Chapter 240
“Let her be,” Grayson muttered, turning toward the window. “When she hits rock bottom, she will realize her mistake.”
It was past midnight.
Isolde sat alone in the Orbital office, the glow of the dual monitors illuminating her pale face. She had been working for twelve hours straight, tearing apart the old architecture and rebuilding the bidding proposal from scratch.
Her right wrist, still healing from the fracture, ached with a dull, persistent throb. To compensate, she relied heavily on voice-to-text software and a specialized left-handed ergonomic mouse, her uninjured fingers flying across the keys with practiced efficiency. The soft, robotic voice of the dictation program filled the quiet room — a stark contrast to the complex, elegant lines of code appearing on the screen.
Her cell phone chimed. It was a video call from Harper.
Isolde answered. Harper’s face appeared on the screen, then the camera quickly turned. Effie was sitting on Harper’s couch, wearing a pair of oversized pajamas.
“Mommy!” Effie chirped, waving her small hand at the camera. “When are you coming home? I want to go see the horses!”
The tight knot in Isolde’s chest loosened. A genuine, soft smile touched her lips.
“I will be home soon, baby,” she said, her voice warm with affection. “And we will go this weekend. Mommy promises to take you to the best equestrian club in the city.”
𝖱𝘦𝗮d 𝖿𝗿o𝗆 уоu𝗋 𝗉𝗁о𝗻𝖾 о𝗻 𝗴𝖺𝗹ոo𝘷𝖾𝘭s.cо𝗺
“Yay!” Effie cheered, throwing her arms up in the air.
Isolde ended the call and leaned back in her ergonomic chair, gazing out at the dark Manhattan skyline.
Grayson thought he could starve her out. He thought cutting off her funding would force her to surrender.
He was completely, fatally wrong.
Pressure didn’t break her. It only compressed her into a diamond.
Isolde leaned forward, grabbed a black marker, and wrote a single phrase across the top of the physical proposal folder.
Project Valkyrie.
Friday night descended on the city with a heavy, humid heat.
Isolde sat at her kitchen island, staring at a stack of aerodynamic schematics. A half-eaten salad sat forgotten beside her laptop.
Her phone buzzed. It was Harper.
“Get dressed,” Harper’s voice boomed through the speaker. “I am taking you to a bar. You need a drink. You need five drinks.”
Isolde rubbed her tired eyes. “I can’t, Harp. I have to prep Effie’s riding gear for tomorrow, and I need to finish reviewing these stress test simulations.”
Harper let out a loud, frustrated sigh. “You are pushing yourself too hard. Grayson is not worth this level of self-destruction.”
“I am not doing this for him,” Isolde said, her voice firm. “I am doing this for me.”
She hung up the phone.
The moment the screen went dark, it lit up again. A barrage of notifications flooded her lock screen — all of them from Kaiden’s iPad account.
Isolde’s stomach tightened. Ever since the Mother’s Day phone call, Kaiden had discovered a new game: harassing her digitally.
She unlocked the phone and opened the messaging app. There were five voice notes in a row. She tapped the first one.
.