Chapter 119
Chapter 119:
Hannah nodded, a new worry joining her exhaustion. “I understand.”
As Camille left, Hannah remained standing before the master diagram, staring at the red marks that signified discovered sabotage. But now, instead of progress, the marks seemed to taunt her. What weren’t they seeing? What hidden threat still lurked in the system they’d designed with such care? She forced herself to turn away. Four hours of rest. Then back to the search.
But as she made her way to the conference room, Hannah couldn’t shake the feeling that something still eluded them. Something deadly hiding in plain sight.
In a penthouse across the city, Rose checked her phone as it chimed with an incoming message. The screen displayed a simple text from a now-familiar number: “Component J-14 installed. All proceeding as planned.”
She smiled, setting the phone down on the nightstand. Beside her, Herod slept peacefully, his face relaxed in a way it never was when he was awake.
Everything was falling into place. In just over five days, the Phoenix Grid would go online. Seventy-two hours after that, Camille’s precious project would implode spectacularly. And in the aftermath, Kane Industries would crumble. Rose reached over and switched off the lamp, darkness enveloping the room. As she settled back against the pillows, she allowed herself to imagine Camille’s face when her world collapsed around her. The same expression Rose had worn when Camille returned from the dead as Victoria Kane’s heir. When she’d systematically destroyed everything Rose had built.
Soon, very soon, the scales would balance. Justice would be served. And neither Camille nor Victoria would see it coming.
Victoria Kane sat alone in her office, the glow from her computer screen the only light in the room. Outside her windows, dawn painted the Manhattan skyline in hues of pink and gold, but she hadn’t noticed the sunrise. She hadn’t moved from her chair in hours.
On her screen, financial records filled page after page—stock company acquisitions, shell corporations nested within shell corporations, Russian dolls. A tangled web of financial transactions that had taken investigators days to unravel.
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Victoria’s mouth tightened as she scrolled through the data. The pattern was unmistakable once you knew what to look for. Small stock purchases, never more than one percent at a time. Different buyer names. Different banks. Different countries. But all ultimately tracing back to one man.
Herod Preston.
She slammed her hand against the desk, the sharp crack echoing through the empty office. Victoria Kane did not lose control. Not ever. But seeing Herod’s name, the son of the man who had killed her daughter, attached to her company set her blood boiling.
Her intercom buzzed. “Ms. Kane? Mr. Pierce is here.”
Victoria took a deep breath, smoothing her features into their usual mask of calm. “Send him in.”
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