“You think you’re a hero?” she sneered down at me. “You’re just a temporary mascot. Pierce Meridian is a machine. You cut off my head, another grows back. The system is designed to crush people like you.”

“Maybe,” I said, wiping a flake of dried mud from my cheek. “But today, the machine choked.”

Grayson pointed at the door. “You’re fired, Cassandra. Security will escort you out. Expect a call from our legal department regarding corporate espionage and fraud.”

As she was escorted out, the room felt as if a heavy smog had lifted.

Owen still stared blankly at the table — a broken man realizing that the culture of negligence he’d fostered had almost killed his own son, and that the woman he’d tried to destroy had saved him.

Chapter 6 — The Offer

Grayson dismissed the rest of the room until it was just the two of us in the quiet War Room.