A heavy set of car keys slammed onto the glass coffee table, the sharp clatter echoing through the Booth family mansion. "Our engagement is off." Dwayne Burks stood over the sofa, looking down at Adelaide Booth with undisguised disgust in his pale blue eyes. As the arrogant young heir to a Wall Street investment firm, he had resented being tied to the biological daughter the Booth family had only brought back from a Midwest slum less than a month ago. Adelaide did not even lift her eyelids. Her long fingers kept scrolling down her phone screen. "Yeah, whatever. Sign the papers and get lost." Dwayne's throat tightened, the rest of his prepared insults choking behind his teeth as his chest heaved with sudden irritation. Footsteps hurried down the grand spiral staircase. Brittanie Booth, the adopted daughter raised as an Upper East Side socialite, rushed over and grabbed Dwayne's tailored sleeve. Her eyes were rimmed with red, yet she pressed her body closer to his arm. "Dwayne, please don't be so harsh on my sister." Dwayne immediately wrapped his arm around Brittanie's waist, pulling her against his side. "Brittanie is the one I actually love. Ghetto trash like you isn't worthy of carrying the Burks name." Adelaide let out a soft scoff and finally raised her dark eyes, sweeping a cold glance over the pair. Her lips curved into a mocking smirk. "A trash bin really is the best match for you two. Stay locked together forever." Brittanie's face drained of color. Tears pooled in her eyes as she bit her lower lip, her shoulders trembling. "Addie, how could you say that? I've been trying to put in a good word for you this whole time." Sharp stiletto heels clicked rapidly down the hallway. Eleanor Booth, the matriarch of the house, stormed into the living room, her voice slicing through the air. "Adelaide! Are you bullying your sister again?" Adelaide looked coldly at her biological mother. "If you don't need your eyes, you can donate them to someone who actually uses them." Eleanor's chest rose and fell violently, her face flushing a dark purple as she pointed a trembling finger right at Adelaide's nose. "You ungrateful wild brat! Brittanie is ten thousand times more sensible than a disappointment like you!" Suddenly, Brittanie gasped and threw her weight backward, crashing onto the expensive Persian rug. She clutched her ankle, sobbing aloud. "It hurts... Addie, why did you push me?" Dwayne dropped to his knees and pulled Brittanie into his arms, glaring up at Adelaide as if she were a violent criminal. "Have you lost your mind? How dare you lay a hand on her!" Adelaide crossed her arms over her chest, watching the clumsy performance without a flicker of warmth. "There are three high-definition security cameras covering every angle of this room. Do you need me to pull the footage and teach you how to stage a better fall?" Brittanie's spine stiffened for a fraction of a second before she buried her face deeper into Dwayne's suit jacket, crying even louder. "Mom, I'm scared..." Eleanor crouched down to hug her adopted daughter, twisting her neck to glare venomously at her own flesh and blood. "Apologize to Brittanie and Dwayne right now! Otherwise, I am cutting off your trust fund immediately!" A freezing smile touched Adelaide's lips as she stood up from the sofa, her tall figure casting a shadow that instantly suffocated the room. "Cut it off? Do you really think I care about a few crumbs of charity from the Booth family?" Eleanor's breath hitched under that piercing gaze, making her rage burn even hotter. "Fine! If you have so much backbone, get out of this house and don't take a single cent with you!" Dwayne sneered from the floor. "Without the Booth family sheltering you, a useless dropout like you won't survive a single day in New York." Brittanie wiped her tears, pretending to plead while a victorious glint flashed in the depths of her eyes. "Mom, please don't kick Addie out. She'll starve to death on the streets by herself." Adelaide pressed her knuckles together until the joints popped with a crisp crack, picking up her black jacket from the sofa cushion. "Save your crocodile tears. Watching you makes my stomach turn." Eleanor rushed forward to block the foot of the stairs, puffing up her chest to assert her maternal authority. "You are not going upstairs to pack a thing until you apologize! You owe the Burks family an explanation today!" Adelaide's gaze swept over Eleanor like a sheet of ice. "Move." Her voice was quiet, yet it carried the crushing weight of someone accustomed to absolute command. Eleanor's heart dropped into her stomach, and her feet involuntarily stumbled half a step back before her face burned red with humiliation. Without sparing them another glance, Adelaide walked straight up the stairs. "By the way, make sure the legal paperwork for that broken engagement is finalized today." Dwayne shouted at her back, his pride stinging. "You're going to regret this! Don't come crawling back begging me to take you back!" Adelaide paused on the landing and tilted her head slightly, leaving a disdainful smirk behind. "Regret? You'll find out soon enough who was actually reaching above their station." The three people in the living room were left speechless, the air dead silent under the lingering pressure of her departure. Several seconds passed before Eleanor gritted her teeth. "Unreasonable! Let her suffer out there and see how many days she lasts!" Brittanie leaned against Dwayne's chest, her lips curling into a hidden, icy smile. "Dwayne, we can finally be together." Upstairs, Adelaide pushed open the door to the second-floor bedroom and swept a cold glance around the room she had occupied for less than four weeks. She pulled a black canvas duffel bag from the bottom of the closet, tossed it onto the mattress, and walked over to the wooden desk.

