Chapter 2

Elodie POV:

The Oak Room reeked of smug satisfaction, old leather, and expensive smoke. It was a world away from the sterile scent of my lab, a place where men like Barrett Ball carved up the world over single-malt scotch. I slipped in, a ghost in my simple jeans and lab coat, completely invisible to the clientele in their bespoke suits.

I found him easily, holding court in a plush corner booth, a halo of blue smoke around his perfectly styled dark hair. He was laughing, a deep, rumbling sound that used to make my heart flutter. Now, it made my stomach turn. I ducked behind a large potted palm, my heart pounding against my ribs, a sickening drumbeat of dread and fury. His friends, a pack of slick venture capitalists I recognized from company galas, were flanking him.

I was about to step forward, to confront him, when a voice cut through the low hum of the lounge.

"So, Barrett," one of his friends, a man named Julian, drawled, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. "Now that you've finally locked down Dallas, what's going to happen to your little science project? The one in the lab coat?"

My blood ran cold. My fists clenched so tightly my nails dug into my palms. They knew. They all knew about me. I wasn't a secret. I was a joke.

Barrett took a long, slow drag from his cigar, the tip glowing like a malevolent red eye. He exhaled a perfect smoke ring. "Elodie? She' ll keep working. She' s a genius. The bio-printed kidney is almost viable. She' s doing it for me. She' d do anything for me."

His tone was so casual, so dismissive. He was talking about my life's work, my passion, as if it were a tool he' d commissioned. He was talking about me as if I were a possession.

"And what happens if her research fails?" another friend, Leo, chimed in, a cruel smirk on his face. "Dallas is running out of time."

Barrett chuckled, a low, confident sound that sent a shard of ice through my heart. "I have a backup plan."

"Oh?" Julian leaned in, intrigued. "Don't tell me you're going to let your little pet scientist go. She's got a nice pair of..."

"She's got a nice pair of kidneys," Barrett cut him off, his voice flat and cold. "Perfect match for Dallas. We checked."

The world tilted again, more violently this time. I felt the air rush out of my lungs, a gasp I couldn't suppress. A backup plan. I was the backup plan. My own body was the collateral for his fiancée's life. This wasn't love. This wasn't even a transaction. This was vivisection.

Leo whistled, a low, impressed sound. "Damn, Barrett. That's cold. But what makes you think she'll just... roll over and agree to that? Smart girls like her have principles."

This is where the corner of Barrett's mouth lifted into a smirk I knew all too well. It was the smirk he used when he was closing a deal, the one that meant he had his opponent cornered with no way out.

"Let's just say I have leverage," he said, tapping the ash from his cigar. "Seven years is a long time. People get... comfortable. They let their guard down. We have a lot of home movies."

The implication hit me with the force of a physical blow. The videos. The intimate, private moments I thought were ours, shared in the sacred space of our love. He had filmed us. Not as mementos, but as blackmail.

"You're a sick bastard," Julian said, but he was grinning. They were all grinning. "So you'll just show her the tapes and tell her to hand over a kidney or you'll ruin her reputation?"

"Something like that," Barrett confirmed, taking a sip of his scotch. "She's so emotionally naive. Believes in the purity of science, the sanctity of love. A little public humiliation would destroy her. She'll choose the surgery. She'll see it as the only noble option left."

He called me naive. He was using my love, my trust, my very nature against me.

"And what do you get out of it?" Leo asked.

Barrett shrugged, the picture of detached pragmatism. "Either way, Dallas gets a kidney. If Elodie's research works, I'm a hero who funded a medical miracle. If it fails, I'm a hero who convinced a 'selfless donor' to save my fiancée's life. The board at Fernandez Health is already greasing the wheels for my new position once Dallas is healthy and we're married. It's a win-win."

I was a research project. A spare part. A stepping stone. My entire existence, my love, my genius, had been reduced to two possible outcomes in his sociopathic cost-benefit analysis.

I couldn't breathe. I backed away from the palm, my vision tunneling. The laughter of the men in the booth faded into a dull roar. I stumbled out of the lounge, the cool night air doing nothing to quell the fire in my lungs.

I was laughing. A broken, hysterical sound that tore from my throat. Tears streamed down my face, hot and furious. How could I have been so stupid? So blind? For seven years, I had believed I was in a love story, when all along, I was just a lab rat in a very elaborate experiment.

My phone rang, cutting through my desperate laughter. The screen glowed with a name: Dr. Conrad Slater. My old university mentor, a titan in the biomedical field. He'd warned me about Barrett, in his own subtle, academic way. He'd said, "A man who keeps a mind like yours in the shadows has something to hide, Elodie." I hadn't listened.

I swiped to answer, my voice a ragged whisper. "Dr. Slater?"

"Elodie," his voice was calm, a stark contrast to the hurricane inside me. "I apologize for the late hour. But the board for the Alpine Institute met tonight. The directorship of the regenerative medicine division in Switzerland... they've offered it to you."

It was the most prestigious research position in the world. A top-secret, government-funded facility nestled in the Swiss Alps. A fortress of science. An escape.

"I'll take it," I said, the words coming out before I'd even fully formed the thought. The grief and rage in my chest coalesced into a single, sharp point of certainty. Survival.

There was a pause on the other end. "Elodie? Are you sure? Last week you said you couldn't possibly leave your current project. Or... him."

"I'm sure," I said, my voice gaining strength. "He's not a factor anymore. When can I leave?"

"The sooner the better," Dr. Slater said, his tone shifting, sensing the urgency. "The work is highly classified. We'll need to arrange for your... extraction. Quietly. I can have a private jet at a discrete airfield ready in forty-eight hours."

"Thank you, Conrad," I said, my voice breaking with a different emotion now: gratitude. "Thank you."

I hung up and looked down at my hand. On my finger was a simple silver ring, a Celtic knot. Barrett had given it to me on our first anniversary. He'd told me it symbolized our eternal, interwoven connection. I remembered the day clearly. We were in my tiny apartment, sunlight streaming through the window, the air smelling of the cheap coffee I used to drink. He' d slid it onto my finger, his eyes so full of what I' d mistaken for love. No matter where we are, Elodie, we are connected. Like this knot. Forever.

He' d said it was a placeholder. A promise of the diamond that would one day replace it when we could finally be public. What a fool I was. The ring wasn't a promise. It was a brand. A mark of ownership.

The bitter irony was almost funny. He wanted to force me to be a "selfless donor"? He wanted to use my body to save his precious Dallas?

The night air was suddenly cold, and a light drizzle began to fall, plastering my hair to my face. I didn't move to find shelter. The rain was a welcome shock, a physical sensation that momentarily numbed the inferno of betrayal inside me. I tilted my face up to the sky, letting the cold drops wash away my hot tears.

Let him think he had me cornered. Let him play out his sick, manipulative games. He had underestimated his "naive little scientist." He thought he could break my spirit. He had no idea he had just unleashed it.

The cold was seeping into my bones now, a deep, pervasive chill. My body started to shake, not from the rain, but from the sheer weight of the emotional trauma. The world started to spin, the city lights blurring into long, wet streaks. My knees buckled.

The last thing I remembered was the cold, hard pavement rushing up to meet me.

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