Chapter 52
Chapter 52:
June’s fingernails dug into her palms until they nearly broke the skin.
This was not a spontaneous protest by grieving families. This was a coordinated, heavily funded corporate assassination.
An image flashed through her mind. Cole, standing in the Waldorf ballroom with his face twisted in fury, hurling his champagne glass at the marble floor. Dig up everything on Apex Bio.
There was only one man in Manhattan with the capital, the media connections, and the vicious, personal motive to fabricate a medical scandal within hours.
Cole Compton.
A cold, dense weight settled in June’s stomach. She had thought Cole had reached his lowest point when he defended the Beasleys in that ballroom. But to manufacture grieving families. To weaponize science — the very field she had sacrificed everything for — simply to force her to submit.
Brogan reached out and closed a hand gently over June’s. “Don’t panic. My legal team will handle this. We will expose it p>
𝗖𝗁𝗂𝗇e𝘀е 𝗻о𝘃𝖾𝗅𝗌 𝘁𝗋а𝗻𝘴𝗅𝖺t𝗲𝘥 𝘰𝘯.с𝗼𝗆
June pulled her hand free.
Her eyes burned with a concentrated, absolute fury.
“Lawyers can’t contain a madman,” June said, her voice as hard and flat as iron.
She stripped off her white lab coat and threw it over the nearest chair. She picked up her phone, her face dangerously composed, and walked toward the door.
The noise outside the glass walls of Apex Bio was a physical force. It vibrated through the soles of June’s feet — a low, angry resonance that seemed to threaten the building’s structural integrity.
“Stay back!” a security guard screamed, his voice cracking under the strain.
It was already too late.
The metal barricades groaned and buckled. The crowd, fueled by mob mentality and Richard Beasley’s paid agitators, surged forward like a wave of fury.
June did not retreat. She stood on the raised platform near the entrance, her grip on the microphone so tight her knuckles had gone white. She had data. She had the truth. She still believed, naively, that those things would matter.
“Please!” Her voice amplified over the chaos. “Review the clinical logs! The patient in question was never p>
“Liar p>
“Killer p>
Brogan was suddenly beside her. He moved with a speed that had nothing to do with his usual unhurried manner. He grabbed the microphone from her hand and dropped it. It hit the ground with a screech of feedback.
“June — stop!” Brogan shouted over the roar. “This isn’t a debate. These people are not here to listen p>
A shadow fell across the light.
June looked up. Something was moving through the air — heavy and ragged.
A stone.
She froze. Every instinct short-circuited.
“Look out p>
Brogan did not hesitate. He seized her shoulders, spun her around, and pulled her face into his chest, turning his back to the crowd and making himself the wall between her and the mob.
Thud.
The sound was sickening — dense matter striking bone and muscle. Brogan’s body jerked forward against hers with a sharp, guttural exhalation of breath against her ear. He did not let go. He held on tighter.