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Chapter 767:
Easton came over with a glass of warm honey water and set it beside her. He watched the lines of offshore account code scrolling across the screen. June was registering three anonymous shell companies in the Cayman Islands—the final piece of her financial takedown.
“Apex Bio’s core patents are still in my name,” she said without looking up. “But Richard stole a number of the peripheral shares years ago through back-channel maneuvers. These three shells will create a fake acquisition panic on the market tomorrow. It will squeeze every last cent out of whatever worthless stock he’s still holding p>
Easton’s private phone buzzed. An encrypted text from his contact inside the hospital. He read it, and his face went cold. He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, turning his back to June, and took the call.
The voice on the other end told him about the poisoned IV bag, the elderly woman’s anaphylactic shock, and Cole’s rampage through the hospital corridors.
Easton hung up and turned back to June, who was still entirely absorbed in her work. A flash of terror—and then overwhelming relief—moved across his face. He made a decision and said nothing. He would not break her concentration. Not when she was this close.
Instead, he dialed his private security team. “Upgrade the apartment to Red Level immediately,” he said. “Send two additional armored cars downstairs. No one enters or exits this building without my explicit approval. No exceptions p>
Across town, Cole sat in the back of his Maybach as it cut through the dark Manhattan streets toward Easton’s building. His phone displayed several blinking red dots—IP addresses his hackers had traced back to June’s Cayman Islands registrations.
“Ms. Erickson is running some very complex financial transactions,” his assistant reported from the passenger seat. “It looks like a coordinated market strike against the Beasleys p>
𝘓𝖺𝗍𝘦ѕ𝗍 𝖼𝘩𝖺𝗉𝘁e𝗿ѕ 𝘰𝗇
Cole stared at the blinking dots. He knew exactly what June was preparing—the final blow. And his job now was to clear every obstacle from her path.
“Tell all traders at Compton Capital to stand by around the clock,” he said. “The moment her shell companies enter the market tomorrow, we back them with a hundred billion dollars. No one gets in her way p>
The Maybach eased into a shadowed corner of the street below Easton’s building. Cole rolled down the window and looked up at the lit window on the top floor.
He couldn’t go up. His presence would only repel her. But he could not leave. Not on a night like this, full of killers and close calls and things she didn’t yet know.
He lit a cigar, the glowing red tip flickering in the darkness, and settled back against the seat—an exiled ghost keeping silent watch over the woman he would never be able to touch again.
Midnight. Heavy clouds covered the Manhattan sky. Crawford sat in the underground surveillance center of his Long Island estate, facing dozens of screens blinking with live data streams.
His chief technology officer stood beside him, pointing to several unusually active IP addresses. “Ms. Erickson is registering a large number of offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands. This level of high-frequency financial activity will almost certainly trigger the SEC’s automatic alert system. It will expose her real identity p>