THE USELESS HUSBAND'S BILLION DOLLAR REVENGE

8: Meridian Moves

The offices of Meridian Global occupied six floors of a black glass building in the financial district and were decorated in the particular style of places where enormous amounts of money are managed, which is to say expensively but without warmth, with art on the walls that had been chosen by a consultant rather than a person, and furniture that communicated authority without inviting comfort.

Marcus Vane's office was on the top floor. It was large. It had a view that people paid to describe. He stood at the window now, his phone pressed to his ear, listening.

"The patent is clean," the voice on the phone said. "Cleaner than we hoped. The original attorney made one error in the claim specifications, a gap in claim six, but our contact at the patent office tells us that a supplementary amendment was filed this morning. First thing."

Marcus said nothing.

"The amendment closes the gap. If it's approved, and it will be, the patent is effectively bulletproof."

"Who filed the amendment?"

"Fisk and Associates."

He turned from the window.

"Joan Fisk," he said.

"Yes."

"When did Cross retain her?"

"Based on the filing timestamp, she would have had to see the documentation by yesterday at the latest. Which means he had the documentation already organized. Which means he was prepared." A pause. "The retainer is being covered by Helion Capital."

Marcus was very still for a moment.

"Cross met with Reyes," he said.

"That is our conclusion."

He sat down in his chair. He turned a pen over in his fingers twice, a habit he was not aware of.

"What do we have?" he said.

"Legally? Less than we hoped. The prior art searches our team ran last night found two papers that touch adjacent territory, but nothing that directly anticipates Cross's central claims. The design is genuinely novel." Another pause. "There is one avenue that could create delay."

"Tell me."

"The technology was developed, at least in part, during a legal marriage. Depending on the state of the divorce proceeding and the exact nature of any community property or marital contribution arguments, there may be grounds for a claim that the patent is a marital asset, partially or in full."

"Is that viable?"

"Our attorney believes it has a twenty to thirty percent chance of creating enough procedural delay to disrupt any immediate commercialization. It would not succeed permanently. But it could slow things down by six to twelve months."

Marcus set the pen down.

Six to twelve months. In the energy storage sector, in the current climate, with three government green infrastructure bills pending in two countries and capital flooding into the space at a rate that had not been seen in thirty years, six to twelve months was not an inconvenience. Six to twelve months was a war.

"Does Elena know about this avenue?" he said.

"I've explained it to her attorney."

"What is Elena's position?"

A pause. "She has not given instruction one way or the other."

Marcus nodded to himself. He understood Elena's hesitation. She was not a cruel person. She was a practical person, which was close to the same thing in business contexts but not in human ones, and she had not yet decided which context she was operating in when it came to her husband.

Her ex-husband.

He thought about Ethan Cross standing at the edge of the celebration last night. He had noticed him arrive. He had watched Elena's face do the small controlled rearrangement that it did when something unexpected appeared. He had watched the man move through the crowd and he had catalogued him the way he catalogued everyone, quickly and with the particular interest of a person who considers everyone either an asset or an obstacle.

He had categorized Ethan Cross as neither.

He had been wrong.

"Instruct Elena's attorney to file the marital asset claim," he said.

"Without Elena's direct instruction?"

"Get her instruction. Today." He stood up again. "Tell her it is the only leverage we have and it needs to be filed within seventy-two hours to be credible. Tell her it's procedural. Tell her it's not permanent." He moved back to the window. "Tell her whatever she needs to hear."

"Understood."

"And get me a full profile on Cross. Everything. Where he grew up, who his friends are, what he owes, who he owes it to. If there are any outstanding financial obligations or any personal vulnerabilities that could be relevant, I want to know about them." He looked at the city. "If Sable Reyes has decided to back him, she has already done her due diligence and found nothing. But Sable looks for strengths. I look for different things."

"By end of day," the voice said.

He hung up.

He stood at the window.

He had been in this industry for twenty years. He had backed thirty-one companies from seed to exit. He had competed with Sable Reyes three times in his career and won once, lost once, and drawn once, which was in his estimation an even record against the best in the field.

She had gotten to Cross first.

That was a setback. Not a defeat.

He thought about the technology. He had read the abstract three times and had his technical consultants explain the core claims in terms he could fully grasp. He understood enough to know that whoever controlled this patent controlled the next decade of the energy storage sector. Not a piece of it. The center of it.

The energy management platform that Elena had built at SkyBridge was designed, whether she had known it or not, to function best with exactly this kind of storage system. Her software spoke to the hardware that Cross had designed the way two halves of the same language speak to each other. Together they were not just a product. They were an infrastructure.

He thought about what it would mean to have both.

He thought about what it would mean for Helion Capital to have both.

He thought: I cannot allow that.

He picked up his phone and called Elena.

She answered on the third ring, which meant she had been looking at his name and deciding.

"Marcus."

"I need to see you this afternoon," he said. "There are decisions to make and I need you fully in this."

A pause. "What decisions?"

"The ones that protect everything you built," he said. "Come to the office at four."

Another pause, shorter.

"Fine," she said. "Four."

He hung up.

He looked at the city.

Somewhere out there, in an apartment that probably cost a third of what his parking space cost, a mechanic was sitting at a workbench and thinking about what he was going to do next.

Marcus Vane intended to be faster.