Chapter 41: A Thief at Night?Another one bites the dust. Kaelen pulled his eye from the microscope. The slide was a fuzzy mess of nothing: failure, round twenty-one. He slumped back in the chair, a groan echoing in the silent lab. This sucked. Seriously.“You’re kidding me, right?” he muttered to the tiny vial. He’d been so close. The formula had twitched in the simulation, almost stabilizing. Then, nope. It just fizzled out.He pushed the microscope aside and stared at the main screen where the failed simulation still spun. It ran a loop: the perfect scenario followed by the actual failure. A week straight of this nonsense. Sleeping in the breakroom, surviving on instant coffee, and sinking serious cash into reagents flushed down the drain. This wasn't Monopoly money. His budget was sobbing in a corner.He closed his eyes, leaning his head back. His neck popped. It was Saturday, and the whole complex was a ghost town—he’d told everyone to take a chill weekend. Big mistake, since now

CHAPTER 43 — THE DEAL IN THE DARKDarren woke with a violent jerk, his breath catching as pain shot down the side of his face and into his chest. For a second he couldn’t understand where he was. His head felt too heavy, his vision too slow. Then the bitter smell of dust and rusted metal hit him, and his senses crashed back into place.He was tied to a chair.A single dying bulb hung loosely from the high ceiling, flickering weakly. The long shadows it cast across the concrete floor looked more alive than he felt. Wherever he was, it wasn’t a police station, a home, or a place meant for safety. It was the kind of place you ended up in when you’d run out of luck.His heartbeat spiked instantly.“Shit…” he whispered, struggling against the ropes. His wrists burned, and the chair didn’t even shake. Whoever tied him had done it professionally.Before he could process his next thought, a low whistle drifted from the darkness behind him.Darren froze.Footsteps followed slowly, deliberat

Chapter 45:Kaelen felt his jaw still aching. He needed a serious reset, and the only reliable one he knew involved caffeine and mindless people-watching.He drove three blocks and spotted The Grind Stop. Cheesy name, but the full parking lot promised decent coffee. He pulled his beat-up sedan into a tight spot, shut off the engine, and sat there for a minute, running a hand through his hair."Right," he muttered. "Step one: don't think about anything. Step two: think about double-shot lattes."Inside, the place was cozy, smelling like roasted beans and cinnamon. The noise was the right kind of background hum. He walked up to the counter and ordered his usual—a ridiculous custom creation with caramel and about 800 milligrams of caffeine—from a tired-looking boss."Man, you look beat," Kaelen said.The boss, a stocky guy with a neat apron, offered a tired smile. "It's just one of those days. Got a bit of drama brewing in the corner."Kaelen glanced over his shoulder. At a dark table

CHAPTER 47One week laterKaelen didn’t wait for applause or congratulations. The moment the final signature touched the last page of the contract, he extended his hand toward the man standing across from him. Their handshake carried the weight of weeks of negotiation, endless revisions, and sleepless nights. The man—a well-known private investor with a reputation for being almost impossible to secure—grinned broadly as they shook.“It’s official,” the investor said. “One point five billion dollars. I look forward to seeing what your company does with it.”Kaelen forced himself to smile back. “We’ll make sure you get your returns. Thank you again for trusting us.”They exchanged a few more words before Kaelen gestured for the group of representatives waiting by the door.“Please take Mr. Alverez and his team around the building,” he instructed. “Show them the labs first. They’ll want to see where their money is going.”The representatives nodded and quickly formed around the inves

CHAPTER 49Silence sat heavily inside the conference room.Kaelen and Jonah were seated across from each other at the long glass table, yet it felt as though miles separated them. Files lay untouched between them. The screen on the wall had long gone dark. No one spoke.Jonah watched Kaelen closely.In all the years he had worked under him, Jonah had seen many versions of his boss—focused, exhausted, cold, driven, even quietly hopeful—but never this. Kaelen’s face was completely blank, his posture rigid, his hands resting flat on the table as if carved from stone.It unsettled him.Jonah had been quick when the lawsuit notice arrived. The moment he understood what it was, he had excused the investor under the pretense of another meeting, personally escorting him out of the building with practiced ease. If that man had caught even a hint of legal trouble, there was no doubt he would have hesitated, questioned, or worse—walked away.Only when the investor was gone did Jonah return