Chapter 4: The Biochemist’s Secret
Chapter 4: The Biochemist’s Secret
Rosa retreated to the servant's quarters in the west wing, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird desperately seeking an exit. She slammed the heavy oak door shut and threw the deadbolt, pressing her forehead against the cool wood as she gasped for air. Lily sniffled into her shoulder, her small arms wrapped tightly around Rosa's neck.
She hadn't run from Ethan because she stopped loving him. She had run because of a nightmare called Project Genesis.
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During her final year at Columbia, Rosa had been granted unprecedented access to a proprietary chemical compound developed by Caldwell Industries' pharmaceutical division. Ethan hadn't known about the back-channel testing; it was handled by his ruthless R&D executives. Rosa, with her unmatched analytical skills, discovered a lethal flaw in the synthetic protein—a microscopic anomaly that caused severe cellular degradation over a span of two years. It was poised to be a billion-dollar drug, and it was going to kill thousands of innocent people.
When she naively tried to blow the whistle, men in dark suits broke into her Queens apartment. They didn't speak. They just left a single, hollow-point bullet on her pillow and a photograph of her mother in Mexico. Discovering she was pregnant with Ethan's child a week later, Rosa realized running wasn't enough. She had to hide in plain sight. What better place to disappear than the very house of the man whose company wanted her dead? A billionaire never looks closely at the hired help. But now, the illusion was shattered.
