Five Years Wasted Now They Beg Her Back novel Chapter 413

As Grace walked out of the elevator, her arm linked with Damien's, she got the feeling she was being watched.

She frowned and glanced around, but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

"What's wrong?"

Damien sensed her hesitation and immediately tightened his grip on her hand.

"Is your blood sugar low? I told you to have some of that soup first, but you wouldn't listen."

Though his tone was harsh, his eyes were full of concern, and he was about to scoop her up into his arms.

"I'm fine."

Grace shook her head, but before she could say more, the phone in her pocket vibrated.

It wasn't her usual notification sound.

It was a sharp, piercing buzz she had never heard before.

Grace's heart seized.

She took out her phone.

The screen was completely black, with a single line of blood-red text.

[Grace Hart, I am The Shepherd.]

[The technology your mother stole from the family must be returned.]

Grace's hand trembled, and the phone almost slipped from her grasp.

"Stole?"

She stared at the word, a bitter, incredulous laugh forming on her lips. "Damien, look."

"They're saying my mother stole something?"

"She left her biological parents when she was two, was treated like a birthing machine and a lab rat when she grew up, and was finally killed by a neurotoxin injection! And now, they have the nerve to call her a thief?"

The red text continued to appear on the screen.

[Hand over the 'gene sequence key' your mother left behind.]

“This isn't just a hack, Mr. Clarke,” Felix said, his voice tight. “This is the kind of encryption they use at Langley. We’re up against an army, not a person.”"Gene sequence key…" Grace muttered to herself. "I don't even know what that is."

"Growing up in the Hart family, I never even had a decent toy. If my mother really left something for me when she returned from abroad, Lilian Hart would have snatched it long ago, or Sabrina Hart would have thrown it in the trash."

Grace thought of all the suffering she had endured in the Hart family.

Being forced to kneel in the courtyard on a snowy day, her knees so frozen she lost all feeling, while hearing Lilian's laughter as she played the piano inside.

Having to give up the birthday present her uncle gave her just because Lilian wanted that limited-edition doll.

And even later…

To treat Lilian's illness, she was held down on an operating table, forced to watch as a thick, long needle was plunged into her bone.

The pain was bone-deep.

But now, this so-called "Shepherd" wanted to strip her of the last shred of dignity she had—her career.

Grace looked up, her eyes red-rimmed. "Damien, my work in neuroscience is the result of my own sleepless nights and hard work."