Chapter 220
No.1
Three days later. 8:00 PM.
The massive, high-definition LED screen in the main lobby of Aethel Intelligence Headquarters dominated the entire wall.
Elisa, Jewel, and Alastair stood side-by-side in the center of the empty lobby. They each held a crystal flute of expensive champagne.
On the screen, the regular programming of the three major national news networks simultaneously cut to black. A pre-recorded video began to play.
Allena's face filled the massive screen.
She looked entirely stripped of her usual glamour.She wore a plain, high-necked gray sweater. Her hair was pulled back severely. Her face was pale,and her eyes darted nervously, reading from a teleprompter located just off-camera.
"I am speaking to you tonight to issue a formal apology," Allena's voice trembled through the lobby speakers.
Elisa took a slow sip of her champagne. Her eyes
No.2
were sharp, analyzing every micro-expression on Allena's face.
Allena began to read the statement crafted by August's million-dollar crisis PR team. It was a masterpiece of linguistic manipulation.
"During the recent medical emergency involving my brother," Allena read, her voice cracking perfectly on cue, "I was suffering from severe, undiagnosed clinical exhaustion. The extreme stress caused a psychological break. In a moment of panic and confusion, I mishandled the medical equipment."
Jewel scoffed loudly, gripping her champagne glass tight. "Psychological break? She's spinning attempted murder into a tragic mental health crisis."
On the screen, Allena lowered her head, forcing a single tear to roll down her cheek.
"I also confess that the pressure to succeed in the medical field caused me to act unprofessionally toward my colleague, Elisa Wilder," Allena continued, carefully avoiding the word 'fraud'."Iam stepping away from the medical profession indefinitely to seek intensive psychiatric treatment abroad.I am deeply sorry."
The video faded to black. The news anchors
returned, looking somber.
No.3
Jewel slammed her glass down on a nearby cocktail table.
"That was a joke!" Jewel practically yelled, her face flushed with anger. "August's lawyers completely sanitized it! She didn't admit to poisoning him, she admitted to being 'tired'! She gets to go hide in some luxury rehab clinic in Switzerland while keeping her freedom!"
Alastair frowned, his massive arms crossed over his chest. "It's a PR spin. She's socially dead in New York, but she avoided the criminal label."①
Elisa stood perfectly still. She looked at the blank screen. She didn't look angry. She looked incredibly, terrifyingly calm.
"It doesn't matter," Elisa said. Her voice was smooth and cold. "She is off the board. She is exiled. And more importantly..."
Elisa turned to look at Alastair. "We have eight hundred million dollars sitting in our accounts between Preston's VC funding and August's settlement. We won the capital war."
She set her half-empty glass on the table. "I need to go.I have an errand to run."
Elisa walked out of the heavy revolving doors and stepped into the cool New York night. Her armored Maybach was idling at the curb.
No.4
She slid into the plush leather backseat and closed the door. The silence of the cabin wrapped around her.
As the car pulled away from the curb, her encrypted phone vibrated violently in her purse.
She pulled it out. The screen was flooded with a rapid succession of text messages from an unknown number.
She opened the thread. The messages were a barrage of pure, unfiltered venom.
You are a cold-blooded monster.
You forced your own sister to humiliate herself in front of the entire country for money.
If you ever try to hurt Allena again, the Sinclair family will use every resource we have to crush you into the dirt.
It was Arthur Sinclair. Her biological father. He had bought a new burner phone just to bypass her block and scream at her.
No.5
Elisa stared at the glowing text. She read the words
'your own sister'.
She didn't feel a spike of anger. She didn't feel the familiar, hollow ache of a rejected child. She felt absolutely nothing. The internal landscape of her heart, where her father used to exist, was completely barren. It was dead earth.
She remembered the freezing rain in the Appalachian mountains when she was seven. She remembered watching his taillights disappear,leaving her to starve.
With a slow, deliberate motion of her thumb, Elisa blocked the new number. She then accessed the phone's core settings and engaged a strict firewvall,blocking all incoming communications from any number not explicitly saved in her contacts.
She locked the phone and dropped it onto the seat next to her. The emotional severance was absolute.
The Maybach glided smoothly through the Manhattan traffic.
Five minutes later, the phone buzzed again. This time, it was a secure, encrypted ping.
No.6
Elisa picked it up. It was a message from Harvey Vance, her divorce attorney.
Ms. Wilder. As per the secret dissolution agreement
signed in the penthouse, the documents have been successfully deposited and locked in the Geneva escrow vault. The one-year countdown has officially begun. While the public record remains unchanged for now, privately and financially,you are completely severed from August Chambers.The gallery deed is fully processed in your name.
Elisa stared at the message.
The heavy, suffocating chain that had been wrapped around her neck for seven years suddenly cracked. A long, shuddering breath escaped her lips.
Even though the public wouldn't know for a year,behind closed doors, she would be completely free.August Chambers had absolutely no legal right to her assets, and more importantly, no legal right to Kayden.
"Driver," Elisa said, her voice clear and strong."Take me to Presbyterian Hospital."
Thirty minutes later, Elisa walked down the sterile,brightly lit corridor of the hospital's VIP geriatric wing. The smell of bleach and rubbing alcohol filled her nose.
No.7
She stopped outside the heavy wooden door of her grandfather Phineas's suite.
She looked through the small glass observation window. Phineas was lying in the elevated hospital bed. He looked incredibly frail, his skin paper-thin,hooked up to a dozen monitors. But his chest was rising and falling in a steady, peaceful rhythm.
Elisa placed her hand flat against the cold wood of the door.
Telling a man with a severe heart condition that she had secretly divorced the billionaire who paid for his life support was a massive, terrifying risk. But she could not lie to him anymore. She needed him to know the truth-that she was already free in the shadows, long before the legal decree would hit the public record next year.
Elisa took a deep breath, her eyes hardening with absolute resolve. She pushed the heavy door open and stepped into the room, ready to face the final storm.