The blood drained from my face so fast I got dizzy. My knees buckled—actually gave out like someone had cut the strings.
Alan caught me. His arm around my waist, his own face pale with controlled fury. The kind of control that meant he was about three seconds from putting his fist through another wall.
"He's killing her," I whispered. The words came out choked, barely audible. "He's actually killing her."
Not letting her die. Actively killing her. Reducing her dosage. Watching her deteriorate. Measuring how fast his AI could predict her death.
My daughter was a data point in Henri's fucking experiment.
Alan didn't answer. Just released me—made sure I was steady first—then strode to his desk with movements so sharp and violent they looked like violence contained in a suit.
He snapped his laptop open. Started typing with that manic energy that meant his brain was running faster than his fingers could move.
"I have the Geneva formula," he said. Voice low, growling, CEO mode on overdrive. "I can bypass Henri. Synthesize it myself. I have access to Veridian's production labs, I have the compounds, I can—"
He was navigating through layers of security. I watched over his shoulder as he bypassed firewall after firewall, accessing systems I didn't know existed.
The Iris production mainframe. The nerve center that controlled synthesis protocols for every compound Veridian produced.
He entered his command. Hit enter.
The screen flashed red.
ACCESS DENIED.
"What?" His voice went flat. Dangerous.
He typed his override code—the one that was supposed to give him access to literally everything in the company. CEO-level clearance. Nuclear option credentials.
ACCESS DENIED: PENDING ADMINISTRATIVE (DELAUNAY, H.) APPROVAL.
For maybe three seconds, neither of us moved. Just stared at that blinking red message like it might change if we looked at it hard enough.
Then Alan slammed the laptop shut. The sound was like a gunshot in the silent penthouse.
"He locked me out." His voice was dead. Completely void of emotion, which was somehow worse than rage. "After we left his house, he must have anticipated this exact move. Put a hold on all Iris production that doesn't have his direct signature."
He looked at me. Eyes hollow. Defeated. "He beat us."
I stared at the closed laptop. At the end of our last, desperate plan. At forty-eight hours becoming forty-seven, forty-six, each minute ticking down while we stood here powerless.
No. Fuck that. Fuck Henri. Fuck his checkmate.
"No," I said. My voice came out hard. Cold. The kind of cold that happens when you've burned through panic and landed in pure survival mode. "He beat us on the medical front. But you were right this morning."
Alan looked up. Confused. Hopeful. Desperate.
"He's unstable," I continued, my brain clicking through possibilities faster than I could articulate.
"A full board meeting is too slow—takes days to organize, days to vote, days to implement. But forty-eight hours..." I looked at him. "We don't need to convince the board. We need to blackmail them."
Something shifted in his expression. The despair draining away, replaced by cold calculation. The Man of Glass rebuilding himself in real-time.
"We need something so damaging," I continued, the plan forming as I spoke, "that it forces an immediate transfer of power. Today. Right now."
"A silver bullet," Alan said softly.
He grabbed his phone. Started dialing. "Something that makes Henri give us the serum immediately or watch his entire empire collapse."
The phone rang twice. "Anna."
"Well, that was a short-lived truce," Anna's voice dripped through the speaker—ice and sarcasm and I don't have time for this bullshit. "Did you call to tell me the deal's off?"
"The timeline changed," Alan said. Flat. Urgent. Zero bullshit. "Amélie is dying. Regression accelerating. We have forty-eight hours to destroy him. Not oust him—destroy him. A board vote is too slow. I need leverage. I need something that ends him right now."
Silence on the line. I could hear it—the shift from annoyed to calculating. The sound of Anna's brain switching gears from personal grievance to strategic warfare.
Then a faint click. Keyboard. She was already working.
"He's ruthless," Anna said finally. Tone all business now. "To get him, you need to be worse. You need his financial secrets—the ones he's spent decades hiding."
She paused. "Give me two hours."
The line went dead.
Two hours. One hundred and twenty minutes. Seven thousand two hundred seconds of waiting while Amélie's fever climbed and her body failed and Henri sat in his mansion drinking coffee like he hadn't just murdered his own great-granddaughter.
Those were the longest two hours of my entire life.
We sat in the silent penthouse. Didn't speak. Couldn't speak. What was there to say? The clock on the wall ticked like a bomb. Each second a small explosion of time we didn't have.
I tried calling Sofia. Three times. Each call went straight to voicemail—which meant she was either in with Amélie or avoiding us because the news was too bad to deliver.
Alan paced. Tie ripped off at some point. Shirt sleeves rolled up. Phone clutched in his hand like a weapon. Back and forth across that obscene living room, wearing a path in carpet that probably cost more than most people's cars.
I sat on the couch. Watched him. Watched the clock. Felt time moving at that weird speed where every second is simultaneously too fast and too slow.
Forty-eight hours became forty-seven. Became forty-six.
Amélie was dying. That thought just kept cycling. My daughter is dying. My daughter is dying. My daughter is dying.
The mantra of every parent's worst nightmare.
Finally—FINALLY—the phone rang.
Alan snatched it before the first ring finished. "Anna."
"I have him," Anna's voice was triumphant. Pure satisfaction. The sound of someone who'd just won the lottery or solved an impossible puzzle. "I have your silver bullet. Do you know the name Etienne Dubois?"
"Dubois?" Alan frowned, searching his memory. "He was our CFO. Retired five, maybe six years ago. Heart condition, I think."
"Wrong," Anna said. I could hear the smile in her voice—sharp and vicious and absolutely delighted. "He was fired. Publicly it was 'early retirement for health reasons.' Privately, Henri buried him. Discredited him. Blacklisted him from every major bank in Europe."
She let that sink in. "Why? Because Dubois was the one who built the shell corporations for Iris. Every offshore account. Every laundered euro. Every bribed politician."
Alan's eyes widened. "He's not just a witness—"
"He's the ledger," Anna finished. "Walking, talking evidence of three decades of financial crimes. And he's been hiding in plain sight for five years, terrified Henri would finish the job and put him in the ground for real."
My heart was pounding. This was it. This was the weapon.
"Where is he?" Alan demanded.
"19th arrondissement. Working as a simple accountant—can you believe it? CFO of a billion-euro company reduced to doing taxes for small businesses." She gave him the address. "He'll be expecting you. I called his private line. Told him his day of reckoning had finally come."
Her voice dropped. "He's ready to talk, Alan. He's been waiting five years for someone powerful enough to take Henri down. He's ready to burn Henri to the ground."