Chapter 4 The Ghost in Her Code

The office Damien assigned me was on the 49th floor-just two below his own-but it felt like an entirely different universe. The walls were bare, the glass desk pristine, and the floor-to-ceiling windows offered a panoramic view of a city that didn't know I'd been gutted and rebuilt overnight.

I stood in front of the touchscreen console at my desk and stared at the login screen. My new assistant-Natalie, who looked like she could bench-press a briefcase-had already preloaded my corporate credentials.

Lena Carter. VP, Blackwood Innovations.

I typed slowly, hesitating on the last letter of my password. The cursor blinked like it was holding its breath.

Then I hit Enter.

And the system came to life.

Dashboards. Access logs. Product maps. Patent portfolios. Cloud archives.

I dove into the digital archive, searching for the ghost that haunted me.

CarterCloud.

My old company. My old idea. My baby.

It should have been mine.

Instead, the file came up under a different name: SkyVault AI. Registered under Daniel Blackwood. Six months ago.

My breath stopped.

I clicked deeper. I knew the interface. The code architecture. The predictive learning modules. Even the aesthetic was familiar-the same soft blue tones I'd chosen in the prototype phase. Only now it had been streamlined, commercialized, and polished until not even the scars of theft showed.

Until now.

I pulled up the metadata. My initials still lingered in the backend-buried in the notes, in a fragment of an old comment line I'd written late one night before I handed Daniel access to help "test security."

// L.C. – Fix adaptive sync bug in Tier-3 cloud threads

There I was.

Proof.

I felt it like a fist to the ribs.

A knock came at the door. Natalie poked her head in.

"Board meeting in ten. Mr. Blackwood wants you there."

I nodded stiffly. "Thanks."

She left.

I stayed frozen in front of the screen, unable to tear my eyes away from the thing Daniel had stolen. Not just the code. The credit. The future I'd mapped out, long before I ever agreed to marry him.

He hadn't just broken my heart.

He'd erased me.

-

The boardroom was a brutalist display of power: a black-glass table long enough to seat twenty, with Damien at the head. He wore a steel-gray suit, no tie, and a look of cold control that seemed carved in stone.

The other board members-mostly older men, a few sharp-eyed women-turned to stare as I walked in.

"Gentlemen," Damien said without rising, "this is Lena Carter, our new VP of Innovation and Strategy."

There were murmurs.

"She's heading our SkyVault division," Damien added smoothly.

A ripple of confusion. One of the men on the left-Vickers, I remembered vaguely-cleared his throat.

"I thought SkyVault was under Daniel's leadership."

Damien smiled without teeth. "It was. Until we discovered several... redundancies. And a need for vision. Lena brings both."

I took my seat, forcing my spine straight, my hands steady.

Let them stare.

Let them doubt.

Let them see what Daniel never did.

Another man leaned forward, hands clasped. "You'll understand if we're curious, Ms. Carter. Your appointment came with... little notice."

I met his eyes. "Your curiosity is justified. But not more than my qualifications."

He blinked.

"SkyVault was my concept," I said calmly. "I designed the original prototype two years ago under a different name. I understand its architecture, its application, and its future better than anyone in this room-including Daniel Blackwood."

The room went still.

Damien's eyes didn't leave me.

"I'll be presenting a restructured roadmap for SkyVault at the next quarterly review," I continued. "And I'll be proposing a full audit of development history and IP authorship along with it."

That got their attention.

"An audit?" someone said sharply. "Do you have reason to believe-"

"I have reason to believe this company values integrity," I interrupted, voice like ice. "And that it will want to ensure its flagship product wasn't built on a lie."

Damien leaned back in his chair, utterly unfazed.

"Ms. Carter has my full support," he said.

The room buzzed again-but no one challenged him. Not here. Not yet.

Meeting adjourned ten minutes later, with carefully polite nods and a few quiet whispers trailing after me as I left.

I'd drawn blood.

Just a little.

Enough to feel alive again.

-

Later that night, I found Damien in his office, backlit by the skyline. He was nursing a tumbler of bourbon and staring out at the city like he planned to own it by morning.

"You went off-script," he said without turning.

"You said I was brilliant last time I did that."

He turned now, one brow raised.

"You dropped the word 'audit' like a live grenade."

I shrugged. "Figured you liked explosions."

He studied me, eyes flickering with something unreadable.

"Daniel will retaliate."

"Good."

"You ready for that?"

"I've been ready since the day he signed my name off that patent filing."

A pause.

Then he said, "You surprised them today."

"You mean the board?"

"No," Damien said. "Me."

That caught me off-guard.

"You thought I'd flinch?" I asked.

"I thought you'd need time."

"I don't," I said. "Time's a luxury. I want my life back. I want what he stole. And I want to make sure the next time someone looks at me, they don't see a girl left at the altar. They see the woman who burned the chapel down."

Damien stepped closer.

"And what do you want from me, Lena?"

The question was sharp. Dangerous.

I didn't flinch.

"Access. Leverage. A platform."

He nodded.

Then: "What don't you want?"

"Lies," I said without hesitation. "No more games inside the game. I'll be your partner in this-your weapon, if that's what you want-but I won't be your pawn."

Damien held my gaze. Then, for the first time since I'd met him, he gave me something almost resembling respect.

"Understood."

-

As I walked back to my suite, I caught sight of my reflection in the marble hallway mirror.

There was something different in my eyes.

Not rage.

Not ruin.

Strategy.

And beneath it, something colder.

Vengeance.

Not just against Daniel.

Against everything that said I wasn't enough.