Chapter 5

Sera's POV

Vivienne pushed the folder across the bed toward me. I opened it to find printouts that looked like they'd come from a forensic accountant's fever dream.

Balance sheets with highlighted discrepancies. Wire transfer records to shell companies with names like "Advanced Materials Consulting LLC" and "Propulsion Systems Research Group." At the bottom of the stack, a press release from Titan Dynamics announcing Marcus Reid as their new VP of Advanced Propulsion Systems with an eight-figure signing bonus.

I stared at the photo of Marcus in the press release. Professionally lit, wearing Titan's corporate blue, smiling like a man who'd just won a lottery he'd rigged himself. Something cold and sharp settled in my chest. This wasn't just corporate espionage. This was systematic, calculated destruction disguised as a career move.

"Why didn't you stop him?" The question came out before I could think better of it.

Vivienne's mouth twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Because a CEO who's too sick to notice her CFO stealing is a CEO who's easy to rob. I needed him to think he'd gotten away with it. Needed him to get comfortable, make mistakes, leave a trail so obvious that even a mediocre prosecutor could follow it. And he did. Three years of embezzlement, Sera. Federal crime. Twenty years minimum if I decide to press charges."

I looked down at the folder again. At the careful documentation of Marcus's theft. I understood what she was really telling me. This wasn't just evidence. This was a weapon she'd been forging for three years, waiting for the right moment to use it.

"But you're not going to press charges," I said slowly. "Not yet. Because if Marcus gets arrested, Titan keeps the technology and you lose your last chance to compete for Hargrave's contract."

"Exactly." Vivienne leaned back against her pillows. For the first time since I'd entered the room, she looked less like a CEO in crisis mode and more like a woman who was very, very tired. "Which brings me to why I asked Claudia to call you. I need you to help me do three things, and I need you to decide right now if you're willing to do them. I don't have time to convince you or cajole you or appeal to our history together."

She held up one finger. "First, find me one million dollars and a team that can rebuild the prototype in four weeks. I don't care if you have to steal engineers from MIT or sell your soul to venture capitalists. We need a working demo before Marcus submits his proposal to Hargrave, or Cross Aerospace is dead."

A second finger. "Second, get us a meeting with Callum Hargrave before that deadline. Marcus has been courting him for months, feeding him information about our technology while pretending to represent Cross. We need to cut through that narrative before it solidifies."

A third finger. Her voice went very quiet. "Third, help me live long enough to watch Marcus lose everything. Not just his job or his reputation. Everything. I want him to understand what it feels like to build something and watch someone else tear it apart for profit."

I sat there with my phone forgotten in my lap and the folder of evidence balanced on my knees. The weight of what she was asking settled over me like a physical thing. This wasn't a research project or an academic collaboration. This was war, and Vivienne was asking me to be her soldier.

"What's Marcus's weakness?" I heard myself ask. Some part of me that was still observing from a distance noted that I hadn't said no. Hadn't asked for time to think. Hadn't done any of the reasonable things a person should do when asked to commit to something this enormous. "There has to be something he didn't cover."

Vivienne's expression shifted. For just a moment I saw something raw and almost proud in her eyes. "You're not the scared girl I put on a plane to Oxford anymore."

"No," I agreed. I pulled out my phone with hands that were steadier than I'd expected. "I'm not."

I opened my messages and typed out the first text with mechanical precision. Prof. Williams's contact appeared on my screen. I wrote: "I need to take an indefinite leave of absence effective immediately. I'll submit formal paperwork by end of week."

My thumb hovered over the send button for exactly five seconds. I thought about my dissertation research. About the lab position I'd spent three years building. About the academic career I'd constructed as proof that I could make something of myself without the Blackwell name or money.

Then I hit send and watched the message turn from blue to delivered.

The second message required switching apps. I opened my banking application and navigated to the trust account my mother had set up before she died. The one inheritance Dominic couldn't touch. Eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It was supposed to be my safety net. My PhD funding. My startup capital for whatever life I built after academia.

I initiated a transfer to Cross Aerospace's corporate account. I typed "Bridge funding" in the memo line. I let my finger rest on the confirm button for three seconds. Three seconds to throw away five years of financial independence. Three seconds to commit to a war I hadn't started.

I pressed confirm.

Vivienne was watching me. When the transfer confirmation notification appeared on my screen, I saw her eyes go bright with something that might have been tears if she'd been the kind of woman who cried. She opened her mouth. Probably to tell me I was insane or to refuse the money or to do something that would let both of us pretend this was a reversible decision.

But I was already typing the third message.

Dominic's contact sat at the top of my favorites list where it had lived for five years despite the fact that I'd never once called it. A digital ghost of a relationship I'd spent half a decade trying to exorcise.

I'd been trying to dismiss his ultimatum since he left, had convinced myself I could find another way around this mess without crawling back to him. Seven o'clock at the Manor—delivered with that infuriating certainty of his, as if my compliance was a foregone conclusion. I'd been telling myself I wouldn't go, that I'd figure out the situation on my own.

I typed: "I'll be there at seven. But we're also discussing Callum Hargrave."

My finger hovered over the send button. The message felt like admitting defeat twice over—once for accepting his summons, and again for needing his help with a problem I should have been able to handle myself.

I sent it before I could delete it.

I set my phone face-down on my lap and looked up. Vivienne was staring at me with an expression I'd never seen on her face before. Something between wonder and grief and a fierce, almost painful hope.

"That's the first eight hundred and fifty thousand," I said. "I'll find the rest. Now tell me—what's Marcus's weakness, and what does Hargrave actually want?"