Chapter 4

The fallout from Henderson's startup was immediate. The company folded overnight. Mark had made good on his threat. He drove me back to the luxury apartment in silence, the tension in the car so thick I could barely breathe. He was punishing me, not with anger, but with a smothering, disappointed silence.

Once inside, I couldn't take it anymore. I rounded on him, my hands clenched. "You did this, didn't you? You made sure no one else would hire me. You wanted me to end up in a place like that. You wanted me to fail."

He had the audacity to look hurt. He walked to the bar and poured himself a drink, his movements slow and deliberate. "I did what I had to do to protect you, Ava."

"Protect me?" I laughed, a bitter, broken sound. "You destroyed me! You stood in court and you lied. You sent me to prison. How is any of this protection?"

"You were out of control!" he said, his voice finally rising. "Your ambition... it was going to destroy you. That rival company was setting you up for a much bigger fall. I saw it. What I did, testifying, it was the only way to contain the damage. A few years in a low-security facility was better than a decade in a federal prison." He was trying to sell me a fantasy, to repaint his betrayal as a twisted act of love. "I knew you'd be angry, but I thought... I thought when you got out, you'd understand. That you'd see I did it for us."

The sheer arrogance of his words stole my breath. He had constructed an entire reality where he was the hero of my tragedy. "You never believed in me," I whispered, the realization hitting me with the force of a physical blow. "Not really. You saw my research not as our success, but as my ambition, something you needed to control."

"I do believe in you!" he insisted, stepping towards me. "I believe you need me. You're brilliant, Ava, but you're naive. You don't see the sharks in the water."

He reached out to touch my face, and I recoiled. "Don't touch me."

His jaw tightened. He pulled back, grabbing his phone from his pocket. "Fine. Have it your way." He strode out onto the balcony, leaving the sliding glass door ajar. I watched as he put the phone to his ear.

His voice was different now. Lower, more deferential. "Clara? It's me... No, she's not being reasonable... Yes, I know. You were right. She's more broken than I thought." He was listening intently, nodding. "Okay. I'll handle it. I'll bring her to the gala tomorrow night. She needs to be reminded of the world she belongs in. Our world."

He hung up and turned back to me, his face once again a mask of confident control. He was a puppet, and I had just seen the puppeteer's strings.