Vanessa laughed, “Now we’re both unemployed,” after destroying my job offer—then the Meridian Dynamics CEO took the microphone and called my name. / Chapter 65 / 101

Chapter 65 - Sins of the Patriarch

The *Nautilus-IV* crept through the oceanic abyss on low-power electric thrusters, keeping itself nestled in the acoustic shadow of the oceanic trench. Below them, massive robotic creepers crawled along the continental shelf, welding heavy titanium taps into the thick, rubber-jacketed fiber cables that lay like dormant sea serpents across the silt.

Julian sat in the copilot seat, sifting through the encrypted data fragment he had extracted from the *Aegis Sovereign’s* auxiliary memory before it went under.

"Vanessa," Julian said, his voice unusually quiet. "Look at this timestamp."

Vanessa adjusted the heads-up display. A sequence of corporate filings, numbered bank transfers, and internal Meridian Dynamics personnel requisitions populated the screen. The date at the top of the ledger was dated seven years prior—the exact month Julian had graduated from university.

"That's... that's the day of your graduation," Vanessa whispered, leaning closer. "The day I..."

"The day you took my offer letter from Meridian and tore it up," Julian finished. "Look at the authorization origin for that offer. It didn't come from HR. It was generated by a hidden executive shell company directly tied to David Mercer’s personal trust."

Vanessa drew in a sharp breath. "He engineered your hiring. But why would he—"

"Keep reading," Julian said, scrolling down to the secondary protocol. "Protocol Chimera: Phase One. In the event of candidate selection, initiate psychological alienation vector. Target: Vanessa Mercer. Method: algorithmic amplification of insecurity via manipulated financial disclosures."

The cabin fell deathly silent.

Vanessa’s fingers trembled as she touched the glass screen. The memories came rushing back with sickening clarity—the anonymous emails she had received that morning showing Julian receiving a private equity trust while she was left with nothing; the poisoned whispers from family attorneys suggesting she would be cast aside; the sudden, uncontrollable surge of jealousy and panic that had driven her to humiliate him on that stage.

"He set me up," Vanessa breathed, tears of fury welling in her eyes. "He made sure I hated you. He made sure I would tear that paper up so you would leave the family circle entirely."

"He needed me out in the cold," Julian said, his teeth gritted in cold rage. "He needed me to build an independent reputation, to become an outsider with no paper trail linking me to Meridian’s central fraud. That way, when Eleanor eventually seized the company, I would be the only asset clean enough to be brought back in to break her defenses."

Every humiliation, every year of estrangement, every sleepless night spent fighting from the bottom—it had all been a scripted path designed by David Mercer. Julian was never the rebellious son who forged his own path. He had been a precision-guided missile, launched thirty years ago, aimed directly at Eleanor, with David waiting at the detonation site to claim the spoils.

"He treated us like code," Vanessa whispered, her voice shaking with lethal resolve. "Variables to be balanced against each other."

Julian reached over, engaging the manual ballast override of the submersible. The *Nautilus-IV* began its steep ascent toward the black underbelly of the dreadnought looming above.