Chapter 190:


    And nced at her, surprised. “No?”


    “If we expose it now, he cuts his losses,” Isolde said, her voice cold and precise. “He writes it off as a bad investment and moves on. He still has his fortune. He still has his power.”


    She looked back at the tablet. At the two hundred million.


    “Let him fix it,” she said. “Let him pour more money in. Let him drain the trust fund to save face. Let him bleed.”


    “You want to bait him,” And said, the realization settling over him.


    “I want him to feel what it’s like to be helpless,” Isolde said. “I want him so overextended that when the crash finallyes, there’s no safety left.”


    The car slowed. They were approaching her apartment.


    “What about Carson Dynamics?” And asked. “If he freezes your credit —”


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    “We hold the line,” Isolde said. “I’ll find another way to get cash. I won’t let him win.”


    She handed the tablet back to And. “Thank you. For everything.”


    “Always,” he said.


    Isolde stepped out of the car. The rain had softened to a drizzle. She walked into the lobby, the weight of the day pressing down on her shoulders.


    Her phone buzzed. It was Ellyn.


    “Isolde,” her mother’s voice was trembling. “The bank just called. They froze our credit line. They said there’s an irregrity gged by one of our major investors.”


    “Lancaster,” Isolde said.


    “We can’t make payroll next week,” Ellyn sobbed. “Isolde, what are we going to do? The workers will walk.”


    Isolde closed her eyes. She leaned against the cool wall of the elevator.


    “Don’t worry, Mom,” she said. “I’ll handle it.”


    “How? We have no money.”


    “I have something better than money,” Isolde said. “I have leverage.”


    She hung up and looked at her reflection in the polished steel elevator doors. She wasn’t just fighting for apany. She was fighting for her grandmother’s legacy.


    Isolde sat in the back corner of a dimly lit coffee shop in Midtown. Across from her sat a man in a beige trench coat who looked like a professor but scanned the room with a soldier’s eyes.


    Dr. Vance. The recruiter from The Institute.


    He slid a thick man envelope across the table. “Project 511. Next-generation satellite navigation. Fully funded by the DOD. We want you, Sophia.”


    Isolde ran her hand over the envelope. This was it — the golden ticket. The kind of work she had dreamed of before she became Mrs. Lancaster.


    “It’s a three-year contract,” Dr. Vance said. “Full autonomy. But there’s a catch.”


    Isolde looked up. “There always is.”


    “It’s a sensitive project,” Vance said. “The full offer stands, but it’s for your future — a ce tond once your current entanglements are resolved. For now, we’d like to bring you on as a remote Chief Consultant. The initial vetting is intensive, though. It requires your full focus.”


    Isolde’s hand went still. Even as a consultant, themitment would be all-consuming.


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