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Chapter 665:
“Capable.” Crawford’s laugh was genuine and warm, as if Brogan had said something genuinely charming. “Clements, you think this is about your pharmaceutical contracts? You think I give a single, solitary damn about your liaison structure p>
Brogan’s grip on the phone tightened. “Then what do you want p>
“Her.” The word was absolute, spoken with the quiet conviction of something deeply settled. “Her voice on my phone. Her name in my calendar. The excuse — however thin, however fabricated — to see her face across a table p>
“She doesn’t want to see you p>
“She will.” Crawford’s voice dropped, intimate and precise. “The question is whether you’ll still be standing between us when that changes. Whether you’ll be—” a brief pause “—relevant p>
Brogan sat at his desk, his free hand finding the edge, gripping until his knuckles whitened. “You’re threatening me p>
“I’m describing reality. Your company is vulnerable, Clements. Patents pending, cash runway limited, investors nervous. One phone call from me and you aren’t damaged or challenged — you’re simply done p>
“And if I refuse? If I keep her away from you p>
“Then I’ll dismantle you.” Crawford said it without emphasis, without heat, the way a person states a fact about the weather. “I’ll short your stock, poach your team, and file patent challenges across seventeen jurisdictions simultaneously. You’ll spend five years in litigation. When you finally surface, bankrupt and exhausted, she’ll be long gone. Likely married to someone who understood the stakes from the beginning p>
Brogan closed his eyes. The image formed immediately, vivid and unbearable — June on someone’s arm, June’s attention directed permanently elsewhere.
S𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘺𝗼𝗎 𝘄𝘰𝗻’t p𝘂𝘵 𝗱ow𝘯 o𝗇 ѕ.c𝗈𝗆
“You’re a monster,” he said. The words came out without the force he had intended.
“I’m a man in love.” Crawford’s voice had gone soft, almost tender. “There’s very little difference, Clements. Not when the stakes are this high p>
The line went dead.
Brogan sat in the early morning light and felt the weight of impossible choices settle across his shoulders. He could surrender — restore June to the liaison role, step aside, hope that her inevitable rejection of Crawford would leave some opening. Or he could fight, knowing the war would likely cost him everything he had built.
His phone buzzed. A text from June: Chloe says I’m off the Love account. Problem?
Brogan looked at the message for a long moment. Her directness, her focus, her absolute orientation toward the work even in the midst of everything. She was remarkable. She was entirely unaware of how completely she had become the center of a conflict she had not chosen and did not yet know existed.
He typed back: Strategic reallocation. Focus on the science. I’ve got the rest.
Her reply came thirty seconds later: Good. The science is what matters.
Brogan set down his phone and allowed himself a brief, tired smile.
She had no idea. She thought this was about corporate efficiency and FDA timelines. She didn’t know that two men were already moving resources around her like chess pieces, that significant portions of two separate empires were being quietly mobilized for the simple, consuming privilege of her attention.
She didn’t know that Crawford Love had just declared war.