Introduction

Ava stepped off the jet, eager to finally hug her daughter, Lily, after eighteen months away on a critical mission.

A familiar face, her handler, handed her a tablet, saying, "Welcome home, Ava. Everything is ready for your debriefing tomorrow. Tonight is yours."

Her eyes immediately landed on a headline: "Tech Prodigy Lily Thorne Exposed as Fraud, Groundbreaking AI Code Auctioned Off by Estranged Husband Mark Vance."

And then the photo. Lily, bound to a chair on a brightly lit stage, her face pale, a mixture of shock and utter devastation.

Her estranged son-in-law, Mark Vance, stood beside a woman Ava didn' t recognize-his new fiancée, Chloe.

He was sneering into the camera, declaring Lily would be finished, blacklisted, her future one of "menial jobs and constant public humiliation."

The tablet shattered in Ava' s hand, cracks spiderwebbing across the screen.

Her blood ran cold. The rage was a physical force, shimmering in the air around her.

How could he do this? How could a man she once trusted betray her daughter so completely, so publicly?

This wasn't just a betrayal; it was an execution.

"The mission isn' t over," Ava declared, her voice unnaturally calm, her gaze fixed on something far beyond the horrified handler. "It just began."