Chapter 2 - THE PAPER EMPIRE
Nathan took three aggressive steps into the room before the two hospital guards stepped firmly into his path, placing heavy hands on his chest.
"Sir, step back," the lead guard commanded. "This is an Intensive Care Unit. You are disturbing the patient."
"Disturbing her?" Nathan laughed hysterically, running a hand through his carefully styled hair, now disheveled and damp with sweat. "She just erased two billion dollars of market capitalization in six seconds! Wall Street is halting trading on Cross Technologies shares right now! Do you know what happens if the markets open tomorrow and Aegis Core isn't running?"
"You go bankrupt," I offered plainly, adjusting my pillows. "Which seems appropriate, given that you just gave away my life's work to buy designer handbags for your mistress."
Chloe scoffed loudly, pushing her way past Nathan to glare at me from behind the guards. "Listen to you, you bitter, pathetic little gray mouse! You think this makes you clever? Nathan built this company! You were just sitting in a dark basement typing lines of code that anyone could have written! He gave you status! He gave you a lifestyle!"
"Chloe, shut up!" Nathan snapped, swinging around to glare at her.
It was the first time I saw a crack in their golden foundation. Chloe blinked, her glossy lips parting in shock as Nathan snapped at her.
"Nathan!" she squeaked. "I'm on your side!"
"Just shut your mouth for one second!" Nathan hissed. He turned back to me, taking a deep, ragged breath and forcing his face into the familiar, charming mask he used on investors. "Serena... baby. Look at me. You're confused. You just woke up from a twenty-day coma. The oxygen deprivation... you're not thinking straight."
"My cognition score this morning was 30 out of 30, Nathan," I replied, my tone dry. "Dr. Marcus recorded it. Try again."
"Okay, fine," Nathan lowered his voice, stepping closer despite the guards. "We had a disagreement. I was harsh earlier. The divorce paper... that was just corporate strategy! The board insisted on streamlining leadership before the acquisition! I had to present a clean slate to the buyout group!"
"And the $20,000 Birkin bag thrown onto my paralyzed legs?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "Was that corporate strategy too?"
Nathan winced slightly, shooting Chloe a venomous side-glance. "That was a mistake. Chloe shouldn't have come. Look, Serena, we can talk about our personal life later. Right now, the core system requires a cryptographic root sign-off every twenty-four hours, or the fail-safe wipes the secondary caches. You know how you designed it! The entire banking grid using our software will collapse by midnight!"
"I know," I said. "I designed it that way so that if an unauthorized entity attempted an hostile administrative takeover of the source code, the system would isolate itself automatically."
"You registered the kernel to a third-party entity!" Nathan yelled, losing his composure again. "Our legal team spent the last three hours looking through the intellectual property assignments! Where is the assignment contract from Vance Holdings to Cross Tech?!"
"There isn't one," Elena spoke up, her voice ringing with satisfaction. "I was the corporate secretary when Cross Technologies was incorporated, Nathan. You signed a licensing agreement in 2019 that granted Cross Tech a non-exclusive, revocable right to run Aegis Core, contingent upon Serena Vance holding the title of Chief Technology Officer with full voting rights."
Elena pulled a single piece of paper from her folder and held it up so Nathan could see it.
"When you and the board illegally voted to terminate Serena's position as CTO while she was in a medically induced coma," Elena continued, "you breached Section 14, Paragraph B of the master license. The software didn't crash because of a bug, Nathan. It revoked your license because you fired the owner."
Nathan stared at the document as if it were a venomous snake. His face drained of all color.
"That... that license wasn't filed with the SEC," Nathan stammered. "It's not valid!"
"It was filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and backed by an escrow vault in Zurich," I told him, leaning back against my pillows. "You were so busy hosting galas and bragging to Forbes about being a self-made billionaire that you never bothered to read the technical annexes of your own corporate filings. You relied on my silence because you thought I was just a quiet girl who loved you."
Nathan looked at me, and for the first time in the ten years I had known him, I saw genuine fear in his eyes. Not fear of losing me—fear of becoming nothing.
"Serena... please," he whispered, his voice trembling. "If the system stays dark until tomorrow morning, the Department of Defense contract drops. The SEC will open a fraud investigation into the IPO filings. I'll lose everything. I could go to prison."
"Then I suggest you get a good lawyer," I said coldly. "Now get out of my room."
"Serena!"
"Guards," I said quietly. "Remove these people from my sight."
The two security officers moved in firmly, grabbing Nathan by the arms and escorting him backward out of the ICU suite. Chloe squealed in indignation as she was pushed into the hallway, her high heels scraping against the floor.
"You'll regret this!" Chloe screamed from the hall, her voice echoing off the walls. "You're nothing! You're a sick, broke cripple!"
The door clicked shut. Silence returned to the room.
Elena let out a long breath and collapsed into the visitor's chair. "That was glorious. But Serena... what's the next move? They have forty lawyers sitting in the corporate tower right now trying to find an emergency injunction judge."
May you like
I reached under my blanket and pulled out the encrypted tablet.
"Let them try," I said softly, my eyes fixed on the screen as notifications began pouring in from around the globe. "They think this is about software. They don't realize I've been keeping track of where the money went while I was asleep."
