“I remember. It was an algorithm I had been working on for months. A framework for adaptive neural processing. I thought it was interesting, but I never got any feedback on it.”Chris stood up from the desk and walked to the window. He looked out at the city below for a moment, then turned back to Adrian.“That piece of code is the foundation of everything we built. Every product, every system, every breakthrough that put Skyward Technology on the map, all of it traces back to your algorithm. Our entire AI architecture was built on top of what you wrote in that file.”Adrian felt the blood leave his face. His hands gripped the armrests of the chair without him telling them to.“That’s not possible. It was just a concept. A rough draft. I never even finished testing it.”“You didn’t need to finish it. What you wrote was ten years ahead of anything else in the field. My entire engineering team spent six months just trying to understand how it worked. When they finally did, they built Ae

Adrian looked at the black card sitting on the table between them. One million dollars. He picked it up, turned it over in his fingers once, and set it back down gently, like it was a napkin he had no use for.Then he laughed. Not loud, not mocking, just a quiet chuckle that came from somewhere deep in his chest. The kind of laugh a man makes when he has heard something so small it barely registers.Anna's eyes narrowed. The laugh had landed on her like a slap, and her fingers curled slowly on the tabletop."Something funny?""You are offering me one million dollars to walk away from your daughter." Adrian tilted his head and looked at her with genuine curiosity, like a man studying a painting he did not quite understand. "Is that really what you think Kathy is worth? One million? Your own daughter?"Anna's chin lifted. A vein pulsed once at her temple."Do not twist my words, boy. This is not about what my daughter is worth. This is about what you are worth. And right now, sitting in

Anna's face could have frozen the tea in her cup. She placed both hands flat on the table and leaned forward, her voice dropping to a pitch that could cut through bone."Did you just call me mother in law?"Adrian did not move. He sat with his back against the chair, relaxed, his hands resting on his knees like a man waiting for a bus he was in no hurry to catch."I did.""Are you deliberately trying to provoke me, or are you simply too stupid to understand the danger you are in?"Adrian picked up the black bank card from his jacket pocket and placed it back on the table. He slid it across the polished wood with two fingers until it stopped right in front of Anna's folded hands."If Kathy wants me gone, she can tell me herself. I don't need your money, Mrs. Morrison. And I don't take orders from someone I just met over a cup of tea."Anna stared at the card like it had betrayed her. She had expected him to grab it. She had expected the hungry, desperate look that always appeared on the

"I know. But I need you to understand what you are walking into. My family is not like other families. My uncles, my cousins, my mother's business partners, they will all be there. Some of them are proud. Some of them are cruel. And all of them despise outsiders.""I've dealt with worse people than proud relatives at a dinner table, Kathy. Prison was not exactly full of polite company.""This is different. They will not punch you. They will smile at you and tear you apart with words and watch you bleed with a glass of wine in their hands. They will test you, humiliate you, and try to make you lose your temper in front of everyone."Adrian looked at her. Her face was still cold, still composed, but something in her voice had shifted. Not warmth. Concern, maybe. The kind that hides behind practical words because the person speaking does not know how to say it any other way."I am not going to lose my temper. But I am going to tell you something right now, and I mean it." He leaned forwar

Kathy stood up so fast her chair scraped against the stone floor. Her face was tight with fury, and her mouth opened to say something that would have burned the smile right off Derek's face.Adrian caught her wrist gently. She looked down at him, and he shook his head once. Slowly. Calmly. She sat back down, her jaw clenched so tight the muscles stood out on both sides.Adrian picked up his own napkin and wiped the wine from his shirt without any rush. He folded the napkin, set it beside his plate, and looked at Derek."If you wanted my attention, Derek, you only needed to ask. You didn't have to waste good wine."Derek's smile faltered for half a second, then came back wider. He leaned forward with his elbows on the table and clasped his hands together."All right then. You have my attention and I have yours. So let me ask you something simple. What exactly do you bring to this family? Because from where I am sitting, all I see is an ex convict in a stained shirt who cannot even affo