Chapter 140:


    Daronughed, stepping into her space. “Feisty. I bet you’re wild in bed. That’s why And keeps you around, right? It’s not the engineering. It’s the—”


    “Daron,” Isolde cut him off, her voice dropping low. “How is Emily?”


    Daron blinked. “What?”


    “Your wife. Emily. The one whose father owns the firm you work for.” Isolde drew out her phone. “I wonder what she’d think if I sent her the audio of this conversation. Or perhaps the security footage of you grabbing the waitress’s arm ten minutes ago.”


    Daron’s face went ck. “You wouldn’t.”


    “Try me,” Isolde said. “I have nothing to lose. You have a trust fund and a marriage to a woman who already suspects you’re a loser. Do you really want to roll those dice?”


    Daron stared at her. The lust drained from his expression and something colder reced it — fear. He understood, btedly, that he was no longer dealing with Grayson’s quiet wife. He was dealing with a predator.


    “You’re a bitch,” he muttered, stepping back.


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    “And you’re a parasite,” Isolde replied. “Run along, Daron. The adults are talking.”


    He retreated inside.


    And let out a low whistle. “Did you actually record him?”


    “No,” Isolde admitted, slipping her phone back into her clutch. “But men like Daron are always guilty of something. Fear does the rest.”


    Inside, the lights dimmed. A spotlight hit the stage.


    “Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer boomed. “Please wee the Chief Strategy Officer of InnoTech, Dr. Belle Escobar!”


    Belle walked onto the stage. She had repaired her makeup, though her smile looked brittle. Behind her, a massive screen disyed aplex schematic of a satellite array.


    Isolde moved to the ss doors to watch.


    “This is the InnoTech StarLink Module,” Belle announced, reading from a teleprompter. “Using our proprietarypression algorithm…”


    Isolde squinted at the screen. “Wait.”


    “What is it?” And asked.


    “That schematic,” Isolde whispered. “Look at the power distribution node. They’re using a deprecated version of the KestrelX positioning library.”


    She paused, her eyes moving rapidly across the diagram.


    “They acquired thepany that developed it, but they never did a deep code audit. That library has a known thermal throttling bug in the source code. A bug I wrote a patch for three years ago — a patch they clearly never implemented.”


    Isolde began tough. It was a dark, incredulous sound.


    “They’re pitching a system that will short-circuit the moment it enters an eclipse shadow,” she said. “They literally acquired a bug.”


    Across the room, Grayson stood near the stage watching Belle — taking in the confidence, the sh, the polished performance. Then his gaze drifted and found Isolde. She was whispering to And, pointing at the screen, slowly shaking her head.


    She looked disappointed. Not angry. Simply, professionally disappointed.


    A cold knot formed in Grayson’s stomach. He looked back at the screen. It had seemed impressive to him. But Isolde’s expression made him feel as though he were staring at a child’s finger painting.


    What does she see that I don’t?


    The apuse for Belle was polite but thin. The industry experts in the room knew fluff when they heard it.


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