The laboratory grew so quiet that the faint, high-pitched whine of the cooling fans inside the unshielded testing rigs sounded like a dentist’s drill against bone.

"Stop."

The single word echoed off the polished concrete floor of the laboratory. Dean didn't stop walking. He reached the heavy sliding doors, his hand grazing the stainless-steel release bar.

"I said stop, Mr. Miller."

Dean sighed, closing his eyes for a brief second as he pictured Emma’s face, pale and small beneath the hospital blanket at Harbor Crest Medical Center. He calculated the hours—it was past 8:00 p.m. If he didn't leave now, he’d miss the evening visiting window, and the nurses would have to give her the nightly update over the phone while she cried softly into her pillow.

He turned around, his jaw set.

Sloan Hutton was walking toward him across the lab, her heels clicking rhythmically against the floor. The rest of the engineering team stood frozen in the background, watching like spectators at a gladiatorial arena.

"You just diagnosed a fatal flaw in a sixty-million-dollar propulsion system in less than thirty seconds while holding a wrench," Sloan said, stopping three feet away from him. Her gray eyes swept over his faded facilities uniform, lingering for a fraction of a second on the dried blood across his knuckle. "People with that kind of diagnostic intuition don't clean air vents for a living."

"People do whatever they have to do to pay rent," Dean said flatly.

"And earlier," Sloan continued, her lips curving into a dangerous, calculating smile, "you asked if I was serious about my terms."

Dean didn't blink. "You said: Fix it by morning and I’m yours."

A collective intake of breath hissed through the room. Gregson looked as though he might faint.

Sloan didn't flinch. She tilted her head, studying Dean with a mixture of professional respect and absolute defiance. She was a woman who was rarely challenged, and even more rarely outmaneuvered.

"You think you can fix the A9 core before the procurement review at ten o'clock tomorrow morning?" Sloan asked.

"I don't think. I know," Dean said. "Provided your team stops arguing with me and actually picks up a wrench."

Sloan pulled a gold-plated fountain pen from her jacket pocket, strode over to the central engineering console, and ripped a blank sheet of heavy-stock diagnostic paper from the printer tray. She scribbled a few lines across the top, signed her name with a sharp, aggressive flourish, and walked back over, holding the paper out to him.

Dean looked down at it.

I, Sloan Hutton, CEO of Hutton Aerospace, hereby agree that if Dean Miller stabilizes the A9 propulsion prototype before 10:00 AM tomorrow, I will grant him any reasonable financial or professional compensation he demands—without corporate oversight or administrative delay.

It wasn't a marriage proposal. It was a blank check wrapped in CEO arrogance.

"Is this what you wanted, Mr. Miller?" Sloan challenged, her eyes locked on his. "A contract?"

Dean looked at the paper, then at the figure etched into his mind like a branding iron: $48,700.

He pulled a stubby pencil from his breast pocket, flipped the paper over, and wrote a single line at the bottom: Fifty thousand dollars cash, deposited into my personal account by noon tomorrow, plus full administrative clearance to redesign the secondary cooling manifold.

He handed the paper back to her.

Sloan glanced down, read the line, and let out a short, sharp laugh of genuine amusement.

"Fifty thousand? That's all? You just saved a multi-million-dollar federal contract, and your price is fifty grand?"

"That's my price," Dean said.