The boardroom of Jefferson Global was colder than usual — not in temperature, but in tone.
Elsa Jefferson stood at the head of the long obsidian table, eyes steady as the directors flipped through the quarterly reports. She had rebuilt the image after the Gala chaos, but now came the real war — the internal one.
Across from her sat Gavin Jefferson, her uncle. Late forties, slick gray hair, and an ego sharp enough to cut glass.
"Well done, Elsa," he said with a lazy smirk. "Public image's cleaner than a politician's suit. But let's not forget — optics don't pay dividends."
The others chuckled.
Elsa didn't blink.
She slid a document forward.
Gavin picked it up, brow furrowing as he skimmed it.
"What's this?"
"A deal I closed with V-Tech Industries. Their AI patents will be under Jefferson control by Q3."
Silence.
Even the CFO looked stunned. That deal had been in limbo for two years.
"How the hell did you—"
"Magic," Elsa said flatly.
She didn't say Chess had made a phone call the night before to someone on V-Tech's board. Or that the CEO had stepped down quietly before dawn.
Because she didn't know.
And Chess wasn't about to tell her.
Across town, in a high-rise suite under renovation, Chess leaned on a scaffold beam, watching the skyline.
Beside him stood Lance, one of his most trusted operatives from the old days.
"You sure you don't want her to know?" Lance asked.
"She's strong," Chess replied. "But not ready."
Lance snorted. "The girl just made a grown man cry in a boardroom. How much readier can she be?"
Chess smiled slightly.
"She doesn't need to see the wolves in her corner. She needs to learn how to make them howl."
Back in the boardroom, Gavin slammed a palm on the table.
"This isn't about a win, Elsa! This is about your judgment. About you marrying a man with no background, no power base, and putting this family at risk!"
Elsa didn't flinch.
"My marriage is not on trial here."
"It should be," he growled. "You're too emotionally attached to play at this level. Business doesn't care about love."
"Good thing I don't run on emotion," she said coldly. "Unlike you—who's been moving Jefferson assets into shell companies under your son's name."
Dead silence.
Gavin paled.
"How do you—?"
"I didn't," Elsa said smoothly. "But our systems picked up the trail."
She didn't know that it was Chess who'd flagged the offshore accounts, traced them overnight, and quietly fed the breadcrumbs into the system to be "discovered."
She didn't see the firewall he'd built behind her back — or the malware he'd planted in Gavin's devices, disguised as a Jefferson Global update.
She only saw the effect.
And Gavin… saw the end of his leverage.
Later that night, Elsa sat in her office, breathing slower.
She should've felt triumphant.
Instead, she felt watched.
Not in fear — but in that strange way.
As though someone was out there, cleaning up the messes she couldn't see.
She looked out the window.
Down below, traffic lights flickered. Horns blared. And from the shadows of a nearby rooftop, a figure in black watched.
He whispered into his earpiece:
"Keep eyes on Gavin. He's not done yet.""Copy that," came the reply. "What about Elsa?""She's doing fine.""…and you?""I'll step in when it matters."
And then he vanished into the dark.