Chapter 5 - THE CONSPIRACYNathan stepped forward, his massive frame shielding Clarissa from Julian’s gaze.
"Watch your mouth, Sterling," Nathan growled, his jaw tight. "You're standing in my hall."
"Not for long, Nathan," Julian purred, swirling his scotch. "Aris Thorne brought me your complete software schematics this afternoon. I know your $2 billion machine has a fatal flaw in its telemetry core. When the FDA inspects your platform on live broadcast tomorrow morning, it will fail."
Clarissa stepped out from behind Nathan, her posture regal and fearless.
"Aris gave you the outdated codebase, Julian," Clarissa stated smoothly. "The code he stole was the uncalibrated version from three days ago."
Julian’s arrogant smile wavered for a fraction of a second.
"It doesn't matter," Julian sneered, leaning closer to whisper. "Tomorrow at 9:00 AM, my short-sellers will dump fifty million shares of Ellsworth Dynamics. By noon, your company will be bankrupt, Nathan. And Clarissa... I’ll make sure the FBI finally puts you in a federal prison for violating your blacklist."
Julian turned and walked away into the crowd, laughing alongside Thorne.
Clarissa felt her heart racing against her ribs. She looked up at Nathan.
"He’s going to crash the stock market opening tomorrow, Nathan," she whispered. "If the machine stutters during the live demonstration, your investors will panic."
May you like
Nathan turned to Clarissa, reaching up to gently touch her cheek, his eyes filled with absolute, unshakeable trust.
"Then we have twelve hours to rewrite forty thousand lines of telemetry code, Dr. Vance," Nathan said gently. "Are you ready to rebuild your empire?"
