POV: Ethan ColeEmergency meeting at Cole Industries the next morning. Everyone showed up. Maya, Marcus, Lily, Jennifer, Adrian, Priya. Priya presented the Patricia Holt situation with her laptop connected to the screen."Okay so, Daniel's memoir. Based on the chapter summaries I pulled from the publisher's emails, he's positioning himself as someone who was manipulated by Theodore, coerced by circumstances, and destroyed by an illegal revenge campaign.""The campaign wasn't illegal," Marcus said."From outside the system's context? Some of what Ethan did looks questionable. The charity gala infiltration using a false identity, the hostile takeover through shell companies, the coordinated media assault during the fifteen-day countdown."She pulled up screenshots.Daniel's chapter summaries described everything I'd done.Just without the context of why."He doesn't know about the system," Jennifer said."No. But he describes its effects in ways that could raise legal questions."Maya w

POV: Ethan ColeThe wedding was at four PM.Rooftop restaurant overlooking the bay.Sixty guests.Marcus's parents flew in from Vancouver with like fifteen relatives I'd never met.Lily's sister came with three of her closest friends from her hacker network.They all looked exactly like Lily but in different colored hoodies.Jennifer, Adrian, Priya.Catherine.Emma, because Lily said "she lives with your mother, she comes to the wedding" and that was final.The ceremony started on time because Lily had built a spreadsheet. The celebrant was this woman Marcus and Lily chose because she specialized in ceremonies for people who'd been through complicated shit.Her exact words when they hired her.Marcus's vows went first. He pulled out note cards and cleared his throat."Lily. I've spent my entire professional life finding patterns other people miss. Anomalies in data. Inconsistencies in records. The truth hidden in numbers."He looked at her."You were the first thing I found that I was

POV: Ethan ColeWe’re at the prison visiting room at ten AM the next morning. The guard brought Daniel in at ten fifteen.Orange jumpsuit, hands cuffed in front. He looked different than the last time I'd seen him. Thinner. His charisma was still there but operating at like half power.The guard uncuffed him and stepped back to the wall.He sat down across from us.Looked at Maya first, then at me."You look good. Both of you.""Cut the shit," I said. "What do you want?""Right to business. I respect that.""Daniel."He held up his hands. "Okay. First, Emma and the book. I know she killed it. I'm not mad.""You're not?""She made her own choice for the first time in years. That's more than I gave her credit for."Maya leaned forward. "You coerced her into the takeover. You don't get credit for being okay with her finally making a free choice.""Fair point."He looked at me."Thanks for coming," he said."You said you had something to tell us.""Yeah. First, I know about Emma and the b

POV: Priya NairI'd been tracking Marsh since his bar suspension. The suspension prevented him from practicing law. It didn't prevent him from filing patent applications personally.Technical loophole. And he exploited it.The competing patent application covered four of the seven patents in Ethan's trust portfolio.Marsh claimed independent development of the underlying mathematical framework Complete bullshit.The system identified the source material in like thirty seconds.He'd copied and slightly modified James Cole's original research from Robert Cross's documentation that got submitted to Dr. Kimani for the open-source publication.Marsh had legal access to the research during the takeover period when he represented Cole Industries under Daniel. He'd held onto it for years, and filed the application when he realized the publication would make everything public domain.If he could establish prior patent claim before publication, he could demand licensing fees from anyone using

POV: Priya NairI called Jennifer at like twelve thirty. She answered immediately.No grogginess, no confusion. Dman, that girl is always sharp. Does she even sleep?"What happened?""Someone filed a competing patent application from a Meridian shell company.""I'm on my way.She showed up at my apartment in twenty minutes.We spread everything across my kitchen table.Laptop, system interface, Jennifer's old case files on Meridian."Okay so the shell company traces through four layers of registration," I said. "Each layer uses a different EU jurisdiction.""How long will it take to trace?""My system can do it simultaneously. Maybe ninety minutes?"Jennifer pulled up a chair."Do it."I started.The first layer was Luxembourg.Second was Netherlands.Third was Malta.Fourth was Cyprus.Each one had different registration requirements, different privacy laws, different ways to hide beneficial ownership.My system processed them all at once.It would take a human investigator like week