Chapter 75
Chapter 75:
The VIP lounge was soundproof, but it couldn’t contain the noise of Sterling Thorne’s ego shattering.
He kicked a leather ottoman across the room. It hit the wall with a dull thud.
“She planned this!” Sterling screamed. “She knew! She coordinated with the Yates family just to humiliate me p>
Lance stood by the door, his hands clasped behind his back. He signaled a waiter to sweep up the shards of the glass Sterling had thrown earlier.
“Sir,” Lance said calmly. “Perhaps we should focus on the Lancelot presentation tomorrow. The stock volatility might worry them p>
Sterling spun on him. “Volatility? Pulse Interactive is up 15% tonight because of that damn Professor Yinn deal! How did she get Yinn? How p>
Lance hesitated. He pulled up a file on his tablet. “Sir… I looked into the code for Project Alpha. The original source code p>
Sterling froze. Project Alpha was the game that made him famous. The game he claimed to have coded alone in his dorm room.
“What about it?” Sterling snapped.
“The metadata,” Lance said. “The author tag isn’t ‘S. Thorne.’ It’s ‘Phoenix p>
The room went cold. Sterling remembered late nights in the tiny apartment. He remembered sleeping while Aurora typed furiously on her battered laptop, fixing his mistakes, optimizing his clumsy algorithms. He remembered taking the credit because she was his wife, and what was hers was his.
“She typed it for me!” Sterling yelled. “I dictated it! She was just a secretary p>
Lance looked at his boss. He saw the sweat, the fear, the desperate lie. For the first time, Lance realized he was working for a fraud.
Isabella entered the room. She saw the tension. She saw Sterling unraveling.
gαℓησν𝒆𝓁s․com is your fiction sanctuary
“Sterling, baby,” Isabella said, stepping over the broken glass. “Who cares about the code? You are the face. You are the brand p>
Sterling grabbed her shoulders. “Yes. I am the brand. Without me, she is nothing p>
He paced the room. “I need to hurt her. I need to show her she can’t mess with me. I’m going to evict her. Buy her building p>
“She moved, sir,” Lance said dryly. “To the Obsidian Tower. You can’t buy that p>
Sterling’s face twisted. “Then her family. That old man. Her grandfather p>
Isabella’s eyes lit up. She remembered the grandfather. “He goes back to that old neighborhood in The Bronx, doesn’t he?” Isabella asked. “To visit his low-life friends p>
Sterling waved his hand. “Destroy them. Make him suffer. If he loves that slum so much, let him watch it burn p>
Isabella pulled out her phone. She walked into the bathroom and dialed Zack Lane, the property manager of the building where Aurora used to live.
“Zack, it’s Isabella. You know that old man, Vance? The one who used to be the janitor p>
“Yeah, I know him,” Zack’s voice crackled. “He comes around here acting like a big shot in his fancy suits p>
“I want him humiliated,” Isabella whispered. “Next time he shows up to visit his friends, make it a nightmare. Find a reason to evict his friends. Provoke him p>
“Consider it done,” Zack laughed.
Rain lashed against the cracked pavement of The Bronx. It was a grey, miserable morning.