Chapter 2

The next morning, the attack escalated. It wasn't just a media blitz; it was a formal declaration of war. Ava was in her office, running on nothing but caffeine and fury, when her lawyer, Mark, called.

"Ava, you're not going to believe this," Mark said, his voice tight with disbelief. "I just received a notice. The Sterling Group is suing Zenith Designs."

Ava gripped the phone tighter. "Suing us? For what?"

"Intellectual property theft," Mark said, and the sheer audacity of it left Ava speechless for a second. "They're claiming the 'Nexus Tower' design is a derivative of their pre-existing, confidential 'Odyssey Spire' project. They're filing for an immediate injunction to halt all work on your project and are seeking damages."

Ava let out a sharp, bitter laugh. "They steal my blueprints, announce a knockoff version of my tower, and then sue me for stealing from them? Is this a joke?"

"They're not joking, Ava. They've submitted sworn affidavits and what looks like a mountain of falsified documents-design timelines, concept sketches, meeting minutes-all dated months before you even unveiled Nexus Tower."

The pieces clicked into place with sickening clarity. This wasn't just a leak. It was a deep, meticulously planned conspiracy. Liam hadn't just handed them the keys; he had helped them build a fortress of lies around the theft.

They weren't just trying to steal her design; they were trying to erase her authorship of it completely, to rewrite history and paint her as the thief.

"They're trying to bury us in legal fees and tie up our most important project in court until we bleed out," Ava said, her mind racing. "It's a classic Sterling Sr. move. Brutal and thorough."

"Exactly," Mark agreed. "And the media is eating it up. The narrative they're spinning is that the brilliant young CEO of Zenith Designs got in over her head and stole from the established industry titan."

As if on cue, her assistant buzzed in. "Ms. Reed, the board members are calling. All of them. And the phones are ringing off the hook with reporters."

"Tell the board I'm handling it and I'll call an emergency meeting for this afternoon. Don't say anything to the press," Ava instructed, her voice steady despite the chaos erupting around her.

The emergency board meeting was a disaster. The conference room, usually a place of strategic discussion, was filled with panic. The members, most of whom had known her father and had supported her rise to CEO, now looked at her with a mixture of fear and accusation.

"Ava, what is this? Sued for theft?" Mr. Davies, a senior board member and a man she had always considered a pillar of support, asked, his face etched with worry. "Our stock is down fifteen percent since the market opened. Our primary investors for the Nexus project are threatening to pull out."

"It's a fraudulent lawsuit based on stolen data," Ava explained, keeping her voice even and calm. "The Sterling Group is attempting a hostile maneuver."

"How could our data be stolen?" another member demanded. "Our security is supposed to be ironclad!"

Ava took a breath. "The breach was internal. It was my assistant, Liam Stone."

The name dropped into the room like a stone, followed by a wave of murmurs and shocked gasps. Davies looked particularly horrified. "Liam? But he was so dedicated. He... he lived with you, didn't he?"

The question hung in the air, a thinly veiled accusation. Ava felt a flush of anger. They weren't just questioning her business acumen; they were questioning her personal judgment.

"His personal relationship with me is irrelevant," she said, her tone sharp enough to cut the murmurs short. "He was a traitor. He has been dealt with. What matters now is our response."

She realized then that Mr. Sterling Sr. wasn't just attacking her company. He was attacking her. He had found her one vulnerability-her trust in Liam-and had exploited it to perfection. He knew this would not only cripple her firm but also destabilize her leadership from within by making her look foolish and compromised. The attack was surgical, aimed at her authority, her credibility, and her spirit.

"What is our response?" Davies pressed, wringing his hands. "Their case looks strong, even if it's fake. A legal battle like this could take years, and we don't have years."

Ava stood at the head of the table, her gaze sweeping over each worried face. The panic in the room was a tangible thing, a poison that could sink the company faster than any lawsuit. She had to be the antidote.

"Our response is to fight," she declared, her voice ringing with a conviction she had to force herself to feel. "We will not be intimidated. Mark is already preparing our countersuit. We have time-stamped digital records, preliminary models, and hundreds of hours of video logs from the design phase that predate their fabricated evidence. We will prove they are the thieves."

She laid out her initial plan: a PR counter-offensive, a deep dive into their own security logs to prove the exact time and nature of the data breach, and a direct appeal to their investors to hold the line.

"I need your support," she concluded, looking directly at Davies. "I need this board to stand united. Panicking is what they want us to do. We will not give them the satisfaction."

Her speech seemed to calm some of the immediate fears, but the skepticism remained. She had bought herself some time, but she knew it was fleeting. After the meeting, she sat alone in the conference room. The setting sun cast long shadows across the table, mirroring the darkness she felt creeping into her own resolve.

Just as she was about to leave, her phone buzzed with an alert from a news app. A new headline, this time from a major financial paper: "Zenith Designs Under Fire: Allegations of Unsafe Practices at Nexus Tower Construction Site."

Her blood ran cold. The lawsuit was a diversion. The real attack was just beginning. They weren't just coming for her design; they were coming for everything.