Julian looked around the room, feeding off the quiet the way a performer feeds off applause. He was enjoying this. He reached for a glass of water on the table in front of him, held it up like he was about to make a toast, and then slowly, deliberately, poured it over Adrian's shoulder.The water ran down Adrian's arm and dripped onto the stone floor. Julian set the empty glass down and laughed."There. Now you look like what you really are. A wet dog at a rich man's table. Learn your place, Adrian."Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Twenty people sat frozen in their chairs, watching and waiting.Adrian stood up slowly. The chair behind him did not scrape or screech. It moved back quietly under the weight of his legs straightening, and he rose to his full height with water dripping from his sleeve onto the floor.He wiped his face with the back of his hand. He looked at Julian, and there was nothing in his eyes that Julian recognized. No fear. No shame. No anger he could exploit. Just a

Kathy's name flashed on Adrian's phone while he was standing in front of a digital blueprint of the Aegis AI architecture inside Skyward's main development lab. He picked up on the second ring."Julian has been quiet." Kathy's voice was flat, but there was a thin edge underneath it. "Too quiet. He hasn't called my mother. He hasn't contacted our family. He hasn't posted anything online. Nothing.""That's not silence. That's planning.""I know. That is why I am calling." She paused for a moment. "I just received an invitation to a private business event this Friday. Julian's company is hosting it. Several major families are on the guest list. The Ashfords, the Lanes, the Prestons. Everyone."Adrian leaned against the glass wall and looked out across the lab floor where engineers were working at their stations."He wants an audience.""That is exactly what I think. He is building a stage. And you are the one he plans to put on it.""Then we go.""Adrian, this is obviously a trap.""I kn

"This is ridiculous. Someone must have filed the wrong date. It is a clerical error.""A clerical error that happens to be the foundation of your entire accusation?" Adrian shook his head slowly. "You prepared a trap for me tonight, Julian. You printed forged documents and called an audience so you could humiliate me in front of every important person in this room. But you made one careless mistake. You did not check whether the company you used in your forgery actually existed on the date you needed it to."Adrian leaned closer, close enough that only Julian could hear him."This was your first mistake. Don't make a second one."Julian stared at him. The confidence was gone. The charm was gone. The smug, lazy cruelty that lived behind his eyes was gone. What was left was the face of a man who had walked into his own trap and heard it close behind him.Adrian straightened up and walked away. Kathy fell into step beside him without a word, and they left the ballroom together while the

"An employee named Elias Voss. His account was deactivated over three years ago when he left the company. It has been completely dormant since then. But six days ago, someone reactivated that identity and used it to request restricted information from our internal archive.""Elias Voss." Adrian said the name slowly, testing it in his mouth like a word he had heard before but could not place. He looked at Chris. "Did Elias have access to my original work?"Chris did not answer immediately. His eyes moved to the window, then to the floor, then to his own hands. He took his glasses off again and held them between his fingers without cleaning them."Chris. Did Elias have access to my code?""Yes." The word came out tight and reluctant, like something being pulled through a narrow opening. "Elias worked with the early Skyward team. He was part of the group that first reviewed your submission.""You never mentioned him before. Not once. Not when you told me about the company's history, not

"The foundation of it. When we launched this company, we built everything on top of the system you and Elias created together. His security protocols are still running inside Aegis right now. They have been protecting your architecture for three years."Adrian sat down slowly. The fragments in his head were trying to connect, like broken wires reaching for each other in the dark. Something about the timeline was bothering him. A shape was forming in the back of his mind, ugly and sharp."Chris. What happened to the original project files?"Chris went still. His hand froze halfway to his glasses."They were stolen.""When?""Shortly before your arrest. About two weeks before you signed the papers and went to prison."Adrian felt something cold move through his chest. "The files were stolen, and then I was arrested. You are telling me those two things happened within two weeks of each other.""Yes.""And you never thought that was suspicious?""Of course I thought it was suspicious. I h