Chapter 157:


    Isolde didn’t move. She held Henderson’s gaze. “If you sign with them without hearing me out, you will be funding the copse of a key national defense supplier. The Pentagon will not be pleased.”


    Henderson paused. He was a greedy man — but also a cautious one.


    “She’s bluffing,” Belle scoffed, gesturing toward the cast. “She’s just here to cause trouble.”


    “Let her in,” Grayson said.


    Everyone turned to look at him.


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    “What?” Belle hissed.


    “Let her in,” Grayson repeated, his eyes fixed on Isolde. “If she thinks she has something to say, let her say it. Let’s see what the great Chief Architect of Orbital Systems can offer without And Roth holding her hand.”


    It was a power move. He wanted to humiliate her in the boardroom — to prove that without him, she was nothing.


    Henderson shrugged. “Fine. Five minutes. In the back.”


    Isolde took her mother’s hand. “Come on, Mom.”


    They walked into the lion’s den.


    The conference room smelled of expensive coffee and arrogance.


    Isolde and Ellyn sat in the back corner like naughty schoolchildren. Grayson took the head of the table. Belle stood by the screen, clicker in hand.


    “As you can see,” Belle began,unching into her presentation, “InnoTech’s strategy is to integrate and optimize existing frameworks. Our projections show that by acquiring Carson Dynamics’ patent portfolio, we can streamline our production pipeline…”


    Isolde watched in silence. It was chilling. The slides weren’t padded with buzzwords — they were a distorted reflection of her own five-year n for Carson, a n she had stored on a server at the Lancaster estate. Belle had stolen her work.


    Belle advanced to a financial projection slide.


    Isolde pulled a notepad from her bag and uncapped a pen with her teeth. She scrawled a note with her left hand: Stolen IP. Falsified synergy values.


    Henderson nodded along, mesmerized by Belle’s delivery and Grayson’s silent endorsement.


    “And finally,” Belle said, beaming, “we offer a generous settlement for the existing debt note, which will give us controlling interest in the IP.”


    Ellyn drew a sharp breath.


    “It’s a liquidation,” Isolde said clearly.


    She stood up.


    “Sit down,” Grayson snapped.


    Isolde ignored him. She walked to the front of the room and positioned herself beside the whiteboard.


    “Henderson,” she said. “Look at slide fourteen.”


    Belle moved to block the screen. “Excuse me!”


    Isolde stepped around her. She picked up a dry-erase marker with her left hand, her grip awkward but her voice perfectly steady.


    “The synergy value projected here,” Isolde said, circling a number with a shaky but legible line, “is based on integrating Carson’s Helios guidance system with InnoTech’s drone chassis. But you’ve ignored the material ipatibility. The Helios system requires a carbon-nanofiber housing to dissipate heat. Your chassis is aluminum alloy. You’re not creating synergy — you’re building a flying oven.”


    Her handwriting was jagged, but the diagram she produced was brutal in its rity: a heat-flow chart ending in catastrophic failure.


    “You didn’t just steal my n,” Isolde said, turning to look at Belle. “You stole it badly. You copied the words without understanding the physics.”


    The room went dead silent.


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