Chapter 14
YARA
The silence in the boardroom is a scream no one hears.
I sit at the head of the table—my table, or what used to be—and watch as a legal execution unfolds. Polite voices. Clinical hand gestures. Smiles sharpened to razors. Everyone’s dressed like nothing’s wrong, but I can feel the ambush in my teeth.
“We’ve reviewed the terms, Ms. Greenfield,” says the woman across from me, sleek and glacial in a cobalt pantsuit. “There’s no precedent for halting the takeover at this stage. You ceded majority leverage two quarters ago.”
I stare at her.
Because I don’t understand the words.
Not really.
Not through the static rushing in my ears.
“No,” I say. My voice comes out like broken glass—sharp, fragile. “That’s not possible. Tidball only had thirteen percent. We checked this. We audited—”
“Those holdings were redistributed. Tranches shifted. Silent partners activated.” She tilts her head, apologetic. “It was surgical. Elegant, honestly.”
Surgical.
Elegant.
Like a fucking knife to the spine.
I feel my nails digging into the table’s edge. Feel the varnish crack under the pressure.
“Someone should have warned me,” I say.
The woman offers a tight-lipped smile. “You were warned. The memos were sent. Your comm logs confirm receipt.”
“I was told they were irrelevant.”
I don’t name him.
But his shadow is thick in the room.
Tidball.
Jonathan.
Mentor. Advisor. Betrayer.
I can’t breathe.
I stand.
Too fast.
The chair screeches backward and nearly topples, but I don’t stop. I walk out—heel steps echoing like gunshots against the obsidian flooring. My compad is buzzing in my palm, message after message lighting up the screen.
Security audit pending.
Legal team escalation requested.
Shareholder emergency call scheduled in ten.
I swipe them all away.
I don’t care.
Not right now.
Not with the hallway warping around me like a bad dream, walls too close, lights too bright.
I reach the executive elevator, slap the panel. The doors hiss open. I step inside, hit the button for the top floor, and try not to throw up.
The walls are mirrored.
I catch a glimpse of myself.
And hate what I see.
I look like my mother.
Polished.
Composed.
Poised for surrender.
I press my forehead to the cool wall and exhale slowly.
When did I stop being a person?
When did I become a brand with skin?
I can feel everything cracking beneath me. Not just the company. Not just the board.
Me.
My foundation.
My spine.
I needed Grau.
And I sent him away.
I get to my office and lock the door.
The windows show the skyline of Helios City—sharp towers, neon reflections, clouds that move too fast to be natural. It’s beautiful. It’s cruel. It’s mine.
No. It was mine.
Now it belongs to Jonathan fucking Tidball.
My father’s oldest friend.
The man I trusted when I didn’t trust myself.
The man who handed me recaf with a smile while gutting me from the inside out.
I sink to the floor beside the desk. Not the chair. Not the couch.
The floor.
Cold. Grounding. Real.
I grip my compad and scroll through the last message he sent me.
"You did wonderfully. This will stabilize everything. Be proud of yourself."
It makes me want to scream.
But I don’t.
I don’t have the breath.
The door buzzes.
I don’t answer.
It buzzes again.
“Ms. Greenfield?” comes a voice. “Security’s requesting clearance to access your network nodes. They said it was pre-approved by new executive leadership.”
New.
Executive.
Leadership.
It hits me like a slow-motion train.
I’ve already lost.
The takeover wasn’t a threat. It was a fucking conclusion.
My permissions will vanish by the hour. My access will shrink until I’m just a face on a shareholder card. A minor note in someone else’s history.
I press the comm button with a shaking hand.
“Tell them… I’m not available.”
“But—”
“Tell them.”
The silence that follows is full of pity.
I curl tighter against the desk, the breath knocked out of me from nothing at all.
I remember being a kid.
Sneaking into Dad’s office.
Sitting in his chair when no one was looking, pretending to give orders, pretending I understood what his diagrams meant, what the tech did.
He used to laugh. Call me his little CEO.
And now?
Now his company’s gone.
Sold.
Sliced.
Rerouted through legal maneuvering and corporate sabotage and my own goddamn inexperience.
There’s no fix.
No loop to close.
I hear myself whisper the words before I even realize they’ve formed.
“It’s gone.”
And I mean everything.
Not just the name on the building. Not just the control over projects or initiatives or direction.
My father’s legacy.
The dream he bled for.
Everything I swore I’d protect.
Gone.
And it happened so quietly.
I feel wetness on my face before I feel the cry building in my throat.
I hate it.
I hate the weakness.
I hate that Grau’s not here. I hate that I pushed him away.
I hate that part of me still hopes he’ll come crashing through the window or tearing down the walls or something.
Because he wouldn’t have let this happen.
He would’ve smelled the lie.
Would’ve gutted Tidball before the first memo hit my inbox.
Would’ve ripped through every shareholder with enough bone and blood to make the boardroom a war crime.
But he’s gone.
And this?
This is what’s left without him.
My compad buzzes again.
A new message.
URGENT: You are requested to vacate your private quarters in the CY8 Tower within seventy-two hours.
I laugh.
It’s short.
Ugly.
Unhinged.
They’ve already packed the guillotine and boxed my crown.
I slump against the desk, fingers curling into the floor. My breathing hitches, too fast. I can't stop it. The tears are hot. Angry. Humiliating.
I’m not Yara Greenfield.
I’m just a placeholder in a bloodless coup.
And the worst part?
I played along.
I signed the papers.
Smiled at the cameras.
Postponed negotiations to go on a date with the wrong person pretending to be the right one.
And then I fell for him anyway.
And then I lost everything.
