Chapter 39 Chapter 39

Chapter 39 Chapter 39
Iris's POV

The relief of our reconciliation lasted exactly until six o'clock the following morning. The sun hadn't even cleared the Chicago skyline when the first process server arrived at our door, followed ten minutes later by a frantic call from our property manager.
Sloane’s father, Arthur Van Doren, didn’t play with doctored photos or social media scandals. He played with a scorched-earth policy that had leveled entire corporate empires. By noon, the North Star Academy was no longer just facing a building code violation; it was the subject of a massive, multi-million dollar lawsuit for "breach of development exclusivity" and "theft of intellectual property."
"It’s a shakedown," Quinn growled, slamming a thick stack of legal papers onto the kitchen island. "They’re claiming that the biomechanical training methods we use—the ones Iris developed—are based on proprietary research Arthur bought from the Volkov estate. They’re suing us for twenty million dollars and seeking an immediate freeze on all our business accounts."
I looked at Iris. She was sitting at the table, a cup of untouched coffee in front of her. The glow from the pond had vanished, replaced by the stark, cold reality of a legal war we weren't equipped to win.
"If they freeze the accounts, we can't pay the coaches," she said, her voice small but steady. "We can't pay the electric bill for the ice chillers. The Academy will be dead in a week."
"That’s exactly what he wants," I said, pacing the length of the kitchen. "He doesn't need to win the lawsuit. He just needs to outlast our bank account. He’s going to bankrupt us into a settlement where we hand over the deed to the warehouse and walk away with nothing."
"We need a shark," Quinn said. "Not just a lawyer. Someone who knows how to fight the Van Dorens in the mud."
I looked at the phone. There was one person who had been through the fire with us, someone who had watched the Volkov empire crumble and knew exactly where the skeletons were buried.
I hit the speed dial. "Detective Miller? I need to know if you still have that contact at the Federal Trade Commission. The one who was looking into the Van Doren land acquisitions."
"I do," Miller’s gravelly voice crackled. "But Reid, you’re playing with a different kind of fire now. Arthur Van Doren owns half the judges in the state. You don't just need an investigator. You need a witness who can prove that Iris’s methods are hers, not Nikolai’s."
"We have the data logs," I said.
"Data can be contested. You need a voice. You need someone who was in the room when those methods were created."
I looked at Iris. I knew what Miller was suggesting, and I hated it. It meant bringing back the one person who represented the darkest time in her life.
"Mila," Iris said softly, reading my mind.
Two hours later, Mila was sitting in our living room. She looked smaller in the daylight, her hands tucked into the sleeves of her oversized sweater. Since the trial, she had found a quiet peace working at the Academy, but the mention of a courtroom made her eyes cloud with a familiar, haunted shadow.
"They want me to testify that Nikolai stole the research from Iris’s father years ago?" Mila asked. "Or that Iris developed the recovery protocols herself?"
"Both," Quinn said. "We have the journals Iris’s father kept before he passed. We have the proof that Nikolai was corresponding with him. If you can testify that Nikolai was using Iris’s theories while he was 'training' us in Switzerland, the Van Dorens' claim of intellectual property theft falls apart. It proves they bought stolen goods."
Mila looked toward the window, where the city was beginning to roar with the afternoon rush. "If I do this, Sloane will come for me. She’ll dig up everything. My medical records, my family’s history in Russia... she’ll try to destroy me like she tried to destroy Reid."
"We won't let her," I said, leaning forward. "Mila, we're building something here that matters. If we lose this, Nikolai wins from his jail cell because his 'research' is still being used as a weapon."
Iris walked over and sat beside Mila, taking her hand. "You don't have to do it for us, Mila. Do it for the girl you were before Nikolai broke your ankle. Do it so no one else ever has to be a 'Ghost' again."
Mila was silent for a long time. Then, she looked at the "North Star" logo on the folder on the table. "I’ll do it. But we need to move fast. Arthur is already moving to seize the equipment."
The legal siege was only beginning. As the sun set, the first "Cease and Desist" signs were taped to the glass doors of the Academy. We were being locked out of our own dream. But as I looked at the three people in my living room, I realized that Arthur Van Doren had made the same mistake Nikolai had.
He thought he was fighting a business. He didn't realize he was fighting a family.