bChapter /b272

    She was sharp enough to handle this.

    And if things truly went south, all she had to do was keep her head down at Murphy Group–nothing disastrous could really happen.

    Seeing Rowan’s totalck of hesitation,n didn’t press the topic. Instead, he moved on to the next

    report.

    “By the way, the Deputy Director of R&D mentioned something else. The iold /iestate funded Marcia Carson to set up a new project team. They even pulled some strings and got the government to broker a joint development between their team and ours.”

    Rowan’s brow furrowed. “When did this happen?”

    “It’s been a few days, I’m afraid.”

    In families like this, who could untangle all the hidden motives? Especially when Karol Murphy’s rtionship to Rowan wasmon knowledge. No one wanted to risk sticking their neck out–what if, after all the drama, everything smoothed over for the family, and you ended up the scapegoat?

    It was probably only this Deputy Director, picking up on Rowan’s tone about Elissa just now, who saw an opening to speak up.

    A shadow crossed Rowan’s eyes as he nced atn. “You know what to do, don’t you?”

    “…I do.”

    He hadn’t been sure, but now he was.

    After all, over the years, the old estate’s influence at the upper levels of thepany had been nearly wiped out. Only Karol remained.

    Rowan had never forgotten that favor; it was the reason Karol had always been left untouched.

    But by now, that debt had been repaid many times over–with interest. What Karol never should have idone /iwas to team up with the olddy and meddle in Miss Murphy’s affairs.

    Just as the standoff in the meeting room reached its peak, Zachary Jones got a call from Security.

    Whatever was said on the other end, Zachary’s frown deepened, and his gaze toward everyone grew

    stern.

    When he hung up, Cliff was the first to ask, “What did they say?”

    “Security says…”

    Even Zachary was embarrassed to exin.

    Everyone on this project team had been with him for years.

    He never thought grown men would stoop so low just to bully a young woman.

    “Between midnight and dawn, the R&D department had a power outage.”

    Zachary’s difort grew as he spoke. “The security cameras and other equipment are all on the same circuit. There’s no footage of anything.”

    Not having evidence from the cameras was a far cry from there being nothing to find. Anyone could see someone had tampered with the system.

    How else to exin the perfect timing–a sudden outage, right at the crucial moment?

    And yet, James had the nerve to press, “Ms. Drummond, what do you say to that?”

    Raymond chimed in, “Yeah, Ms. Drummond, does your word still stand?”

    Elissa’s response was even and calm. “Of course it does.”

    “We all heard it,” James said, thinking she’d run out of options, his arrogance on full disy. “Ms. Drummond, as of now, you’re no longer the head of our Traditional Medicine Unit.”

    “What’s the rush?”