the side bedroom, Genevra stood up from the carpet and changed into a blac

ture gowns and jewelry Bryce had bought for her, pulling a worn

door. The old butler spoke

or breakfast downstairs. You should be down ma

d to the door, and pulled it open. Sh

housekeeping staff handle the

ing as he prepared to lecture her, but the sharp

of the hall. Passing a trash can, she pulled the estate manager's keyr

lled an unbranded, dark gray military-grade encrypte

he monitor, opening a classified communication channel under the codename "Aro." In the bottom right corner, unread messages flashed from Ez

onnect the encrypted voice call. A low, refined male voi

're final

Genevra said soft

ck from his mahogany desk, his dark green ey

ears for that loveless marriage. The Professo

lus on her right index finger. "The Crosby family isn't

a sharp, sa

fense's classified aerospace project, 'Project Genesis.' The core algorithm archit

eady flying across the keyboard. "But I need a completely clean, in

cond-largest voting shareholder of NexaCorp has been kept warm for y

ted rapidly across the screen. In just ten minutes, she corrected the core orbital perturbation parameters that had

hrough the headphones, followed

That fraud Aryanna stole the scrap model you threw away at sevent

laptop screen. "In three days, at the closed-door session of the Wal

her backpack and glanced in the full-length mirror. The submi

ne echoed, followed by a heavy door slam a

the spiral staircase. At the bottom, she came face-to-face with Bryce, who had just r

n old backpack heading for the front do

t?" Bryce strode forward and grabbed her wrist ti

s grip without changing her expres

y, and to have a lawyer dr

t a cold, ar

n executive assistant's salary, you couldn't even afford to r

ds exchanged mocking smiles, watchi

She stepped sideways, pulled open the heavy oa

f your busines