Chapter 32
Everyone who had ever stepped onto that stage was a seasoned veteran, someone who had clawed their way through fifteen to twenty years of brutal industry warfare.
For Isabella, a female designer returning after a six-year absence, the odds of breaking through this steel jungle dominated by men were, to put it plainly, brutal.
"There's something I have to tell you upfront, though, Isabella." Joseph's expression shifted into something harder to read. "I pulled the judging panel list for this year's summit. The head judge is going to be a serious problem."
Isabella raised an eyebrow. "Who?"
"People in the industry call him Mr. Windsor." Joseph slid a folder across the desk. "An absolute authority in the field, and an absolute nightmare to deal with. Word is he has zero tolerance for designers who lean on commercial gimmicks or ride their connections to the top."
"His standards are punishing, and he doesn't soften his words for anyone. In past summits, proposals from firms that were considered frontrunners got torn apart in front of the entire room. Some of those teams couldn't even walk off the stage with their dignity intact."
Joseph paused, and a quiet unease settled into his voice. "I don't know much about him personally. I know he's been living in Eldoria these past few years, mostly off the radar. If his temper hasn't improved since then,"
"Then what?"
"Joseph. There's no such thing as politics or personalities in a real architectural arena. I don't care how difficult Mr. Windsor is, or how much he enjoys ripping people apart in public. As long as my design is structurally sound, as long as it holds, even God himself would have to respect it."
"In the face of genuine work, every bit of eccentricity is just a stepping stone left there for the people who are truly good enough."
Joseph went still for a moment. Something in his chest caught.
This was her. This was the Isabella he had admired for years, the one he had never quite stopped believing in.
"All right, If you're not afraid, then Northstar Architecture is all in. Whatever resources you need, the entire company is yours to command."
Across Tech Harbor, in a dim and rarely-used underground parking garage, Charlotte sat in the back seat of a borrowed black sedan that nobody would look at twice.
Her fingers were locked around the strap of her designer bag, knuckles going white, and in the low, dirty light, her face looked less like a woman's and more like something carved out of spite.
Since the afternoon Chloe had humiliated her in front of everyone at that café, Charlotte had become the running joke of every social circle she'd once moved through effortlessly.
James had cut off all her financial support and protection. The wealthy socialites who once flocked around her now recoiled at the sight of her, as if she were a foul piece of trash to be avoided at all costs.
She could no longer openly use public relations firms to tarnish Isabella's reputation as she had before.
Yet the serpent of jealousy and resentment in her heart had not died; instead, it had grown even more feral due to the humiliation she faced.
The car door was yanked open from the outside. A thin, wiry man with a pencil-thin mustache folded himself into the passenger seat. His eyes were triangular and restless, and they moved the way a rat's eyes move, always calculating, always hungry.
"Ms. Johnson." He rubbed his hands together, a glint of greed flickering in his downturned eyes. "What can I do for you?"
He was a paparazzo with a reputation in the Amber District for having no floor, no line he wouldn't cross, no method too low, as long as the price was right.
Charlotte pulled a thick manila envelope from her bag and dropped it onto him.
"That's a hundred thousand dollars," she said, her voice dropping to something quiet and venomous. "That's just the deposit. I want you on Isabella, Northstar Architecture's chief director, twenty-four hours a day. No gaps."
The man weighed the envelope in his palm. His eyes lit up, but he hesitated. "Ms. Johnson, she's been getting a lot of attention lately. And Northstar's security setup is no joke,"
"Then just wait outside her office! Wait outside her house!" Charlotte shouted, her voice rising, sounding like a hysterical madwoman.
"I want photos of her personal life falling apart. I want shots of whatever's going on between her and Joseph. I want anything, any man, any compromising contact. Or dig into whether she's been sneaking off to see that son she abandoned, and get me proof she's been using the kid as a publicity prop."
Her fingers, nails lacquered a deep arterial red, pressed hard into the leather of the seat.
"If you can bring me something that destroys her reputation, and I mean something real, something that ends her, deliver it to me the day before The Golden Arch Summit. Do that, and I'll pay you three hundred thousand dollars on top of what you're already holding. I want to hit her where she can't get back up."
The man's tongue slid across his lips. "Deal." He grabbed the envelope and was gone.
Charlotte watched him disappear into the dark of the garage. She sat back against the seat and breathed, long, ragged pulls of air, like a woman surfacing from deep water.
But it wasn't enough. She knew Isabella. Isabella didn't leave loose ends. One paparazzo wasn't going to be sufficient to finish this.
She needed something planted on the inside. Something that would go off at exactly the right moment.
Charlotte scrolled through her phone until she found a number she hadn't used in a long time. She pressed call. It rang for a while before someone picked up.
"Hello?" The voice on the other end was young, female, and immediately guarded.
"Sophia. It's me." Charlotte let warmth seep into her tone, practiced, frictionless, utterly false. The corner of her mouth curled.
On the other end of the line, the woman's breathing stuttered.
Sophia Brown had been Isabella's junior at school, two years behind her, in the same program. Back then, Isabella had helped her in ways that went well beyond what anyone was obligated to do: financial support when Sophia's family couldn't keep up, professional mentorship offered freely and without condition.
By any honest measure, the career Sophia now held as associate lead designer at one of the country's top firms had been built, at least in part, on a foundation Isabella had helped lay.
But gratitude had curdled into something else a long time ago. Sophia was a woman who wore her insecurity like armor and her pride like a wound, and she had spent years suffocating quietly in Isabella's shadow.
When Isabella disappeared from the industry six years ago, Sophia had finally exhaled. She'd told herself it was her turn now.
And then Isabella came back. Not quietly. Not humbly. She came back, aiming straight for the top of the most prestigious summit in the field.
"Charlotte." Sophia's voice went flat and hostile. "You're radioactive right now. Don't call me."
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend, Sophia. You know better than I do how jealous you are of Isabella's comeback."
Charlotte bluntly exposed her thoughts. "I heard you're going to the summit with your firm this time. Let's make a deal: you keep an eye on her every move during the preparations for the summit, and if necessary, tamper with her core data. As long as she's ruined, the position of lead designer will be yours."
There was a suffocating silence on the other end of the line. After a long pause, Sophia's voice came through, gritted with anger. "What do you need me to do?"
Charlotte hung up the phone, glancing at her somewhat haggard and pale face in the rearview mirror, and finally managed a faint smile.
'Isabella, do you think you've won? I can't wait to see you crash and burn at the summit!'