Chapter 2

I walked through the living room, my fingers lightly brushing against the cold leather of a new sofa. This wasn't my furniture. The warm, worn-in armchair where I used to spend hours coding was gone. The walls, once a soft blue, were now a harsh, sterile white. Every change was a deliberate erasure of me.

"The house has been updated," Mark said from behind me, as if he were a real estate agent giving a tour. "Chloe has excellent taste."

I didn't answer. I was looking for something, a presence that should have been there.

"Where is Spark?" I asked, turning to face him. I meant the physical interface, the sleek, minimalist hub I had designed for it.

"Oh," Mark hesitated for a second. "Spark's main server is at the MindLink headquarters now. More secure. Chloe thought it was for the best. We just use the remote access points here."

He was lying. I could feel it. Spark was more than just software to me; it was a personality, a companion. I would never have let its core be moved from the custom-built, climate-controlled server room I had installed in the basement of this very house.

My mind drifted back. I remembered the day I met Mark. He was a business consultant, brought in to help me prepare for a Series A funding round. He was charming, ambitious, and he told me everything I wanted to hear. He praised my vision for MindLink, my passion for creating AI that could genuinely connect with people.

I, a brilliant tech mind but naive in the ways of the world, had fallen for it. I thought his ambition was for us, for our future. I now saw it was only ever for himself. He saw MindLink, he saw me, and he saw a ladder.

My purpose in coming back here wasn't to reclaim a lost love. It was to reclaim my life's work.

"You need to understand, Ava," Mark continued, his tone hardening again. "Chloe is the CEO of MindLink now. She's the face of the company. The board, the investors, they all trust her. You coming back... it complicates things."

"Complicates how?" I asked, my voice still quiet.

"Don't play dumb," he snapped. "You showing up, looking like a ghost, it's not good for business. Chloe has worked hard to build a stable image for the company. You are a reminder of a tragic past. A liability."

He said the word "liability" with such casual cruelty. He wasn't talking about a business problem. He was talking about me. The woman he was supposed to marry.

I looked at him, at his expensive suit and his cold eyes. The man I thought I loved was a complete stranger. Or worse, he was a mask, and I was only now seeing the empty space behind it.

For three years, I was the "comatose liability." He had erased me from his life, from our home, from my own company, and he expected me to just fade away quietly.

"I see," I said.

My calmness seemed to agitate him more than any argument would have. He wanted a fight, a scene. It would have validated his narrative of me being unstable, emotional, unfit. I refused to give it to him.

I turned and walked towards the staircase.

"Where are you going?" he demanded.

"To my old room," I said. "I assume that's still here."

I needed a space to think, a place to start my plan. He and Chloe had taken my company, my home, and my creation. They thought they had taken everything.

They were wrong. They didn't take my mind.