Adelaide reached underneath the desk drawer, popped open a hidden compartment, and pulled out a black encrypted flash drive stamped with top-level defense clearance. She tossed it into the canvas duffel bag, zipped it shut, and slung the strap over one shoulder with zero hesitation before walking out the bedroom door. As she carried the bag down the staircase, Eleanor stood in the living room with a livid face. "If you step out that front door today, don't you ever come back!" Adelaide did not slow her pace for a second. "Nothing would make me happier." She pulled open the heavy carved front doors of the villa, letting a gust of cold wind rush into the foyer. Outside on the driveway, three heavily armored black bulletproof SUVs were already idling, their engines rumbling low. Jax Tucker, a special agent from the Pentagon wearing a black tactical vest, stepped out of the lead vehicle and strode forward to take the duffel bag from her hand. "Ma'am, everything is ready." Adelaide gave a slight nod, her tone as calm as if she were heading out for coffee. "Let's go. The lab has been rushing me." Jax turned and snapped a razor-sharp glare toward the living room window where pale figures hovered, then pulled open the rear door of the middle SUV with the crisp precision of a detail guarding a head of state. Overhead, a deafening roar of rotor blades tore through the sky, whipping fallen leaves across the manicured lawn as two pure-black Black Hawk helicopters broke through the cloud cover and hovered low over the estate, their snipers leaning out from open cabin doors to sweep the perimeter. Ignoring the thunderous noise, Adelaide bent down and slid into the bulletproof cabin with lazy grace. Jax shut the heavy door and spoke coldly into his earpiece. "VIP secured, codename Apex. Initiate Level One extraction protocol immediately." Inside the quiet vehicle, Adelaide pulled the elastic band from her hair, letting her long black locks fall over her shoulders. "New York traffic is as terrible as ever." Jax turned slightly from the front passenger seat. "Ma'am, the Pentagon is getting anxious. Should I request airspace clearance and fly you directly there?" Adelaide rubbed the space between her eyebrows and closed her eyes. "No need. Take the normal route. I don't want to be too high-profile." The twin Black Hawks banked sharply and climbed to clear the airspace ahead, while the three armored SUVs shot out of the estate gates with screeching tires, vanishing into the main avenue. Behind the floor-to-ceiling glass of the living room, Dwayne stood frozen where he had stumbled backward onto the sofa cushions, his face chalk-white. Only moments earlier, he had laughed at what he assumed was a cheap moving company dressed up in silly costumes, only for Jax's lethal stare and the sudden arrival of twin military gunships to rip the arrogance straight from his chest. Eleanor clapped both hands over her mouth, her voice trembling violently as she grabbed the wall just to stay upright. "What was that? Why were military helicopters hovering over our house?" Brittanie dug her fingernails deep into her palms until the skin bruised, staring out at the empty driveway in sheer disbelief before turning with wide, panicked eyes. "What kind of trouble did she stir up to bring armed forces to our doorstep?" Dwayne swallowed hard, trying to force his trembling voice to sound steady. "She must have crossed some major felons back in the slums and got hauled in by the FBI or SWAT for an investigation!" Brittanie seized onto the excuse instantly. "Yes! Addie must have broken federal law! Mom, we have to cut ties with her before she drags us down!" Eleanor nodded rapidly, her face twisting with revulsion. "Right. We cannot let an ungrateful convict ruin the Booth family reputation!"

