When I built the fraud-detection engine for Mercer Dynamics, I didn’t just build software. I built an ecosystem. And any good architect builds a master key into the foundation — a way to reclaim it all if the system is ever terminally corrupted.

I’d written the protocol while I was pregnant, and named it after the only thing that mattered to me.

I typed the command line: EXECUTE_PROTOCOL_NOAH.

“Stop!” Grant yelled, taking a step before a bailiff put a heavy hand on his chest.

“You took my son’s memory and tried to turn it into a weapon against my sanity,” I said, my voice finally trembling — not with fear but with righteous fury.

I looked at Vanessa, then pointedly at the pendant. “You wore his name into this room thinking it would break me.”