Chapter 315:

🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙

Jewel fell silent, sensing the deep well of irony in Elisa’s tone. Elisa didn’t want to explain. She ended the call quickly.

She finished tending to her wrist, then walked into her office. She didn’t turn on the lights. She sat in the dark and opened her laptop. The screen illuminated her face, casting it in a cool, blue glow.

Complex data streams from the Aethel-JHU project filled the display. She began to type, her fingers flying across the keyboard. She channeled the pain, the humiliation, the white-hot rage into lines of clean, logical code.

This was her world. A world of order and reason. A world she could control.

Miles away, in a brightly lit, sterile VIP suite at Mount Sinai, a senior attending physician carefully cleaned Allena’s paper-thin scratch with an antiseptic wipe.

August stood beside the bed, his arms crossed, his brow furrowed with an expression of grave concern, as if he were observing a delicate heart surgery.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. A text. Then another. Three missed calls from the president of Chambers Group’s European division. He ignored them all.

In his mind, nothing in the world was more important than the tiny, insignificant scratch on Allena Mills’s finger.

The next morning, the conference room at Aethel Intelligence was buzzing with low, anxious energy. Elisa stood at the head of the table, a cup of black coffee untouched beside her.

𝗜ո𝗌𝘁𝗮𝘯𝘵 аcc𝘦𝘀𝘴 𝗈ո 𝘨a𝗅ոove𝗹𝘀.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Tessa Vaughn burst into the room, her face a mask of indignation. She didn’t speak; she just thrust her tablet in front of Elisa.

On the screen was an email from the JHU project coordinator. It was a formal notice, cc’d to the entire leadership team.

Due to an unforeseen personal injury sustained by Dr. Mills last night, she requires a period of rest and recovery. The submission of the phase-one clinical data, scheduled for today, will be postponed indefinitely.

“Indefinitely?” Tessa hissed, her voice trembling with rage. “It’s a data transfer! Does she have to type it with her own two hands? This is a pathetic excuse!”

Elisa read the email, her expression unreadable. This was Allena, extending her victory from the personal realm into the professional. It was a power play, a middle finger delivered via corporate email.

“Get her on the phone,” Elisa said, her voice quiet and cold.

Tessa made the call. A snooty assistant answered. “Dr. Mills is resting and cannot be disturbed.”

“Tell her,” Elisa said, her voice loud enough for the assistant to hear over the speakerphone, “that if I don’t get a call back in ten minutes, Aethel’s legal department will be handling all future communications.”

The call came in less than five.

“Faye,” Allena’s voice was lazy, laced with a triumphant purr. “So aggressive, so early in the morning.”

“The data,” Elisa said, cutting straight to the point. “I want it by five p.m. today.”

Allena gave a soft, theatrical sigh. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. Doctor’s orders. And August agrees. He said my health should be my top priority.”

She was using his name like a shield, a weapon.

.

.

.