In his private study on the second floor of the Booth mansion, Richard Booth stood behind his mahogany desk, his face dark with fury as the family butler Winston bowed nervously before him. "Sir, I saw it with my own eyes," Winston stammered. "Miss Adelaide was taken away by a squad of heavily armed uniformed personnel, with military helicopters overhead." Richard slammed his crystal whiskey glass onto the wood, splashing amber liquid across the polished surface. "That rebellious girl! She hasn't even been back for a month and she's already arrested for a federal felony!" Eleanor stood beside the desk, fanning the flames with a venomous sneer. "Richard, we must issue a public statement stripping her of her inheritance rights immediately, before this scandal tanks our company's stock price!" Richard paced furiously back and forth, roaring toward the doorway. "Freeze every single bank card that girl has! Let her rot in federal prison by herself!" Just outside the study door, Brittanie held a tray of coffee, her lips curving into a triumphant sneer as she listened to the orders sealing Adelaide's complete ruin. Across the city, far beneath the Manhattan bedrock, the three armored SUVs glided down a reinforced access ramp and halted before the massive blast doors of an underground defense research base. The blast doors parted with a heavy hydraulic hiss, allowing the convoy to pull smoothly up to the encrypted elevator on the fifth subterranean level, where two rows of armed guards snapped to attention and saluted. Adelaide stepped out of the vehicle and walked into the facility, quickly changing into a crisp white anti-static lab coat with a red badge representing top-level national defense clearance pinned to her lapel. The lab director rushed forward, his voice shaking with relief. "Dr. Booth! You're finally here. The final calculation for the quantum encryption chip has hit a complete dead end." Adelaide walked straight to the main console. "Pull up the thirteenth set of variable data for me." Complex lines of code flashed across the massive holographic screen as Adelaide's long fingers blurred over the virtual keyboard. Around the room, the country's top scientists held their breath, their eyes glued to the rapidly scrolling data streams. "There is a fundamental logic conflict in the thirteenth variable group. The algorithmic framework for the quantum entanglement state has to be reconstructed." The director's face fell into a grimace. "Reconstructing the entire algorithm will take at least three months, but the Department of Defense only gave us three days." Adelaide raised an eyebrow slightly, pulling a swivel chair over to sit down as her dark eyes turned razor-sharp. "Three months? Give me thirty minutes." With every rapid tap of her fingertips, the stalled progress bar on the main monitor began creeping forward at a visible pace. Twenty minutes later, a clear chime echoed through the facility as the highest-difficulty simulation model locked into a flawless closed loop. Thunderous applause erupted across the laboratory, leaving several white-haired professors with reddened, tearful eyes. Adelaide took off her blue-light glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "The calculation is done. I'll leave the physical encapsulation to the rest of you." The director bowed slightly and handed her a cup of warm water with both hands. "Dr. Booth, you are a national treasure! You saved the entire project today." Adelaide took a sip of the water. "Skip the flattery. Just make sure the final payment hits my encrypted account on time." Right then, the private satellite phone in her pocket vibrated with an incoming call from a special restricted number. She pressed answer, and the gruff, energetic voice of Archibald Merritt, the former patriarch of the Merritt financial empire, rang through the speaker. "Addie, are you done with your work yet?" Adelaide's cold tone softened slightly for the old man whose life she had once saved. "Just wrapped up a project. How are you feeling lately, Grandpa Archibald?" Archibald let out a hearty laugh. "Much better! We're having a small family dinner tonight, and you have to come share a drink with this old man." Adelaide frowned slightly. "A dinner? You know I don't like those kinds of gatherings." Archibald immediately broke into a series of dramatic, wheezing coughs over the line. "Cough... my heart has been acting up again these past few days. If only you could come take a look at me..." Adelaide sighed helplessly. "Alright, stop faking it. Text me the time and address, and I'll be there." Hanging up the phone, she shrugged off her white lab coat and handed it to an assistant. "Get a car ready. I need to head over to the Merritt estate." Minutes later, a low-key black sedan rolled out of the underground base's garage and entered a Manhattan tunnel, carrying Adelaide toward her meeting with the Merritt family.