A Millionaire's Twins Wouldn't Stop Crying—Then a Poor Girl Did the Impossible...

The turbulence passed as quickly as it had come, but the tension in the air remained thick enough to choke on.

Nathan’s instincts, honed over a decade of navigating cutthroat corporate espionage, screamed at him. He turned his head subtly, catching the reflection of the two men in the darkened airplane window.

One was tall, with a silver crew cut and a jagged scar along his jawline. The other was broader, carrying a heavy leather briefcase close to his chest. Both wore lapel pins—a silver circle with a stylized raven.

Vanguard Bio-Tech.

Vanguard was Neurosoft’s fierce rival—a multi-billion-dollar defense contractor that had been trying to buy out Catherine’s research division for three years. Nathan had personally blocked their hostile takeover bids twice.

"Sarah, Lily," Nathan said, his voice dropping into a quiet, commanding tone. "Stand up. Slowly. We are moving to the front."

Sarah looked terrified. "What? Why? Our seats are here—"

"Those men six rows up aren't passengers," Nathan interrupted, placing his hand over Sarah’s trembling fingers. "They’re watching us. If Catherine gave Lily that notebook, your daughter is in danger. Please, trust me."

Sarah looked at Lily, who was still holding Emma and Ethan with extraordinary calm. The twins hadn't cried once since entering Lily's presence; they seemed almost hypnotized by the small girl. Sarah nodded, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead.

Nathan gathered the infants into his left arm, using his right hand to shepherd Lily and Sarah down the aisle toward first class. As they passed the two men in gray suits, the silver-haired man stood up, stepping into the aisle to block their path.

"Excuse me, Mr. Wells," the man said, his voice smooth, cold, and entirely devoid of emotion. "Is there a problem? You look flushed."

"Move," Nathan said flatly, stepping closer, leveraging his height.

"We couldn't help but notice the little girl's drawings," the man continued, his eyes darting down to the spiral notebook tucked under Lily’s arm. "Fascinating work. Looks remarkably like Dr. Catherine’s proprietary algorithms. The ones Vanguard recently purchased the patents for."

Nathan’s eyes narrowed into slits. "Catherine never sold her patents. She would rather burn her lab to the ground."

"Priorities change when circumstances demand it, Mr. Wells," the man purred, leaning closer. "I suggest you hand over the sketchbook. For the safety of everyone on this flight."

Before Nathan could respond, Melissa, the head flight attendant, stepped between them with a firm, professional smile. "Sir, please return to your seat. The captain has kept the seatbelt sign illuminated."

"This doesn't concern you, flight attendant," the broad-shouldered man warned, reaching into his coat jacket.

Nathan didn't hesitate. He thrust his shoulder into the broad man, forcing him backward into his seat, and pulled Sarah and Lily past them into the private, curtained section of first class.

"Melissa, lock the curtain and call the captain," Nathan ordered quietly as they reached his private suite in row one. "Tell him we have an active security breach in the cabin."

Melissa nodded, her face pale, and hurried toward the cockpit.

Nathan ushered Sarah and Lily into his spacious first-class pod, sliding the door shut. He set the twins down on the wide leather seat. For the first time in three months, Emma and Ethan looked peaceful, their tiny fingers intertwined as they babbled quietly, looking up at Lily.

"Alright, Lily," Nathan said, taking a deep breath and kneeling before the young girl. "Look at me. What did Catherine mean by 'the key is in the music'?"

Lily opened the notebook to the page filled with code. She pointed her small finger at a line of musical notes written in standard treble clef at the bottom of the page.

"It’s not just a song, Mr. Nathan," Lily said simply. "Dr. Catherine put a map inside my head. When she used the machine on me, she didn't just fix my brain. She stored her final memory inside my neural pathways."

Nathan felt as if the floor had dropped out from under him.

Neurosoft’s ultimate, top-secret project—Project Synapse—was designed to encode digital data directly into biological neural tissue. Catherine had been leading the research, but Nathan believed they were years away from human application.

Catherine hadn't just hidden her research in a notebook. She had used a living child as a human hard drive.

"She stored it... in you?" Nathan breathed, horrified and amazed in equal measure.

"She said it was the only place they couldn't search," Lily replied, her tone innocent. "She said bad men were watching her house, watching her phones, watching you. She said if she kept the key in a computer, they would steal it. So she put it in my song."

"What is the key for, Lily?"