Chapter 36
Isabella turned back, slipped the red marker into its holder with steady precision, then pushed open the conference room's glass door and strode into the open office outside.
The place had gone dead silent.
Ryan and Tyler were standing by their desks, stuffing their personal things into cardboard boxes. When they saw Isabella step out, their hands froze for a beat. A flicker of guilt crossed their eyes, quickly smothered by the smug confidence of men who believed they were about to triple their salaries.
"Ms. Tudor," Ryan said after a cough, forcing his voice to steady.
"People tend to follow the money, and The Genesis Group is offering far too much. They've promised to transfer the full penalty fee directly to Northstar Architecture. No hard feelings, alright? After all, in this day and age, passion doesn't pay the bills."
The HR director's face went brick-red with fury. She opened her mouth to snap back, but Isabella raised a hand, stopping her.
Isabella walked right up to the two men, letting her gaze sweep over them, cool and dismissive. "No hard feelings? You think either of you is worthy of that?"
She turned to HR, her voice crisp and sharp. "Process their termination immediately. Full penalty fee, maximum clause. I want the payment confirmed before sunset. As for the non‑compete—waive it."
Ryan and Tyler jerked their heads up, stunned.
'Waive the non‑compete?' That meant they could walk out today and start at The Genesis Group tomorrow.
The harsh clause that usually locked employees out of the industry for two or three years—she was simply letting it go.
Isabella watched their disbelief with open contempt. "Don't flatter yourselves. You really think The Genesis Group is paying triple because they value your so‑called talent? All they want is the half‑finished data you've been handling at Northstar Architecture."
A cold, razor‑thin laugh slipped from her. It hit harder than a slap.
"Take your useless scraps of data and get out of my team. And make sure your new bosses understand something—picking up the trash I don't want won't change a damn thing for them. Other than making themselves look pathetic."
Color flooded both men's faces. Shame. Anger. Humiliation. But under Isabella's absolute authority, they couldn't muster a single word of defense. They grabbed their boxes and scurried off under the security guard's watch.
The moment they left, the office dropped into a suffocating gloom.
Less than thirty hours until the summit. And the core data team had just imploded.
Designers glanced around, eyes filled with fear and uncertainty.
Isabella turned, her gaze cutting through the room like a blade. "I know exactly what you're afraid of. You're worried the summit will crash and burn. You're afraid Northstar Architecture's reputation will go down because of this betrayal."
She walked to the center of the open office and braced both hands on a desk, standing tall and steady.
"Here's the rule I'm setting today: anyone who wants to leave—leave. But if you stay, I promise you this. In thirty hours, I will walk onto that stage at the Amber District Architecture Summit with all of you behind me, holding the most flawless design proposal this industry has ever seen."
"If Northstar Architecture loses, I resign and take full responsibility. If we win, every single one of you gets triple year‑end bonuses, and your names go on the master creator list."
The room erupted.
Name credit.
Getting your name on the Golden Dome Summit's creator list meant a straight shot to the top of the industry. It meant never being invisible again.
"Ms. Tudor, we're not leaving! We're with you!"
"Yeah! A couple of all‑nighters is nothing! We'll rebuild the data from scratch if we have to!"
As the team rallied around her, Isabella gave a small approving nod.
Then her gaze drifted toward a corner workstation.
A young woman sat there, hair a messy halo, oversized black‑rimmed glasses sliding down her nose. Even when Ryan and Tyler were storming out and panic had rippled through the office, the girl had stayed glued to her monitor, noise‑canceling headphones on, fingers flying across her keyboard, completely untouched by the chaos around her.
Nora Adams.
An intern Northstar Architecture had taken in just last month. No fancy degree. No connections. Quiet to the point of invisible. She usually ran errands and handled basic data entry.
Isabella walked over without a sound and looked at the girl's screen.
It wasn't a spreadsheet.
It was Ryan's breathing‑cantilever structural model—being rerun and checked line by line. And at one nearly invisible anchor point, Nora had highlighted a deviation value—three digits past the decimal.
Isabella's pupils tightened.
That deviation—something even Ryan, the 'experienced specialist,' had missed—would have caused a twenty‑percent loss in storm‑load capacity once integrated into the full building model.
And this girl had spotted it. With her eyes. And mental math.
"How did you derive this negative‑pressure parameter?" Isabella asked suddenly.
Nora jumped, yanking off her headphones. When she saw who was behind her, she stammered, voice thin with nerves. "Ms. Tudor… I—I just thought Ryan's formula didn't account for material stretch under wind load, so… I adjusted it. I'm sorry, I'll delete it—"
"That wasn't a guess."
Isabella grabbed Nora—computer and all—and pulled her out of the cluttered corner desk she had been shoved into.
"From this moment on, you're no longer an intern. You're my first‑tier technical aide."
Gasps rippled across the room as Isabella guided the flustered girl to the main workbench beside her office, pressing her hands firmly onto Nora's shoulders.
"I'm giving you one minute to adjust. For the next thirty hours, I call the parameters, you run the models. If you can keep up, there will be a place for you in every corner of the Amber District architectural world."
Behind her thick glasses, Nora's eyes widened. She stared at Isabella—this fierce, commanding woman who seemed like she ruled the entire building—and something deep inside her flared to life. A fire she had buried for over twenty years.
"Ms. Tudor, I won't let you down."
"Good."
Isabella didn't waste another second. She spun and dropped into her seat.
"All departments, listen up. Phones on my desk. No one leaves this floor. Nora, I'll give you the first preset load for the 3D mechanical model in three seconds. Get ready to take command."