---- Chapter 3 Althea Roberts POV: The moment the door clicked shut behind them, the mask of calm | had so carefully constructed fell away. A tremor ran through me, a violent, full-body shudder that had nothing to do with my injuries. The pain in my ribs was a dull ache compared to the hollow cavern that had opened up in my chest. | had let them go. | had let them take everything. It was the right move, the only move according to the chilling clarity of my premonition. Fighting them head-on was a path to annihilation. The vision was a gift, a warning. | had to pivot. But knowing something is the right strategic decision doesn 't stop it from feeling like you' re sawing off your own limb. Project Chimera wasn't just a project. It was my baby, the culmination of years of sleepless nights and relentless work. | had poured my soul into those algorithms and market projections. And Crawford... | had never been foolish enough to believe we had a grand, sweeping romance, but | thought we had respect. A partnership. | had trusted him. The trust was a phantom limb now, aching with a loss so profound it made me nauseous. | reached for the call button, my fingers clumsy and weak. A ---- nurse bustled in a few moments later. "l need my phone," | said, my voice hoarse. "And | need to speak to my financial advisor. Now." She looked at me with pity. "Honey, you just came out of a serious accident. You should be resting." "l'llrest when I'm dead," | muttered, the words tasting like acid. "Please. It's urgent." She must have seen the desperation in my eyes, because she returned a few minutes later with my purse. My phone screen was a spiderweb of cracks, but it turned on. The first thing | saw was a dozen missed calls from Jay Parrish, the junior analyst I' d been mentoring. He was a prodigy, a brilliant kid with an intuitive grasp of data patterns. He was the only other person who knew the true intricacies of Project Chimera. | ignored his calls for now. First things first. | dialed my advisor. "Sell it all," | said, the moment he picked up. "Every stock | have in Rodgers Corp and any company affiliated with Pierce Industries. Liquidate it. | don't care about the tax implications. | want the cash." There was a stunned silence on the other end. "Althea? Are you alright? That' s a significant portfolio. To sell it all at once will raise flags, not to mention the hit you'll take." "l am perfectly aware of the consequences," | said, my voice ---- like ice. "Just do it." Next, | called my lawyer. | repeated the instruction. "I'm out. | want my name scrubbed from every document related to the merger. I'm relinquishing my stake in the project." "But Althea, that project is your masterpiece! It's worth a fortune!" "A fortune I'll never see if | stay," | said. "Just draw up the papers. | want it done by the end of the day." The final call was the hardest. | pulled up a number | hadn't dialed in years, a contact buried deep in my phone. It rang three times before a quiet, steady voice answered. "Hello?" "Essex," | said, my throat suddenly dry. "It's Althea Roberts." A pause. | could picture him on the other end, Essex Page, heir to the crumbling Page Corp empire. The quiet, observant man who always lingered at the edges of industry events, looking perpetually out of place in his ill-fitting suits. The business world called him a dinosaur, an incompetent fool riding his family's company into the ground. My vision, however, had shown me something different. In the future where | was destroyed by Crawford and Brittany, Essex Page was the one who quietly, inexplicably, weathered the storm. While Pierce Industries imploded under the weight of Brittany' s fraudulent version of my project, Page Corp had ---- suddenly emerged, not as a dinosaur, but as a sleek, terrifying predator that devoured the scraps of its competitors. He was underestimated. And right now, an underestimated ally was exactly what | needed. "Althea," he said, his voice holding no surprise. "| heard about your accident. | hope you're recovering well." "| will be," | said. "Listen, Essex, | have a proposition for you." | took a breath, the words feeling foreign and insane on my tongue. "| know your latest R&D venture failed. | know your stock is in the toilet. | know everyone thinks you're finished." "A succinct and accurate summary," he said, a note of dry amusement in his tone. "| can fix it," | said, the words coming faster now. "I have a project. A real one. Not the garbage my sister is about to run into the ground. | have the original source code, the real algorithms. It's bigger than just logistics. It' s a predictive analytics engine that can be applied to almost any industry. And I'm willing to give it to you." Another silence. This one was longer, heavier. | could almost hear the gears turning in his brilliant, underestimated mind. "Give it to me?" he repeated. "The work of a lifetime? Forgive my skepticism, Althea, but that sounds too good to be true. What's the catch?" "The catch is you have to partner with me," | said. "Not as an ---- employee. As a full fifty-fifty partner. We build a new company, under the Page Corp umbrella but completely autonomous. My tech, your infrastructure. We start from the ground up, and we do it quietly. By the time they realize we're a threat, it will be too late." "'They' being Crawford Pierce and your sister," he stated, not as a question, but as a fact. "Yes." "This is about revenge," he said softly. "This is about survival," | corrected him. "Revenge is just a potential byproduct. I'm offering you a lifeline, Essex. The chance to prove everyone wrong. The question is, are you brave enough to take it?" | held my breath. My entire future, this insane, desperate gamble, rested on his answer. The Althea in the vision had no allies. This Althea would. He was quiet for so long | thought he had hung up. Then, he spoke, his voice low but charged with a sudden, intense energy. "Send me the prospectus," he said. "My private, encrypted server. You have the address." He did not wait for a reply. He simply hung up. | let the phone clatter onto the bedside table. My head was ---- spinning, and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead. This was it. | had just bet my entire future on a man the world considered a failure. A news alert lit up my cracked screen. *RODGERS-PIERCE MERGER ACCELERATED. BRITTANY HUBER "S$ "PROJECT ASCENSION" HAILED AS GAME-CHANGER. STOCK SOARS." They had already renamed it. My baby. My Chimera. They were moving fast, desperate to capitalize on the momentum. Good. Let them. Let them run as fast as they can in the wrong direction. | pulled up a secure messaging app and sent a single file to Essex Page. The real file. The one | kept on a microdrive disguised as a cufflink. Then | messaged Jay Parrish. "They have the decoy drive. | need you. Are you in or out?" His reply was instantaneous. "Where do | send my resignation letter?" A small, genuine smile touched my lips for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. The board was set. The pieces were in motion. Brittany and Crawford thought they had won the war. They didn't realize it had just begun. Title: A Princess? No! I'm the Female General! In "A Princess? No! I'm the Female General!" by CrushReel, Adela Taylor, a noble family's daughter, disguises herself as her brother to secure their Duke title by joining the army. Despite facing obstacles, she achieves remarkable success. 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