I get home, and I don’t remember falling asleep.
But I must have.
Because I wake up to dusk shadows and the low buzz of the skyline filtering through the glass. My face is stiff. My body aches. My hair’s stuck to my cheek in a dried tear pattern.
The compad’s screen is dark.
No one called.
No one came.
Except maybe…
No.
I push the thought away before it can finish forming.
If Grau cared, he’d be here.
And if he is out there?
It’s too late.
The damage is done.
Tidball has won.
And I’m…
I’m just a girl on the floor of a dead dream, waiting for someone to tell her where to go next.
I don’t move for a long time.
The light changes. Colors slide across the windows—helium blue, scorched pink, acidic gold—like the city can’t decide what mood it’s in. Somewhere beneath me, turbines hum and transport rails scream past intersections. The tower breathes without me.
And for the first time, I realize I’m not part of it anymore.
I’m furniture.
I’m residue.
I’m a name on the bottom of a takeover form someone else filed.
The compad buzzes again.
I ignore it.
Let it ring until the sound becomes part of the walls.
The taste in my mouth is bitter. Metal and stale recaf and something worse—regret, maybe. Shame. I scrub a palm across my face, trying to rub away the ache behind my eyes, the guilt coiled in my stomach like it grew teeth overnight.
And I keep thinking about him.
About Grau.
His silence.
His absence.
And how, no matter how angry I was, no matter how betrayed I felt, the space he left behind is bigger than the betrayal.
It’s everything.
I sit up slowly. My spine aches from sleeping on the floor, my neck clicks when I twist it, and I swear I smell like old tears and synthetic leather polish.
“Classy,” I mutter, dragging myself upright with the edge of the desk.
The office lights adjust automatically. Too bright.
“Off,” I snap.
Darkness wraps around me like a blanket I didn’t ask for. I stand at the window, arms crossed tight, and stare at the city that once bowed to my surname.
My father’s world.
My world.
No. Tidball’s now.
And that thought—that thought—finally cuts deeper than anything else.
Because it doesn’t make sense.
None of it.
Not the timing. Not the paperwork. Not the way all the shares shifted like clockwork while I was distracted with dates and meetings and crises that never quite resolved.
I start pacing.
My thoughts move faster than my steps.
Tidball was always there.
Every fire I tried to put out—he was there with the hose.
Every crack I noticed in the foundation—he already had a plaster kit ready.
Every time I questioned myself, he had answers. Soothing ones. Clever ones. Delivered with just enough reassurance to keep me from looking deeper.
“God,” I whisper. “Did he plan all of it?”
I reach for my compad.
My hands shake.
I pull up the comm log.
Every major pivot I made—there’s a call from Tidball logged within the same window.
The expansion veto I reversed? Tidball.
The procurement freeze I lifted? Tidball.
The date with Grau?
Tidball.
I scroll.
Faster. Frantic.
There’s a pattern.
One I didn’t see.
Because he didn’t want me to.
Because he built it like a web and stood just far enough outside it to look like a friend.
I sit back down. Not on the floor this time. The desk chair welcomes me like I still belong here.
I don’t.
But I fake it anyway.
“Okay,” I whisper to the room. “If Tidball played me… then who didn’t?”
And that thought—that single thought—is what finally unravels me.
Because the answer is simple.
Grau.
I don’t hesitate.
I open the comm line.
I ping his ID. It shows active. For half a second.
Then it vanishes.
Unavailable.
Encrypted.
I try again.
Then a third time.
“Come on,” I whisper. “Come on, Grau. Just—just pick up. Say something. Curse at me. Growl. Anything.”
Nothing.
Only static.
The line won’t even let me leave a message. Like he scrubbed it. Like he’s gone.
And suddenly the silence feels heavier than the betrayal.
He was a monster. Dangerous. Unpredictable. Sharp in ways I didn’t understand and didn’t always want to.
But he never lied.
He never tricked me.
He never smiled while setting fire to everything I loved.
He warned me about Tidball.
He tried to protect me.
And I sent him away like a child swatting at a shadow under the bed.
Because I didn’t want to believe the monster was real.
Because I was scared of what it meant if he was right.
And now I’m alone.
Not in the metaphorical, tragic way that makes people tear up in bad movies.
Alone alone.
No allies.
No leverage.
No him.
I stand again, dizzy with grief and fury.
How did I miss it?
How did I not see what Tidball was doing?
How did I not see what Grau was trying to do?
And why—why—do I still feel like there’s something left to lose when everything’s already gone?
I turn on the overhead light.
There, on the console, blinking patiently, is the official takeover notice.
Still waiting.
Still smug.
I walk toward it slowly. Like it’s a bomb. Like it might explode if I breathe wrong.
The file opens with a simple touch.
My name.
My title.
Revoked.
Effective immediately.
There’s a line at the bottom that reads:
All further communications regarding CY8 business must be routed through acting CEO Jonathan Tidball.
And that?
That’s the kill shot.
Not the loss of the title.
Not the loss of the building or the tech or the contracts or the legacy.
It’s that his name is the last thing on the paper.
The signature on the grave of my father’s dream.
And mine.
I don’t cry this time.
There’s nothing left for tears to fix.
I just… fold.
I fold down into the chair, legs pulled up, arms wrapped around my knees like some corporate orphan, and stare at the screen until the lines blur.
Until the pain stops feeling sharp.
Until it just is.
A constant.
A companion.
A punishment.
And maybe that’s the worst part.
Not that I lost.
But that I let it happen.
That I didn’t fight harder.
That I didn’t trust the one person who looked at me like I was worth burning a galaxy for.
And now?
He’s gone.
And the silence is forever.