Keely stared down the eight senior executives in the room. Her eyes were sharp and unforgiving.
Pax Vance, the head of engineering, bounced out of his chair. His curly hair was a mess. He nearly knocked over his black coffee.
He swiped his tablet, projecting a massive web of code onto the center hologram.
"The A4 AI core algorithm finally broke the processing bottleneck!" Pax's voice shook with excitement.
A collective gasp echoed in the room. The executives grinned at each other.
Keely did not smile. She narrowed her eyes at the floating data stream.
She raised her hand and pointed to a tiny string of numbers in the top left corner.
"Line 214 of Module C," Keely said, her voice cutting through the excitement. "There is a logic redundancy. If we hit peak server load, the system will crash."
Pax froze. His smile dropped. He looked down at his keyboard and started typing frantically.
Thirty seconds later, he sucked in a sharp breath. He looked up at Keely, his eyes wide with absolute worship.
He deleted the redundant code. The simulation speed on the hologram instantly jumped by fifteen percent.
The room erupted into applause.
Keely raised a hand. Silence fell immediately.
She tapped a button on the table. A classified business proposal replaced the code on the hologram.
"The merger with Axiom Dynamics is in the final stage," Keely announced. Her voice was calm but carried heavy weight.
"This A4 tech will destroy the current financial risk-management market. It is our key to stepping out of the shadows."
She leaned forward. Her eyes turned lethal.
"I am issuing a level-one gag order. If anyone leaks a single line of code, I will bankrupt you and blacklist you from this industry forever."
She looked at Arthur. "Lock down the Axiom contracts."
She looked at Pax. "Total tech blackout for the next week. No external servers."
"Meeting adjourned."
The executives filed out quickly, fueled by adrenaline and fear.
Keely stood alone in the empty room. She walked to the floor-to-ceiling window.
Across the East River, the Manhattan skyline towered over the water. Her eyes locked onto the massive glass building owned by the Jones family.
She picked up Pax's cold coffee and took a sip.
A dark smirk played on her lips. Once the Axiom deal went public, she would have enough capital to rip Haden's empire apart.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket.
It was a text from Maria, the housekeeper.
Madam, Mr. Jones is asking what you would like for dinner.
