14

## Act I: The Distraction on the Board

The bitter smell of cheap coffee lingered in the freezing air of the corridor as John adjusted his hidden earpiece. 

His gaze remained locked firmly on Sara, who was pacing near the windows with her phone pressed to her ear.

"Sir, Sara is calling her dad, Raghu," John relayed in a low, rapid whisper, keeping his face turned toward the wall to blend into the hospital background.

 "She just told him to come to the hospital immediately. He said he will be here within twenty minutes."

Inside the VIP suite, Martin Roy leaned back against his pillows, a cold, knowing smile tugging at his lips. 

He checked his watch, noting the minutes ticking away toward the final interview deadline at Roy Enterprises. 

To him, every human action was entirely predictable, driven by greed or fear.

"She is calling her father because she wants to go after her interview," Martin murmured through the live connection, his tone dripping with absolute corporate arrogance. 

"She will leave him here to look after me so she can run to her meeting. John, watch closely. She will keep her father in my room, attend her interview, and she will definitely lose my game. I knew her dad would scold her for wasting all their money on a stranger. Human nature never changes."

Twenty minutes later, the elevator doors slid open with a soft chime. 

Raghu rushed into the corridor, his face pale and eyes full of tears as he ran straight toward his daughter.

"Sara! What happened to you? Why are you here?" Raghu cried out, grabbing her trembling hands.

"Dad, listen to me," Sara said, her voice dropping to a steady, urgent whisper as she pulled him slightly away from the main hallway.

 "When I was heading to the interview, an elderly person fell down outside. No one came to help him. I couldn't just leave him there, so I admitted him to this hospital. But Dad... there is one more thing. I used all the money we took for our loan to cover his emergency admission."

John strained his ears, leaning closer to the door frame, waiting for the explosive anger and resentment that Martin had so confidently predicted. 

He expected the father to break down, to curse the stranger, to demand they leave.

But Raghu merely let out a shaky breath, his eyes softening with deep emotion as he looked at his daughter. 

"Sara, for this simple money issue, you called me? What's the matter, tell me!" Raghu said, completely brushing off the sudden loss of their hard-earned life savings. 

He didn't care about the wealth; he only cared that she was safe.

"Don't panic, Dad. Just stay here tonight. Stay here until the patient's actual relatives come to look after him," Sara told him, her voice remaining calm and structured.

"Okay, but something is strange. For this simple thing, you don't usually call me," Raghu whispered, gesturing vaguely to the unusually quiet hallway of the VIP wing. He could feel the underlying tension in the air. 

"Did you eat anything, Sara?"

"Right now, I only drank some coffee," Sara replied softly.

"You have to be leaving now, then?" Raghu asked, looking toward the exit, assuming she needed to rush to her career-defining appointment.

"Just wait, Dad," Sara instructed.

She stood up, walked swiftly over to the attending nurse and doctor, and confirmed Martin's stable vitals one final time. 

When she returned to her father, her eyes had sharpened with an unreadable, intense focus. 

The panic was gone, replaced by a cold, calculating precision that rivaled Martin's own.

"Dad, go home from the back side of the hospital. The nurse will show you the way right now."

Raghu looked utterly confused, but he trusted his daughter implicitly.

 "But the patient is still in this room..."

"Dad, do as I say now," she insisted gently, pushing him firmly toward the rear exit stairwell.

Outside, John was completely losing his mind. 

The unpredictable movement shattered their operational plan. 

He frantically tapped his hidden microphone, his eyes darting between the empty hallway and the service doors.

"Sir! Sara's dad is going out the back of the hospital! What should I do? Should I follow him?"

Inside the room, Martin's relaxed posture instantly vanished. He sat up completely rigid beneath the sheets, his sharp mind frantically spinning to recalculate the variables on his board. 

The puzzle pieces weren't fitting his grand design.

"No need," Martin commanded, his voice turning into freezing steel over the earpiece. 

"But why did she call him here if he's just leaving? What is her plan? Why did she call her father, and how can she save me now from those thugs if she clears the floor?"

Before John could answer, he watched Sara turn on her heel and walk firmly toward the front elevators, her heels clicking rhythmically against the linoleum.

After a few minutes, John pressed the button on his collar again. 

"Sir, she is already left from here too," John reported, his voice hollow with disappointment. 

"She went away from here. She took the elevator down."

Martin closed his eyes, a heavy, profound wave of disappointment crashing over his chest.

 His cynical worldview had won, but for the first time in his life, victory felt completely bitter. 

He had proven that humanity was selfish, that she would abandon a dying man for a job interview, but the revelation left him feeling entirely hollow.

Martin cut the call with a sharp snap. I am expecting a more unrealistic thing from humanity, Martin thought bitterly, staring at the blank wall. 

If she didn't want to help till the end, then why did she skip her interview prep in the first place? Why play the hero at all?

But the grandmaster had miscalculated the board entirely.

 He had analyzed her through the lens of corporate greed, completely blind to strategic self-defense.

Less than ten minutes later, the rear service door of the VIP wing clicked open with a sharp, metallic sound.

Sara stepped through the back door into the corridor. 

She hadn't arrived from the main elevators where John was watching, but from the secure, restricted back entrance. 

She wasn't alone; she was flanked directly by the hospital's head nurse and two large, uniform security guards.

She hadn't abandoned her post.

She had used her father as a loud, emotional distraction to draw the attention of any watching eyes away from the floor.

 While John was focused on Raghu's dramatic departure, Sara had gone downstairs to secure internal hospital backup, bypass the main elevators entirely, and flank the suspicious men waiting in the shadows. 

She had systematically cut off the entry points.

Hearing the heavy footsteps outside, Martin Roy slowly lowered his phone, the silence in the VIP room turning absolute. 

The realization of what she had done hit him with the force of a physical blow. She had outplayed his surveillance network using his own tactics.

Acting quickly, Martin lay back down on the mattress, closing his eyes and pretending he was completely unconscious just as the door handle began to turn.

The undefeated corporate giant had set an impossible psychological trap, only to be completely 

outmaneuvered by a girl defending a stranger's life. 

The game hadn't ended. Sara had just rewritten the rules of engagement.