Ava’s trembling hands gripped the armrests of the wheelchair as Margaret pressed the glass of hot water to her lips.

Evelyn Vance was recovering rapidly in a private medical wing under the care of world-class physicians. Her testimony, combined with the encrypted financial ledgers retrieved from the crypt, gave federal prosecutors ironclad evidence to dismantle Apex Financial once and for all.

However, Eleanor Sterling had gone completely off the grid. Stripped of her corporate power and pursued by international authorities, she activated The Phoenix Protocol—a secret scorched-earth cyber attack designed to wipe out Sterling Global's entire financial network, plunging the company into absolute bankruptcy within twenty-four hours.

"She’s raiding our digital reserves from an offshore server in Singapore," Ethan explained to the assembled board members in the high-tech war room. "If the countdown hits zero, forty billion dollars in client assets will be permanently erased, crashing our stock and destroying the company overnight."

"Can we shut down the servers?" Marcus asked, staring at the glowing red countdown timer on the main wall display: 03:42:18.

"Not remotely," Ethan replied. "Eleanor programmed the protocol with an analog kill-switch. It can only be aborted from the primary terminal located inside the deep subterranean server farm beneath Sterling Tower."

Clara stood up, looking at the structural schematics on the holographic table. "The subterranean level was sealed off after the arson investigation. It's flooded with carbon dioxide gas from the fire suppression systems."

"Then I'm going down there with an oxygen rig," Ethan said, pulling on a black tactical vest. "I built that server architecture. I know how to abort the countdown."

"Not alone," Clara said firmly, stepping beside him. "I know the master admin override codes my father created. You need both of us to authorize the total system reset."