Chapter 1

The company was in chaos. Ethan Miller was gone. Not just on vacation, but vanished. Calls went to voicemail. Emails bounced back. It was as if he' d evaporated. As CEO of Hayes Innovations, I should have been leading the search. Instead, I was standing in front of a mirror, adjusting the fit of a couture wedding dress.

A press release had just gone out. Olivia Hayes, CEO, was engaged to her high school sweetheart, Daniel Sterling. The tech world was buzzing, but not about Ethan' s disappearance. They were buzzing about us.

My phone chimed. It was a live feed from a major tech blog. I watched, my heart a cold, hard stone in my chest. The headline was plastered across the screen: "HAYES AND STERLING: A LOVE STORY REUNITED."

There I was, on the screen, smiling. Daniel was beside me, his arm wrapped possessively around my waist. We were at a lavish press conference I had arranged. The cameras flashed, capturing our perfect happiness for the world to see.

"It' s a dream come true," my on-screen self said, my voice dripping with rehearsed sincerity. "Daniel has always been the one."

Then, the reporter asked about the engagement gift. I smiled wider, a gesture I knew looked brilliant on camera. "To celebrate our union, Sterling Industries will be entering a new era of innovation. We' re formalizing a partnership with Hayes Innovations, and as a symbol of this future, I am bringing my most valuable asset to this marriage: the patent for the Prometheus AI."

I saw a flicker on the hotel room' s television screen where I was watching this unfold. A reflection. It was me, Ethan. I stood there, thousands of miles away in a sterile hotel room in Zurich, watching my life get publicly dismantled. The Prometheus AI. I didn't call it that. That was Olivia' s branding. I called it Aegis. And it wasn't her asset to give. It was mine. It was supposed to be my wedding gift to her.

The comment section on the live feed scrolled endlessly. "They look so happy!" one user wrote. "A true power couple." Another added, "Forget that other guy, Miller. This is the real deal."

The world agreed with her. I was the old news, the forgotten partner. Daniel was the romantic hero, the past love returning to claim his prize. I felt a profound sense of isolation, a feeling that the entire world was witnessing my humiliation and applauding it. The injustice was a physical weight, pressing down on my chest, making it hard to breathe.

I watched as Daniel leaned into the microphone. He looked directly into the main camera, as if he could see me through the screen. "Olivia and I have a history that can' t be denied," he said, his voice smooth and confident. "Some things are just meant to be." He then kissed Olivia, a long, passionate kiss for all the world to see. She melted into him, her hand on his chest. It wasn't an act. That part was real. The confirmation was a final, brutal blow.

Then, Olivia spoke again, her voice filled with a triumphant glow. "And Daniel has been so generous. As his own gift to our future, he's personally funding the next stage of development for Prometheus. This patent," she held up a symbolic document for the cameras, "is the foundation of our new life together."

My creation. My genius. The culmination of years of secret, exhausting work. She was holding it up like a trophy she had won, a dowry to buy her new life with another man. The sense of being robbed was absolute. It wasn't just a patent; it was a part of my soul, now being used to celebrate my own betrayal.

I leaned back on the stiff hotel bed, the remote falling from my numb fingers. I felt a strange sense of detachment, as if I were watching a movie about someone else. The emotional storm had passed, leaving behind a cold, desolate calm. I saw it all clearly now. The sudden, urgent "business trip" she had arranged for me. Her insistence that I go alone. It was all a lie, a carefully constructed plan to get me out of the way.

My phone vibrated. A new notification. I didn't need to look. I knew it was her, probably a text message filled with hollow apologies and excuses that she would expect me to swallow. I didn't feel anger anymore. I didn't feel heartbreak. I just felt... tired. Tired of the lies, tired of her.

I stood up. The city lights of Zurich twinkled outside the window, oblivious to the collapse of my world. But it wasn't a collapse. It was a clarification. I looked at my reflection in the dark glass. The naive man who had loved Olivia Hayes was gone. In his place was someone else, someone colder and harder. I had to go back. Not to fight for her, but to reclaim what was mine.

I picked up my phone, but I didn't look at her message. I scrolled to a single, unlisted contact: Agent Smith. My thumb hovered over the call button. They didn't know who I really was. Olivia thought I was just a successful, slightly nerdy tech entrepreneur. She had no idea that my success was just a cover. She didn't know that I was a prodigy, recruited by a clandestine government agency right out of college.

She didn't know that Aegis, her "Prometheus," was more than just a commercial AI. It was a revolutionary piece of technology, a strategic asset I had developed for them. It belonged to the United States government. And by extension, it belonged to me, its sole creator. Announcing it as her dowry wasn't just a betrayal. It was a federal crime.

I pressed the call button.

"Miller," a gruff voice answered instantly. "It's 3 a.m. here. This had better be a matter of national security."

I looked out the window at the distant, glittering city.

"It is," I said, my voice devoid of any emotion. "Get me a flight. I' m coming home. Now."