Chapter 3

Back in my small apartment, which doubled as the headquarters for Legacy AI, the silence was deafening. The city lights blinked outside my window, indifferent. I could picture Mark at a celebratory dinner, his team toasting their victory, his phone buzzing with congratulations. He was probably telling everyone how sorry he was for me.

The thought made my stomach turn. I wouldn' t let him have the satisfaction of my despair. I needed to move, to act. I picked up the phone and dialed the one person I could trust completely.

"Emily," I said, the moment she answered. "He' s not going to get away with this."

"Of course he isn' t," Emily' s voice was fierce, the lawyer in her already kicking into gear. "I' m already pulling the patent filings. His claims are broad, but they' re flimsy. We can fight this, Sarah."

"A legal fight will take years, and millions of dollars I don' t have. He knows that. He' s trying to bleed me dry, to bury me in paperwork until I give up."

"So what' s the plan?" she asked.

I looked over at the worn cardboard box in the corner of my room. My father' s last work. It was a mess of handwritten notes, circuit diagrams on napkins, and cryptic lines of code. Mark had seen it once and called it the ramblings of a tired man. But I knew my father. There was always a method to his madness.

"The plan is in that box," I said, a new energy surging through me. "Mark thinks he acquired all of Dad' s important work when he bought the company. But he never saw the final phase. He doesn' t know what Dad was really building."

"You think there' s proof in there? Something that predates his patents?"

"I think there' s more than that," I said, my voice low with conviction. "I think the technology he' s claiming as his own is just a shadow of what my father actually created. I' m not just going to prove him wrong, Em. I' m going to make his prized technology look like a child' s toy."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. I could hear the worry in her silence.

"You sound... different, Sarah," she finally said, her tone softening. "Are you okay?"

"I' ve never been better," I lied, forcing a lightness into my voice that I didn' t feel. The truth was, I was terrified. But I couldn' t let that show. I needed to be strong, for me and for my father.

Emily wasn' t fooled. "I know you, Sarah Miller. Don' t do that. You don' t have to be strong for me. I' m on your side, no matter what. I' m coming over."

Before I could answer, a notification popped up on my laptop. A new article. My heart sank. It was from Richard Stone, one of the most respected tech journalists in the Valley.

The headline read: 'Mark Johnson' s Bold Move: A Necessary Step to Protect Innovation or a Betrayal of a Legacy?'

I quickly scanned the article. Stone was trying to be balanced, but the narrative was clearly shaped by Mark' s PR machine. He quoted anonymous sources from Johnson Dynamics who painted me as an unstable, grieving daughter, unable to accept that her father' s work was obsolete. Mark' s betrayal was being framed as a painful but necessary business decision.

As I was reading, Emily' s name flashed on my phone again. I picked it up.

"Did you see the article from Richard Stone?" she asked, her voice tight with anger.

"I' m reading it now," I said, my own anger rising.

Mark' s influence was spreading. He was poisoning the well, turning the entire industry against me before I even had a chance to speak. It was another calculated attack, another way to isolate me, to make me look like I was crazy. He and his ambition were everywhere, suffocating me.