Chapter 328
She was wearing a neon pink power suit that clashed violently with the industrial grey aesthetic of the office, trailed by two assistants carrying orchids. Her voice carried across the entire floor before she had cleared the doorway.
“Hi, Isolde!”
Isolde stepped out of her office. “What is this?”
“Gray said I should make myself comfortable,” Belle said, gesturing airily at the movers.
She pointed a manicured finger at the main conference room — the one with the floor-to-ceiling smart boards where the team mapped trajectories and ran simulations.
“I’ll take that as my office,” Belle announced.
A vein in Isolde’s forehead throbbed.
R𝘦а𝗱 𝗐𝗂𝘁𝘩𝘰𝘂t 𝗶𝘯𝘵𝗲𝗿𝗋uрt𝗶о𝗇𝗌 oո 𝗀𝖺l𝗻o𝘃𝘦𝗹ѕ.𝖼о𝗆
“That room is for meetings. It’s the war room. You have a cubicle assigned in marketing.”
Belle laughed — a tinkling, condescending sound. “I’m the Chief Liaison, sweetie. I don’t do cubicles.”
She snapped her fingers. An assistant materialized with a file, which Belle thrust at Isolde.
“Also, as part of the deal, I’m the point person on the new CloudPath partnership,” Belle said, smiling sweetly. “So technically, I control the budget and procurement for your server resources.”
Isolde took the file and scanned the contract. It was true. InnoTech, through Belle, held the administrative keys to the project’s operational spending.
Arland stepped up beside Isolde, looking fully prepared to throw the fig tree through a window.
“This is obstruction,” he said flatly.
“It’s synergy!” Belle corrected, batting her eyelashes. “We’re a team now!”
She leaned close to Isolde, dropping her voice just low enough for the two of them. The cloying scent of her perfume filled the air between them.
“Don’t worry, Isolde,” Belle murmured. “I won’t fire you — yet. Just keep the coffee hot.”
The urge to slap her was a physical itch in Isolde’s palm. She clenched her fist until her nails bit into her skin. Her mind raced. A direct confrontation would give Belle exactly the drama she wanted — a scene to carry back to Grayson. But submission wasn’t an option either. There had to be a third way. The engineer’s way: build a system to contain the problem.
“Fine,” Isolde said. Her voice was ice. “Take the conference room.”
Belle clapped her hands. “Great! Oh, and can you move your car? My Porsche is blocked in the lot.”
Isolde turned and walked toward the exit.
She stood in the parking lot, staring at the asphalt, and drew a slow, deep breath. The exhaust-tinged air grounded her.
She looked again at the CloudPath contract in her hand.
“She controls the front door,” Isolde murmured to herself. “But she doesn’t know about the back door.”
She pulled out her phone and dialed an old contact from the Institute — a connection she hadn’t used in five years.
“It’s Isolde,” she said when the line connected. “I need a mirror server. Off the grid.”
She hung up and walked back inside.
Belle was standing in the middle of the engineering pit, loudly instructing the lead coder.
“Ms. Escobar,” the engineer said, his expression pained. “We can’t change the programming language.”
“Why not?” Belle asked, wrinkling her nose. “Python sounds like a snake. It’s aggressive. Use something friendlier. Like Java — that sounds like coffee.”
.