With the call on speaker, every word came through loud and clear.

When my father hung up, his eyes were bloodshot as he stared at me. His voice was hoarse. “Victoria, you heard that, didn’t you? This isn’t just about saving your sister anymore. It’s also about executing Noah’s rescue plan. This is an order!”

I responded with a deliberate yawn and ignored him.

Just then, a commotion rose from outside the detention center.

Somehow, several parents of the missing students had gotten word of where I was being held and found their way here.

The moment they saw me, they all dropped to their knees with heavy thuds.

“Ms. Victoria, please! Please save our kids!”

“Please, Ms. Victoria, she’s our only daughter. She can’t die down there!”

Their sobbing and pleading blended into one overwhelming chorus.

I looked down at them from behind the bars. My expression was detached and unmoved.

“Whether they live or die, what does that have to do with me?”

As soon as I said that, the crying stopped instantly.

They stared at me in disbelief, as though I were a monster.

One mother snapped out of her shock first. She fumbled for her phone, opened a screenshot of a bank transfer, and held it up to the bars.

“How can you say that?! Look! This is the ‘research funding’ my daughter sent you! She told us you demanded that 50,000 dollars be sent to this account every month, or you wouldn’t let her join your project or even graduate!”

“Our children’s futures were in your hands. How can you just stand by and let them die?”

The others hurried to take out their phones as well. One transfer record after another appeared, each one slamming down like a heavy blow.

“Yes! We paid for it too!”

“All of us did! For two whole years!”

When my father saw the transfer records, he shook with rage. He jabbed a trembling finger at my face. His voice was quivering.

“Y-You wretched disgrace! Not only are you cold-blooded and heartless, but you’ve actually stooped to extorting your students. You were embezzling and abusing your position. This is disgusting! You have shamed our family’s name beyond repair!”

He roared at me as if I had really committed some unforgivable crime.

Yet both he and I knew the truth.

The name on that receiving account was not mine.

It belonged to his favorite precious daughter, Cindy.

No matter how the parents pleaded, cursed, or threatened to kill themselves, I did not react.

I stood there like a spectator, detached and untouched, watching the farce play out.

Time ticked by, minute after minute. The golden window for rescuing the Deep Dweller was slipping away fast.

Online, the storm had reached a fever pitch.

[ChiefEngineerVictoriaArcherRefusesRescue]

[VictoriaArcherDetainedForLeakingClassifiedData]

[VictoriaArcherExtortedHerStudents]

One flashing hashtag after another shot to the top of the trending list. Within just a few hours, my name had become synonymous with cruelty, greed, and disgrace.

Right then, in the rescue livestream, a faint, broken burst of static came through.

It was Cindy.

“Vic… Vic… Can you hear me?”

She sounded like she was using the last of her strength. Her voice seemed to be trembling with terror at the thought of death and a desperate will to live.

“Vic… I trust you… I know you can save me… You’ve always been… the person I admired most… You won’t give up on me… Will you?”

Cindy’s final, sisterly plea, which was broadcast live, shattered the hearts of the nation.

The livestream’s chat erupted in a collective wave of heartbreak and fury.

[What nonsense! This is brutal! The little sister is begging for her life, and the big sister is sitting in a cell doing absolutely nothing!]

[Victoria is a monster. An absolute monster! That’s your sister!]

[I’m disgusted. How did someone like her ever become Chief Engineer? Investigate her immediately!]

[Go save them! Don’t wait till it’s too late!]

Insults and accusations surged over me like a tidal wave.

Linda seized the moment perfectly.

With a dramatic thud, she fell to her knees once more. Though this time, her performance was not for me. It was for the media cameras that had swarmed the detention center’s perimeter.

She wept as if her heart were being torn apart. Her sobs were loud enough to echo through the space.

“Please, Victoria. If you go and save Cindy, I-I’ll have her sign over all of the Locke family’s inheritance to you! We’ll give up everything!”

As she spoke, she really pulled a pre-prepared Asset Renunciation Agreement from her bag.

Cindy’s signature was already on it.

It only needed my consent to be complete.

What a performance.

She had perfectly cast herself as the heroic mother who would sacrifice everything for her child.

I looked at her and smiled.

Then, under the stunned gazes of everyone present, I uttered one word.

“Okay.”

Linda was stunned. She clearly did not expect that I would agree.

I curled a finger at her. “Bring it here. Let me take a look.”

She hesitated for a moment, then slid the document through the gap in the bars.

I took it, gave it a perfunctory glance, and nodded slowly.

“That’s quite an offer.”

Linda’s eyes brightened with desperate hope. She blurted out, “Does that mean you… You’re going now?”

I tossed the agreement onto the table beside me and settled back against the wall. “I said I’d consider it. I never said when I’d go.”

Her expression hardened into a mask of pure fury.

“Y-You’re messing with me!”

I closed my eyes and ignored her.

Another thirty minutes slipped by.

Every second was torture for those trapped in the deep sea.

For my father, it was no different.

Finally, he played his last card.

He stepped up to the bars and fixed his gaze on me intently as he forced each word out through clenched teeth.

“Victoria, if you leave now to save your sister, I’ll give you sixty percent of Locke Corp.’s shares.”

Locke Corp., the business empire my mother built from scratch, was worth over 100,000,000,000 dollars.

Sixty percent meant absolute control.

Locke Corp.’s most elite legal team arrived at the detention center with dizzying speed. They were holding a thick stack of equity transfer documents.

I gazed at the document in front of me and took note of the astronomical figures laid out in stark black and white. I then picked up a pen.

Just as the tip of the pen was about to touch the paper…

A sudden burst of cheering erupted from the livestream.

“We’ve got a connection! The remote signal went through!”

“Commander Noah did it! He actually did it!”

“There’s been a major breakthrough in the rescue!”

I smiled.

The fish had finally taken the bait.

This time, they had walked straight into the trap I had laid for them.