Chapter 155

Chapter 155

Alexander shook his head. "I'm fine."

Mireille reached up and touched his face, then turned to look at Isabella. Her voice was certain. "You're Isabella."

Isabella leaned against the doorframe and nodded. "That's me."

Mireille studied her for a long moment, then her lips curved slightly. "He's mentioned you. He said you were good. You really are."

Isabella watched as Mireille finally closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Alexander stood up from the bedside and pulled her into his arms. "I thought I'd never see you again."

His biggest regret had been not proposing to Isabella yet.

But his greatest relief was that he hadn't proposed…

Isabella patted his back twice gently.

Thank God he was safe…

Mireille slept for an entire day before waking.

When she opened her eyes, darkness had fallen. Streetlights filtered through the gap in the curtains, casting narrow streaks of light across the floor.

She looked at him for a while, her lips moving. Her voice came out hoarse, almost inaudible. "You used to do this when you were little too. When I was sick, you'd sit by the bed. You wouldn't talk, wouldn't leave."

Alexander looked up, momentarily stunned.

Mireille pushed herself up against the edge of the bed and pulled the blanket around her, looking at Alexander. "How's your father?"

The air went quiet for a moment.

Alexander's fingers curled slightly against his knee. "I haven't found him yet."

Mireille lowered her eyes. "He's in the Northern Territory."

Alexander's gaze froze. He looked up into Mireille's eyes. Her expression was calm, as if this sentence had been sitting in her heart for fifteen years, finally finding the right moment to be released.

"I saw him once before they transferred me. We were still in Roland. They kept him in the room next to mine. I heard his voice."

Mireille pressed her lips together. "After that, they transferred me."

When Isabella came in through the door, he was staring out at the night.

She glanced at him, then walked to Mireille's bedside and bent down to place a glass of warm water within her reach.

Mireille picked it up, took a sip, and as she set it down, looked at Isabella. "You're good to Alexander. That puts my mind at ease."

Isabella sat down on the edge of the bed. "Brock's been detained. Daphne's still on the run, but she didn't get far."

"Your testimony will be part of the evidence. If you can identify Brock in court, he won't get away."

Mireille nodded. "I can do that." Her voice was steady.

After leaving Mireille's room, Isabella walked to the end of the hallway and dialed Ms. Jackson's encrypted line.

It rang for a long time—so long she thought no one would pick up—but in the final second, someone answered. Ms. Jackson's voice was lower than last time. "You got her out."

Isabella leaned against the hallway wall. At the far end, a half-open window let in the night breeze, carrying the slight chill of early autumn. "You were Theodore's former colleague. You still have something he left behind that he never finished giving."

Silence on the other end for several seconds.

"He knew he might not make it out, so he split everything into two batches. One batch in the safe at Crestview Medical Clinic. The other stored somewhere only I know about." Ms. Jackson's pace was slower than before, as if fishing each sentence from the depths of memory. "He told me to give it to 'whoever could finish this road' when the time was right."

Isabella stayed against the wall, unmoving. "Is the time right now?"

Ms. Jackson paused. "You found Mireille. You stopped Aurora. There's no better time than this."

She gave an address—a small private archive facility on the outskirts of Seabreeze City. "The material's in a storage locker on the third floor. You already have the key."

Isabella touched the key in her pocket—the one that had belonged to Theodore, the one she'd gotten from Harold.

Isabella gripped the key in her palm, its teeth pressing cold metal ridges into her fingertips.

She lowered her eyes. "Thank you."

Before hanging up, Ms. Jackson said one last thing. "That key is all Theodore left to this world."

The call ended. The hallway fell silent again.

Night air poured through the window gap, making the curtains flutter gently. Isabella stood by the window for a long time, watching the scattered lights flicker in the darkness outside. Then she turned back.

As she passed Alexander's door, she saw warm yellow light seeping through the crack.

Isabella pushed the door open and placed the key on the bedsheet between them.

"In Seabreeze City. Theodore stored a batch of materials. Oscar's already booked tomorrow's flight. I'm going to Seabreeze City to retrieve them."

Alexander looked at the key, then up at her. "I'm going with you."

Isabella met his eyes. After a few seconds, she nodded. "Okay."

Before going to Seabreeze City, Isabella flew to Sovereign City first.

She'd already seen once what that key opened in the private bank safe in Sovereign City.

But this time, armed with Mireille's testimony, she was going back to search the materials for clues corresponding to the 'Northern Territory coordinates.'

The safe was on the bank's second basement level. The key required a six-digit code to open. The bank manager had graying hair. When he saw the credentials and key, his expression didn't change, but his fingers tapped the desk twice. He recognized this key. Theodore had personally stored it here years ago.

Inside the safe were three items: a leather-bound notebook, a USB drive, and a yellowed letter.

The second time Isabella opened these items, she was more methodical. She photographed the notebook page by page from beginning to end, copied all the USB data to an encrypted hard drive, and spread out the letter again.

At the end of the letter was something she hadn't paid much attention to before—a series of coordinate numbers written in pencil on the inside of the envelope's back, the handwriting very light, as if pressed into the paper fibers with a sharpened pencil tip.

She photographed the coordinates and sent them to Oscar.

Fifteen minutes later, his reply came: [Coordinates are in the Northern Territory, near Frost River in a remote area. Satellite imagery shows a small research station built twenty years ago, registered under a now-defunct shipping company.]

Isabella looked at the reply, refolded the letter and put it back in the kraft paper envelope, then closed the safe.

Standing at the bank entrance, she received a message from Alexander: [Changed the Seabreeze City tickets. Fly here now. We'll go to the Northern Territory together.]

When Isabella saw that message, a hint of a smile flashed through her eyes.

She put her phone in her pocket and walked toward the parking lot.

On the flight from Sovereign City to Seabreeze City, Isabella read Theodore's letter one more time.

"If you're reading this letter, it means I'm either still alive, or I'm already dead. Either way, this evidence is now yours."

Outside the window, white clouds stretched endlessly. Sunlight slanted in from the side of the porthole, casting elongated shadows along the letter's creases.

The lower half of the letter described in detail the core technical pathways of the Kitayama Biotech Institute. One section mentioned the 'Zero' framework. "Zero is a nested trust structure. Core control doesn't rest in any single downstream entity."

"The actual controller maintains anonymity through multiple layers of legal separation…"