Chapter 2

The words echoed in the silent hallway, replaying in my mind. Perfect sacrifice. Bought me the chair.

I stumbled back to my empty room, the shock giving way to a hollow, aching cold. The last twenty years of my life weren't a tragedy. They were a transaction.

I sat on the edge of the bed, my hands shaking. I thought of the Black Site. The endless white walls. The sensory deprivation tank. The psychological evaluations designed to make you question your own sanity. The meals, nutritionally complete but utterly tasteless, slid through a slot in the door. The total isolation.

I had held onto one thing: my innocence. I believed that one day, the truth would come out. That Marcus was working tirelessly to clear my name.

What a fool I'd been.

My old terminal was still on the desk in my room, but my credentials were void. I was locked out. But Marcus was arrogant. He always believed he was smarter than everyone else, including me.

I went to his study. He and Alex had gone to bed. The room smelled of his expensive cologne and whiskey. I sat at his desk, my fingers flying over the keyboard, using the old back-door administrative codes my father had built into the Directorate's system decades ago. Passwords he thought only he knew.

I was in.

His private server was a monument to his ambition. But hidden beneath layers of corporate encryption were personal files. It didn't take me long to find them.

A folder labeled "C."

It was full of encrypted communications between him and Chloe, my adopted sister. My sweet, charming little sister who always looked at me with just a little too much admiration.

The messages went back years. They detailed not just an affair, but a partnership. They had planned my downfall together. Chloe fed him the information about Alex's "prank," and Marcus saw the opportunity.

Then I found the blueprints.

Detailed schematics for a state-of-the-art personal security system. Biometric scanners, motion-sensitive turrets, a panic room with an independent air supply. It was a fortress. The project file was named "Chloe's Nest."

I remembered, years ago, before my arrest, I had asked Marcus to upgrade the security in my personal wing. I was the Head Auditor then, a prime target.

He had laughed it off. "My skills are rusty, darling," he'd said. "Let the tech boys handle it."

He was never rusty. He just wasn't building it for me. The betrayal was a physical weight, pressing down on me, crushing the air from my lungs. He had been planning to replace me, in every way, long before I was ever sent away.