Chapter 4

Sera's POV

The nurse led me down a corridor that smelled less of antiseptic and more of expensive air fresheners. We passed closed doors and muted televisions until we stopped at room 712. The door was half-open. Through the gap I could hear Vivienne's voice, low and urgent.

"—prototype bay, you said? All of it?" Her tone was controlled, but there was something brittle underneath it. "No, don't apologize. Just tell me what we have left."

I stood there with my hand on the door handle. The nurse had already retreated down the hall. That old familiar instinct kicked in—wait, assess, don't walk into a situation you don't understand. It was the same instinct that had kept me alive through eighteen months of living with Dominic after my mother's death.

The elevator at the end of the corridor dinged. A man in a charcoal suit stepped out, his tie slightly loosened and a leather portfolio tucked under his arm. He saw me standing there and his stride faltered before he recovered and closed the distance.

"Miss Blackwell," he said, keeping his voice low. "I'm Richard Martin, Cross Aerospace's legal counsel. Professor Cross mentioned you might be coming." He glanced at the half-open door, then back at me. "She's been on calls since they moved her out of ICU. You should know she's—well, you'll see. Just be prepared."

He moved past me before I could ask what I was supposed to be prepared for. I pushed the door open and stepped into a room that was trying very hard to pretend it wasn't part of a hospital. Cream walls instead of beige. A window that actually opened. Furniture that looked like it belonged in a hotel suite. But none of that could hide the hospital bed in the center, or the woman sitting up against the pillows with a laptop balanced on a rolling table.

Vivienne looked up as I entered. For a moment neither of us moved.

The last time I'd seen her in person was three months ago in Oxford. She'd looked exactly like herself—sharp and elegant in that effortless way. Now her skin had that translucent quality that came from too many rounds of chemotherapy. Her cheekbones stood out in sharp relief. Her hair was covered by a silk scarf in deep burgundy.

But her eyes were the same. Clear and assessing and absolutely unwilling to accept sympathy.

"Sera's here," she said, not to me but to the laptop screen. I could now see a video call in progress. A man in a white coat and safety goggles stood in what looked like a laboratory. Empty workbenches stretched out behind him. "Repeat what you just told me about the timeline, Patel. She needs to hear this."

I moved closer. I set my bag down on the chair beside the bed but didn't sit. The man on the screen—Dr. Patel—took a breath that looked like it hurt.

"Professor Cross, the prototype bay is completely cleaned out," he said. His accent carried the careful precision of someone who'd learned English as a second language. "Marcus didn't just take the data. He took the physical assembly, the calibration instruments, even the test logs. We're looking at a complete rebuild from scratch."

My hand found the back of the chair. I gripped the upholstered fabric hard enough that I could feel the wooden frame underneath. Claudia's frantic phone call about the company crisis, combined with what I realized on the flight, had pointed to this. But there was a difference between knowing someone had stolen intellectual property and understanding that they'd physically dismantled years of work and walked out the door with it.

"Timeline," Vivienne said. Her voice was flat in a way that suggested she already knew the answer.

"Hargrave's RFP response deadline is six weeks out," Patel said. His hands moved in small, aborted gestures. "Marcus already has our prototype. Even if we start rebuilding today, we'd need at least eight weeks and another two million in materials alone. And that's assuming we can even get the components—half of them are custom fabricated with lead times measured in months, not weeks."

The silence that followed felt physical. It pressed down on the room.

Vivienne's fingers moved across her laptop keyboard. The video call ended with a soft chime. She closed the laptop with deliberate care, pushed the rolling table aside, and turned to look at me.

"Sit down," she said. "We don't have time for emotional reunions."

I sat. I pulled my phone out of my pocket with some vague idea of taking notes. Vivienne watched me unlock the screen and open a notes app. Something that might have been approval flickered across her face.

"Marcus Reid," she said, as if she were introducing me to someone at a faculty mixer. "Forty-two, MBA from Wharton, joined Cross Aerospace five years ago when we were still small enough that I was doing my own bookkeeping. Smart, ambitious, and apparently much better at long-term planning than I gave him credit for."

She reached for the drawer in her bedside table. She moved slowly in a way that suggested pain she was trying not to show. She pulled out a manila folder that looked like it had been assembled in a hurry.

"He's been stealing from me for three years. I have the evidence. And two weeks ago, he took everything that evidence was supposed to protect and handed it to Titan Dynamics along with a list of my best engineers."