Chapter 2

A week after Elias left, Seraphina sat in her office, a hollow feeling inside.

She had expected him to be angry, to fight, not to simply disappear.

She told herself it was temporary. He' d cool off. He' d come back.

She tried calling his old number. Disconnected.

She sent an email. It bounced.

An uneasy feeling started to grow. This wasn't like Elias.

She picked up her phone, hesitated, then dialed a number she hadn' t used in years, a private line for an old contact who specialized in finding people.

"Find Elias Thorne," she said, her voice tight. "Quietly."

The contact called back a day later. "He' s gone, Ms. Vance. Clean. No forwarding, no new identity flagged yet. It' s like he dropped off the earth."

Seraphina felt a chill.

A few days later, a legal notification arrived at Aethelred.

It was from a newly established, anonymous trust.

It stated that a foundational patent, critical to Aethelred's core technology, personally held by Elias Thorne and licensed to the company, was now irrevocably transferred to this trust.

The trust, in turn, had dedicated the patent to the public domain.

Aethelred' s stock began to plummet.

Seraphina stared at the document, her blood running cold.

This was it. This was Elias severing his final tie.

The "power" he held, his genius, was no longer Aethelred' s exclusive property.

It was his way of saying he was truly gone.

The finality of it hit her. Her miscalculation had been catastrophic.

Julian Croft, however, was thriving.

He entered her office, a solicitous smile on his face.

"Terrible news about that patent, Seraphina. But don't worry, my new project will more than make up for it. We just need to accelerate the resource shift."

He was now Aethelred' s Chief Innovation Officer, a title Seraphina had granted him.

"Elias designed that algorithm, Julian," she said, her voice flat.

"And now it's everyone's," Julian said smoothly. "Progress, Seraphina. We can't be sentimental."

Seraphina found herself calling Julian more often, relying on his advice, his presence.

She still believed he was dying. She still felt the weight of her debt.

She pushed down the growing unease about Elias, about the company.

Julian needed her support.

She started referring to him as "Mr. Croft" in meetings, a formality that signaled his elevated status.

Elias, if he were there, would have been just "Elias."

The shift was subtle but clear to everyone.

Julian, meanwhile, consolidated his power.

He needed a specific dataset, one Elias had meticulously curated for Project Chimera, ensuring its ethical sourcing and application.

Julian wanted to repurpose it for his own, far more ethically ambiguous project.

"Seraphina," Julian said, feigning a slight cough, "that Chimera dataset... it's just sitting there. It could really accelerate my timeline."

Seraphina hesitated. That data was Elias' s soul.

"It's vital, Seraphina. For the project. For... well, you know." He touched his chest lightly.

The unspoken reference to his "illness" did its work.

"Alright, Julian," she said, avoiding her own gaze in the reflective surface of her desk. "Authorize the transfer."

She imagined Elias' s reaction. The quiet disapproval, the hurt.

She ignored it. This was the ritual. Elias' s "essence" – his work, his principles – being sacrificed for Julian.

Julian received the dataset with a triumphant gleam in his eye.

Seraphina watched him, a strange mix of obligation and a dawning, suppressed resentment.

She saw him later that day, animatedly discussing his project with his new team, using Elias' s data, while she felt a growing emptiness.

Elias had always been her sounding board, her ethical compass. Julian was... something else.

He was charming, attentive to her, but his ambition felt rapacious.

"You look tired, Seraphina," Julian said later, his voice soft with concern. He placed a hand on her arm. "You're doing so much."

She flinched internally but forced a smile. "Just a lot on my mind."

He was so caring, so grateful for her support. How could she doubt him?

Elias would have seen through it. Elias would have quietly, firmly, shown her the truth.

But Elias was gone.

One afternoon, Seraphina tried to assuage her guilt.

She found an old concept paper of Elias's, a small, brilliant idea he'd never had time to develop.

She called Julian. "Julian, I was thinking. We could allocate some seed funding to this old idea of Elias's. As a... a nod to his contributions."

Julian' s smile was tight. "A lovely sentiment, Seraphina. But are you sure we should divert even minimal resources right now? My project is at a critical phase. And, frankly, Elias' s work, while foundational, might be a bit... niche for where Aethelred needs to go now."

His dismissal was polite, but absolute.

Her offer of superficial comfort, a token gesture, was rejected.

It was meaningless, she realized. The damage was too deep. Elias wouldn't care about some token project when Chimera was dead and his core work was being corrupted.

Julian then added, "Perhaps it' s best to make a clean break. Focusing on the past won't help us build the future."

He made it sound so reasonable.

The next day, Julian took it further.

He, along with two newly hired executives loyal to him, walked into what used to be Elias' s primary lab.

Some of Elias' s old research equipment, things not immediately useful for Julian' s project, were still there, covered in dust sheets.

Julian gestured to them. "This is just taking up space. Clear it out. We need this lab for Project Nightingale expansion." Project Nightingale was his pet name for his initiative.

A junior engineer, one who had worked closely with Elias, spoke up timidly. "But Mr. Croft, some of this equipment is highly specialized. Dr. Thorne might..."

Julian cut him off, his voice like silk but with an edge of steel. "Dr. Thorne is no longer with Aethelred. His sentimental attachments are not our concern. This is prime lab space. It will be put to better use."

He looked around, a smirk playing on his lips. "Aethelred is moving forward, not living in a museum of past glories."

The engineers began, reluctantly, to dismantle Elias' s legacy, piece by piece.

The superficial comforts, the remnants of Elias' s presence, were being systematically erased.

It was a public humiliation, a clear message: Elias Thorne was irrelevant. Julian Croft was now the master of Aethelred's innovation.