The meeting was adjourned but Alan didn't wait for anyone to stand. He grabbed my hand, his eyes blazing with a focus that had nothing to do with the corporate victory we'd just won. "Let's go."
He pulled me from the room, past the stunned board members, past Henri's ruined face. We bypassed the main elevators, his hand tight around mine as he yanked open the door to his private lift. The descent from the 40th floor was agonizingly silent, the air thick with unspoken terror. What if we're too late?
We were still in our armor from the battle—his dark suit, my black dress. Hours ago we'd been naked on his penthouse floor, tangled together like we could fuse into one person. Now we were racing against a clock we couldn't see, toward a daughter whose heart might already be stopping.
Alan drove the Bentley with controlled fury, tearing through Paris streets like the city owed him a debt. Grey stone and midday traffic blurred past the windows, trivial and insulting. My phone was open in my lap, Sofia's updates coming in real-time. Numbers. Just numbers on a screen, but they were Amélie's heartbeat, and they were dropping.
"She's fading, Alan." My voice came out strangled. "Her heart rate is dropping."
He didn't reply. His jaw was set like granite, his knuckles white on the steering wheel as he mounted the curb to bypass a stalled delivery truck. A horn blared behind us. He didn't even flinch.
He stopped the car at the Hôpital Américain emergency entrance, engine still running. We ran through the automatic doors, our polished shoes slipping on linoleum. I'd worn these heels to look professional, untouchable, powerful. Now I just wanted to kick them off and sprint.
We found Sofia in the pediatric ICU, standing over Amélie's bed. She looked defeated—face grey with exhaustion, eyes red-rimmed, that professional mask she always wore completely shattered. "Élise..." Her voice cracked. "It's not working. The last dose... there was no response. She's fading. We've done everything we can."
No. No, that wasn't acceptable. I opened my mouth but Alan beat me to it.
"You haven't," he said, his voice a low rumble that cut through the sterile beep of monitors. He was already on his phone, striding to the nurses' station with the kind of authority that made people move. "You've been giving her the wrong protocol."
Sofia stared at him, confusion shifting to anger. "Excuse me? Who the hell do you—"
Alan held up one hand, silencing her like she was a subordinate in a board meeting. His call connected. "This is Delaunay."
His CEO voice echoed down the corridor, absolute and terrifying.
"I am the sole authority of the 'Iris Project' and all its assets, effective immediately. You will transfer the entire 'Isolde' genetic database and the original serum formula—Protocol Alpha—to Dr. Sofia Marchand at the Hôpital Américain de Neuilly. You have five minutes, or I will personally ensure you spend the rest of your life in a courtroom."
He hung up. Just like that. No pleasantries, no negotiation.
Sofia stared at him. "Alan... what was that?"
"That," he said, his voice raw and stripped of all that corporate polish, "was the cure. The real one. My grandfather restricted it."
The computer at the nurses' station pinged. Then again. And again, like rapid gunfire. Massive encrypted files flooded the hospital's secure server. A moment later, a Veridian courier ran through the doors—actually ran, which should've been funny except nothing about this was funny—carrying a locked refrigerated case. He handed it to Sofia.
"From the CEO."
Sofia's hands trembled as she opened it. The vials inside were different—a different color, more complex, like comparing tap water to champagne. She pulled up the new data on screen, her eyes flying across the chemical breakdown. "My God," she breathed. "This is years ahead of what we've been using. He was only giving us the placebo."
"Prepare it," I urged, my voice tight with desperate hope and barely suppressed rage. Henri had been poisoning my daughter with fake medicine while keeping the real cure locked away. If he wasn't already destroyed, I'd kill him myself.
Sofia nodded, her professionalism snapping back into place. She drew the new serum into a syringe with steady hands. I rushed to Amélie's bed, grabbing her small, limp hand. Her skin was too pale, her breathing too shallow. "Hang on, mon ange. Please, hang on."
Alan stood on the other side of the bed, a protective sentinel. His gaze fixed on Amélie's face, and I saw something in his eyes I'd never seen before. Terror. Pure, unfiltered terror. Sofia administered the injection, the needle sliding into Amélie's IV line.
And then we waited.
The silence was unbearable. One minute. Five. Ten. The heart monitor kept its faint, shallow rhythm—beep... beep... beep. The numbers didn't change. My daughter's face stayed pale, her chest barely rising.
"It's not working," I whispered, tears streaming down my face. "Oh god, Alan... we were too late."
Alan's hand shot across the bed, grabbing mine in a grip that hurt. "No," he commanded, his voice shaking. "Wait."
He was staring at the monitor. I followed his gaze and saw it—the rhythm was changing. The faint beep... beep... beep... was becoming stronger, more insistent. Beep. Beep. Beep. The numbers on the screen stabilized, then began to climb. Amélie's oxygen saturation ticked up—92%, 94%, 96%.
"It's working," Sofia breathed, her eyes glued to the data. "Her vitals are responding."
I choked back a sob, my eyes flying to Amélie's face. Her eyelids flickered. A small, sighing breath left her lips, deeper than before. Real. Alive.
"Amélie?" I leaned over the bed, my heart hammering so hard I thought it might burst. "Can you hear me? Mommy's here."
Her eyes opened. Hazy, unfocused, but open. They slid past my face—didn't even register me—and landed on Alan.
He froze. Completely stopped breathing, his entire body going rigid.
She just stared at him. This tall, dark, intense man she'd never seen before in her life. A tiny, raspy whisper escaped her lips.
"...Papa?"
I stopped breathing. Alan looked at me, his face a mask of stunned confusion, and I realized instantly what had happened.
Amélie must have overheard me—those frantic whispered phone calls from the office, the panicked tearful calls from Geneva. She'd associated his name with the mythical "Papa" she'd never met but always asked about.
Alan Delaunay, the man who'd just conquered a billion-euro empire and destroyed his own grandfather, was completely undone. He sank into the chair beside the bed, his hand reaching out—trembling, uncertain—to touch his daughter's hair for the very first time.