Logan, Mason, Chloe, and Lily were running across the manicured grass, their matching holiday clothes long since traded for summer activewear.

They were completely free.

They’d spent the last six months under total, quiet security, their futures permanently insulated from the malice of the family that had tried to erase their existence.

Paige stepped onto the balcony stone and handed me a secure terminal.

“The federal compliance division just finalized the asset liquidation,” she announced, a quiet smile touching her lips. “Dominic Vance accepted a full plea agreement to avoid the maximum sentence. The judge stripped him of every remaining corporate holding, enforced a permanent non-contact order, and routed his entire frozen offshore portfolio into an unbreakable trust fund for the quadruplets.”

I looked down at the display, watching the legal ledger update to a permanent status of “Closed / Enforced.” Dominic and his mother were left to navigate the total bankruptcy of their social and financial standing, blacklisted from every venture firm on the West Coast.

But their data no longer took up a single byte on my server.

My system had closed that file forever.