Chapter 1160:

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But the next second, another unknown call came in. It wasn’t the agent’s number, nor Maxwell’s, nor the school’s. There was no name on the screen, just a string of digits that seemed to pulse with a cold, latent power. It made her heart tighten inexplicably. Her carefully constructed calm threatened to shatter. She had anticipated surveillance, but a direct confrontation? She wasn’t prepared.

She put Effie down and whispered, “Baby, go play in the living room for a while. Mommy needs to take a call.” She smoothed Effie’s hair, her touch a stark contrast to the icy dread coiling in her stomach.

Effie ran out obediently. Isolde walked to the window, using the few seconds to compose herself, to rebuild the fortress around her emotions. She pressed the answer button, her voice maintaining a deliberate, almost unnaturally steady calm.

“Hello?”

There was no sound on the other end, only heavy breathing, so familiar it made her heart sink. It was the sound she used to hear in the dead of night, in the cavernous bedroom they once shared, the sound of a man burdened by a world he commanded, yet utterly alone in it.

After a few seconds, Grayson’s voice came, still as cold and hard as usual, but without his usual arrogance, carrying instead a hint of imperceptible fatigue. It was the voice of a general surveying a battlefield, detached and weary. There was no trace of humility; his tone was more like a cold announcement.

“You’re leaving.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact, a demonstration of his omniscience. Isolde did not deny it, nor did she defend herself. She just listened quietly, her silence a shield. To speak would be to engage, and to engage would be to lose.

𝘘u𝖺l𝗂𝘁y 𝘵𝘳𝖺𝘯𝘴la𝗍𝘪𝘰𝘯𝗌 𝗼ո 𝗀𝗮ln𝗈𝘷e𝗹𝘴.c𝗼𝘮

“I saw the message from the real estate agent, and I saw your plane ticket.” There was no self-mockery in Grayson’s voice, only a detached coldness. He listed her actions like a prosecutor reading a charge sheet, each item a testament to his control, his reach. He was reminding her that even in her escape, she was still within his orbit.

“Washington. Chief Architect at the Institute. Isolde, you always know how to find the best way out for yourself.”

He paused, fell silent for a few seconds, his tone still cold. The faint clink of ice against glass traveled through the line, a familiar sound that painted a vivid picture of him alone in his dark office, a glass of whiskey in hand. He did not mention Dr. Finch or the events of November 12th at all, only adding faintly, “Don’t think that leaving will let you completely escape the Lancasters.”

Isolde’s heart tightened slightly, but she did not move. Her tone was cold and distant, neither humble nor arrogant, with no extra emotion, neither hatred nor love, treating it as an irrelevant conversation. She was an architect, and she had designed this new life with precision. She would not let the ghost of the past compromise its foundation.

“Whether I leave or not has nothing to do with the Lancasters, and even less to do with you.”

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