Chapter 219
And there it was — a single line, stark and undeniable, appended to the emergency patch that had just saved his multimillion-dollar asset.
// STABILITY FIX // SIG: SOPHIA
Sophia.
The name of the phantom engineer who had humiliated his team at the ISSDC. The ghost in the machine.
It was her. It had been her all along.
Three days later, the city was buzzing with news of the CyberNet project’s success. A grand celebration banquet was being held at the finest hotel in the city center, champagne flowing and cameras flashing. But Isolde was nowhere near it.
She sat on the plush rug of the Tribeca apartment, the afternoon sun casting long, warm shadows across the floor. Effie lay on her stomach nearby, tongue poking out in concentration as she colored a picture of a garden. The silence was peaceful — a stark contrast to the glitz and noise filling the banquet hall across town.
Her phone buzzed on the coffee table, shattering the calm.
𝖳𝗋𝖾𝗇𝖽𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗇𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗅𝗌 𝗈𝗇 𝗀𝖺𝗅𝗇𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗅𝗌.𝖼𝗈𝗆
It was a text from Harper.
Harper: Don’t look at Instagram. Seriously. Don’t.
Isolde frowned. Harper knew her too well — telling her not to look was the surest way to make her look. She picked up the phone and opened the app.
Harper had sent a screenshot. Isolde tapped it, and as the image filled the screen, her blood ran cold.
It was a screenshot of Belle’s latest Story.
The photo was taken in the foyer of the Lancaster penthouse — a space Isolde knew intimately. But her eyes didn’t linger on the marble floors or the gilded mirror. They fixed, horrified, on the object sitting casually near the door.
It was The Tear of Time.
Evelyn Carson’s soul work. A ceramic masterpiece that had been exhibited in Paris — a vessel of delicate, melancholic beauty that Isolde had cherished more than almost anything she owned. She had been unable to retrieve it when she left, assuming Grayson would at least have the decency to keep it in the display cabinet.
Instead, the priceless antique was sitting on a dirty floor mat.
Sticking out of its delicate, tapered neck were three dripping, long-handled black umbrellas. Isolde zoomed in, her breath catching. The water from the umbrella handles had pooled at the rim, darkening the ceramic. And there, at the lip of the vase, was a jagged hairline crack — evidence that someone had forced a handle into the fragile opening.
The caption overlaid on the photo read: New umbrella stand! So chic. #FengShui
Isolde’s hand began to tremble. Rage — white-hot and blinding — flooded her veins. That vase was the culmination of Evelyn’s life’s work, a symbol of artistic integrity and grace. And Belle was using it as a bucket for wet umbrellas.
She dialed Grayson’s number.
It rang three times.
Grayson was in the middle of a high-level strategy meeting when his phone vibrated. He glanced at the screen, saw Isolde’s name, and hesitated. The room went quiet, waiting for him. With a frown, he signaled for a pause and answered.
“What is it?” His voice was low, impatient.
.