Chapter 511:

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Her first act was to send a formal request to the IT department, citing her new authority, demanding full, unrestricted administrative access to the company’s primary and backup servers.

Thirty minutes later, the terrified head of IT appeared at her door in person, his hands shaking as he typed the final authorization codes into her system.

A welcome message flashed across her screen: Welcome, Vice President Montgomery.

A thin, icy smile touched her lips.

The game had just changed.

She was about to open the first file directory when her personal phone, the one Adam had given her, began to vibrate violently on the desk. She glanced at the screen.

Kip Downs.

A sudden, sickening sense of dread seized her, cold and sharp. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

Allison’s heart hammered against her ribs as she snatched the phone from the desk. Her thumb fumbled for a second before hitting the green icon.

𝘓𝖺𝘁𝖾st ch𝗮𝗽t𝖾𝗋ѕ 𝘰𝘯 𝗀𝗮𝘭𝘯o𝗏е𝗹ѕ.𝖼𝘰𝘮

“Kip?”

The voice on the other end was tight, strained, stripped of all its usual easygoing charm. It was the voice of a man trying to contain a scream.

“Allison. You need to listen to me very carefully. And you need to stay calm.”

The instruction had the opposite effect. A wave of ice-cold dread washed through her veins.

“It’s Adam,” Kip said, his voice cracking on the name. “There’s been an incident. He’s at the hospital. St. Vincent’s.”

The world went silent. The sounds of the office, the hum of the computer, the distant city traffic, it all faded into a dull, roaring vacuum. The only words left were Adam. Incident. Hospital.

Her fingers went numb. The phone slipped, and she barely caught it before it hit the floor. She didn’t hear what else Kip was saying. She didn’t care.

She slammed the phone down, not even bothering to end the call. She grabbed her coat and her purse, a primal, mindless panic overriding every rational thought.

She bolted from the office, Juan a silent, grim shadow at her heels. He was already barking low, urgent commands into his lapel mic, signaling the security detail below.

The Compliance staff stared, mouths agape, as their new Vice President sprinted past their desks like a woman on fire.

She jabbed the elevator button with a frantic, repetitive motion. The wait for the doors to open was an eternity of pure agony. Inside, she hammered the door close button, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

Downstairs, she burst out of the elevator and ran toward the main entrance where the Maybach was still waiting. She wrenched open the back door and practically fell inside.

“St. Vincent’s Hospital!” she yelled at the driver. Juan, now in the front passenger seat, didn’t question her. He slammed his hand on the dashboard, echoing her order to the driver: “Go! Use the sirens if you have to!”

The driver, startled by their combined intensity, pulled smoothly into the relentless flow of Manhattan traffic. But fast was not an option. They were immediately swallowed by a sea of yellow cabs and black SUVs, a river of steel moving at a glacial pace.

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