kindness. It was an act of possession. A public declaration,written into the hospital's permanent record,that she, and by extension her family, still belonged to him. It was a move to maintain the pristine public image of the Chambers family. She felt a wave of

nausea. She had to sever this tie. Completely.

She reached for her clutch, looking for her phone to call Alastair, to start the process of untangling this mess. But the bag was empty. She must have dropped her phone somewhere. The feeling of being disconnected from her own team, from her own resources, sent a fresh spike of anxiety through her.

Just then, a sharp, familiar pain seized her lower abdomen. It was a vicious, twisting cramp that made her gasp and double over. Her period. The stress, the exhaustion, the trauma-it had thrown her body into chaos, bringing it on a week early and with a vengeance.

No.3

Her face went pale. She gritted her teeth against the pain, forcing herself to stand up straight. She couldn't fall apart here.

She stumbled to the nurses' station,the pain a hot knife in her gut. She borrowed a phone, her fingers fumbling with the keypad as she dialed Alastair.

"Faye? Thank God! What's happening?" his voice was a frantic buzz on the other end. "We've got a breach. A big one. It's coming from inside Apex's network, but the signature is sophisticated.They're trying to brute-force the main firewall to Project Chiron.I need you here. Now."

"I'm on my way," she bit out, hanging up the phone.

She hailed a cab in the cold, morning air, the autumn wind cutting through her thin clothes.The ride to Aethel's downtown headquarters was an agonizing blur of traffic and escalating pain.

She burst out of the elevator on the executive floor to find chaos. Alastair was pacing the hallway,shouting into his phone, his face red with fury.

"Lock it down! I don't care what you have to do,lock down the whole damn server farm!"

He saw her and hung up. "They're good," he said,his voice grim. "This isn't just Allena's work. They have someone who knows our architecture."

No.4

Elisa didn't waste a second. She grabbed a tablet from a passing engineer and her fingers flew across the screen, lines of code scrolling past. The pain in her abdomen was a constant, grinding distraction, but she pushed it down,compartmentalizing it. The company's survival came first.

She was deep in the system's backend, tracing the source of the attack, when a sound made her look up.

A soft,condescending laugh.

Allena stood at the end of the hallway. She was dressed in a sharp, ridiculously expensive power suit, her hair and makeup flawless. She looked like she had just stepped out of a mnagazine shoot.Behind her stood two large, imposing men in dark suits.

"Well, well," Allena said, her voice dripping with mock sympathy as she sauntered toward them."Having some technical difficulties, Faye? How tragic."

Elisa's eyes went cold. "This is a secure floor,Allena. You're trespassing. Get out before I call security."

Allena let out another tinkling laugh. "Oh, I don't think so. I'm here on official business." She produced a crisp corporate badge, pinning it to her lapel with a smirk. "As the newly appointed Head of Advanced Research for Apex Therapeutics, I'm here to discuss the terms of our acquisition of your failing little company."

Elisa stared at her, genuinely taken aback by the sheer absurdity. "Head of Research? You're an industry pariah, Allena. The FDA permanently blacklisted you from participating in any clinical lab in the country. Apex's board would never approve a disgraced academic fraud."

No.5

Allena's smile widened into something feral and desperately triumphant. "Oh, Faye, you're so terribly naive about how the corporate world works.The FDA ban only applies to domestic clinical execution and laboratory trials. It says absolutely nothing about overseeing unregulated, offshore data analytics. When I called Apex's CEO last week,their stock was in a nosedive. I offered them the foundational algorithms for Project Chiron-data l secured before my... unfortunate departure. To a board facing bankruptcy, a 'PR hiccup' like mine is easily overlooked when I hand them a billion-dollar cure on a silver platter. They bypassed the regulatory red tape by putting me in charge of a newly formed data advisory branch. And I have their full financial backing to dismantle you."

She stepped closer, looking Elisa up and down with disgust. "And you should really learn to show some respect. After all, you're the one who tried to steal my fiancé."

The sheer, unmitigated gall of the accusation, the inverted reality of it, was so absurd it almost made Elisa laugh.

"I don't steal," Elisa said, her voice dangerously quiet. "I take out the trash."

Just then, another wave of pain, sharper and more

intense than the last, ripped through her. She couldn't stop the involuntary gasp that escaped her lips. She instinctively pressed a hand to her stomach, her body curling in on itself. Sweat beaded on her forehead.

Allena saw the flash of weakness. Her eyes lit up with malicious glee. She thought her words had landed a blow.

"See? You know it's true," she gloated.

No.6

Elisa ignored her, her focus entirely on fighting the pain and the digital intrusion. She looked around for the tablet's stylus, which she'd dropped. It had rolled under a desk. Frustrated, she gave up,trying to use her trembling fingers on the screen.

Allena, seeing her opportunity, decided to press her advantage. "I'm tired of waiting. I want to see my new lab." She gestured to her bodyguards."Clear a path."

The two men moved forward, their intentions clear.They were going to physically force their way into the server room.

"You can't do that!" Alastair shouted, stepping in front of Elisa, shielding her. "This is illegal!"

Allena just smiled. "Try and stop me."

Elisa looked at the two large men advancing, at Allena's triumphant face, and felt the last of her patience snap. The pain, the humiliation, the violation-it all coalesced into a single point of cold,clear rage.

She reached out a trembling hand and slammed the palm of her hand against the red, square button on the wall.

The highest-level security alarm.

No.7

An earsplitting siren began to shriek, and red lights flashed, bathing the entire floor in a pulsating,crimson glow. The sound was deafening, a physical assault on the senses.

Allena flinched back, her hands flying to her ears.Her perfect, smug composure was gone, replaced by a look of shock and fury.

Elisa stood her ground, the red light flashing across her pale, determined face. She had just declared war.