“They want me to sign a statement,” he confessed one night. “Saying you were unstable before the accident. If I sign, I keep my job—with a raise. If I don’t, Thomas says I’ll never work in this city again.”
Fear trembled in his voice.
“I’m scared,” he admitted. “Lily needs braces. College isn’t cheap. But I won’t lie about you. You’re demanding, yes. But you’re brilliant. I won’t betray you.”
That was the moment something shifted inside her. His loyalty wasn’t strategic. It was moral. And she had underestimated the value of that.
On the ninth day, everything accelerated.
Daniel burst into her room, pale.
“They moved the vote up. Ten minutes. They’re declaring you permanently incapacitated.”
He gripped the bed rail.
“They fired me. I tried to stop them. I couldn’t.”
Silence.
Then the faint rustle of sheets.
His eyes snapped down. Her hand curled into a fist.
Her eyes opened—clear, focused.
“I’ve heard everything,” she rasped.
“Victoria—don’t—”
She tore the ventilator tube free, gasping as pain ripped through her chest.
“Wheelchair,” she demanded. “Now.”
Minutes later, Thomas stood at the boardroom table.
“A painful but necessary decision,” he began smoothly. “For the good of the company—”