Frank’s voice on the line sounded tight, stripped of its usual professional cool. "Daniel," Frank repeated, his tone dropping an octave. "You there?"

"You're insane," I said, my voice barely audible over the roar in my ears. "You're talking about harvesting children's lives for long-term equity yields."

"I'm talking about permanence, Daniel," Richard shot back, his eyes flashing with a sudden, fanatical intensity. "Stock prices fluctuate. Real estate bubbles burst. Empires rise and fall on political whims. But a biological dependency? That is the ultimate asset class. Unbreakable. Eternal."

"It ends tonight," I said, pulling my phone from my pocket. "I’m calling federal marshals. I’m handing over every server, every financial record, every patent registry connecting Vanguard to Foster Capital."

Richard smiled—a slow, chilling expression that didn't reach his eyes. "Go ahead, Daniel. Call them. But before you press dial, you might want to check the secure broadcast feed from the municipal hospital in Manhattan."

My thumb hovered over the screen. "What are you talking about?"

"Sam Miller wasn't a rogue agent, my boy. He was just the executive cleanup crew," Richard said smoothly, walking back toward his desk. "When you forced the municipal hospital to unlock Maya’s account and administer that emergency batch of biologics this morning... did you check the batch number?"

My blood ran cold. "What?"

"The serum you had delivered to Lily Santos wasn't the standard therapeutic batch," Richard said softly, leaning against the edge of his desk. "It was the Phase-Three delivery vector. The final integration dose."

I lunged forward, grabbing him by the throat this time, pinning him hard against the wall. "What did you do to her?"

"I didn't do anything," Richard choked out, a dark smile playing on his lips even as I tightened my grip. "The serum saved her life, Daniel. It stopped the respiratory collapse instantly. Just like it was designed to do. But once that specific vector enters the bloodstream... the child's DNA is permanently rewritten. She doesn't just need the serum to live now, Daniel. She is the carrier."

My phone buzzed violently in my hand.

It wasn't Frank.