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Chapter 849:
She stood and gathered the scattered term sheets, her movements sharp and precise. “This isn’t a romantic gesture, Vera. It’s a massive red flag. It proves Cole is completely emotionally unregulated — a dangerous, unstable element. Today he destroys Alycia because he feels guilty. Tomorrow he uses the same mercenaries on Easton, or anyone else who stands near me, because he feels jealous p>
She walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked down at the street below. She felt no catharsis from Alycia’s destruction — only a cold, creeping dread working its way up her spine. She felt hunted. The trauma of the abduction, compounded by Cole’s unhinged retaliation, made the walls of her apartment feel like they were tightening around her.
Vera recognized the rigid line of June’s back and let the subject drop.
“What about the divorce?” she asked quietly.
June turned from the window, picked up her phone, and dialed Easton’s private number. “Easton,” she said the moment he answered, bypassing any mention of the scandal detonating online. “Where are we on filing the emergency injunction to force the divorce decree p>
“The paperwork is being submitted to the federal judge as we speak,” Easton’s smooth, measured voice came through the speaker. “But June — given the video that just leaked — you need to stay inside. Don’t travel alone p>
𝖳𝗁оu𝘀an𝗱s o𝖿 𝘳𝖾𝘢d𝗲rs o𝗻
“Just get it filed,” June said.
She hung up, drew a slow breath, and mentally locked the images of Alycia away in a sealed compartment. She would not let Cole’s violence distract her from what actually mattered.
She returned to the island, sat down, and narrowed her eyes at the open documents.
“The only battlefield that matters now is the table at Sotheby’s,” she told Vera. “Open the laptop. We need to verify the liquidity of the bridge loan p>
Outside the building, parked discreetly near a fire hydrant, sat a dark blue utility van marked with a fake telecom logo. Inside, three tactical operators monitored a live thermal feed of June’s apartment.
The team leader pressed his earpiece. “Target is secure. Emotional state appears stable. She is disregarding the media event and focusing on paperwork p>
Up in her apartment, June highlighted a line of text on a contract, entirely unaware of the invisible cage Cole had quietly locked around her building.
At 2:00 PM, the atmosphere inside the temporary Manhattan offices of Apex Bio was electric with tension.
June sat at the head of a sleek glass conference table, in the middle of a high-stakes video call with her lead researchers in Geneva, working through Phase II clinical trial data for their next-generation neural blocker.
Three sharp, polite knocks hit the frosted glass door.
June looked up. Crawford Love stood in the doorway in a bespoke midnight-blue Tom Ford suit that fit his broad shoulders with precision. In his right hand he held a thick black leather folder.
June muted her microphone, offered a quick apology to her team, and closed the laptop. Her spine stiffened. Her eyes tracked Crawford with the quiet vigilance of someone who had learned not to be caught off guard.
Crawford pushed the door open, stepped inside, and reached back to pull it shut with a soft click — physically separating them from the rest of the busy office. He walked to her desk and set the folder on the glass surface.