Chapter 199:


    The first twenty-four hours after the funeral passed in a blur of sterile silence.


    Isolde had returned to the Tribeca apartment — the sanctuary And had secured for her when she first broke free. Unlike the cold, cavernous penthouse she had shared with Grayson, this ce didn’t feel tainted. It felt like the first page of a book she was finally allowed to write. And had ensured the refrigerator was stocked and the security imprable; it was a fortress of ss and steel in the heart of the city.


    She spent most of the day in bed, a low-grade fever clinging to her like a shroud. The doctor And had sent over confirmed what she already knew: a hairline fracture in her right wrist where Kaiden’s impact had stressed the cast, and second-degree burns on her left hand showing early signs of infection. He adjusted the cast, redressed the burns with silver-infused gauze, and prescribed antibiotics that left her head feeling stuffed with cotton.


    Effie was her shadow. She would crawl onto the bed with a book and read aloud in a soft, earnest voice. She didn’t ask about her father. She didn’t ask about the old life. It was as though she understood, with that strange wisdom of hers, that the world had fractured and they were now on a new timeline.


    Late in the afternoon, her phone buzzed on the nightstand.


    Ellyn: The funds are in! All of them! The credit line ispletely restored. He did it. Isolde, maybe this is a sign. Maybe he’s trying.


    Isolde stared at the message. He wasn’t trying. He was paying the ransom. This wasn’t an apology — it was a transaction to keep her silent andpliant through the memorial. The deal was settled, and now it was done.


    She didn’t reply. Instead, she pressed herself upright, her body aching in protest. “Effie, baby, can you bring me myptop?”


    It was the machine And had configured for her — sleek and powerful. She opened it and logged into a secure server. And had already uploaded the contents of the hard drive she had risked everything to retrieve.


    Project Phoenix. Version 1.0. Her old life, staring back at her in lines of code.


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    She pulled up the thermal dynamics for the InnoTech Icarus engine. It was a ghost — a design she had sketched on a napkin years ago and abandoned because of a fatal w. They hadn’t fixed it. They had simply dressed it in a prettier shell. At 30,000 RPM, the central shaft would overheat, the heat buildup triggering a catastrophic failure.


    “What are you building, Mommy?” Effie asked, peering at theplex three-dimensional model on the screen. She pointed a small finger at a swirl of deep red indicating thermal stress. “That part looks angry. It’s too red.”


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