Chapter 989:

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His hatred for Cailin. The public dismissal. The coldness at the party. It was all a performance. A perfectly executed, monstrous lie designed for one purpose: to lure her into this tomb.

He wasn’t trying to replace Cailin. He was avenging her.

Desperation, raw and primal, clawed at her. Her fingers fumbled at the hem of her expensive gown, searching for the small, hard nub sewn into the silk lining. It wasn’t part of the lab’s security. It was her personal panic button, a direct line to her father’s private network. A last resort.

With the last of her strength, she pressed it.

A silent, encrypted signal shot out from the lab, carrying her precise GPS coordinates and her rapidly failing biometric data.

Hilliard saw the small, spastic movement of her hand. He did nothing to stop it. He simply watched, his face a blank mask.

A triumphant, ugly sneer twisted Giselle’s lips as she gasped for air. “Too late,” she rasped, the words catching in her throat. “My father’s security, they’ll be here in five minutes.”

Hilliard crouched down, bringing his face close to hers. His voice was a cold whisper against her ear. “I’m counting on them to come.”

The sneer on her face froze, melting into confusion and a new, deeper horror. He wasn’t running. He wasn’t afraid.

He stood up, turning to the security captain who now stood at the ready. “Ethan,” Hilliard said, his voice calm and clear. “Take her. I want her at Mount Sinai. In the room next to Cailin Morton’s.”

Two of the security men moved forward, their faces impassive. They hauled Giselle roughly to her feet. The sudden movement sent another wave of agony through her.

𝗥еad 𝘧r𝖾e 𝗇𝗈vе𝗅ѕ 𝘰𝗇 𝗀a𝗹n𝗼𝘷𝖾𝗅s.с𝗼𝘮

“You’re insane!” she shrieked, her body thrashing weakly in their grip. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you both!”

Hilliard ignored her, calmly adjusting the cuff of his shirt. He turned back to Ethan Cole. “Lock this place down. Copy every byte of data on their servers. Anyone tries to get in before you’re done, you have my authorization to use lethal force.”

“Yes, sir,” Ethan said with a curt nod. A team of technicians swarmed into the lab, connecting drives and tapping into the mainframe.

Giselle was being dragged toward the now-open blast doors. She twisted her head, her eyes wild with fear and a desperate need to understand.

“Why?” she croaked, her voice raw. “You could have just taken the antidote. Why are you doing this?”

Hilliard finally looked at her again. There was no anger in his eyes, no satisfaction. Only a vast, dead emptiness.

“Because I don’t just want the antidote,” he said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. “I want the entire Van Doren family to publicly confess for what they did to my wife.”

The sheer, terrifying scale of his ambition silenced her. The fight went out of her. She went limp in the guards’ arms as they dragged her out of the lab and into the waiting darkness of an SUV.

The vehicle sped away, disappearing into the labyrinth of the city.

Hilliard stood alone in the now-quiet laboratory. He took out a satellite phone and dialed a number.

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