I hadn’t just used that technology; I’d written its foundational logic.

I knew how his synced accounts spoke to one another, how the system logged and mirrored his devices, how to read the digital footprint he’d wired straight through a hub I understood better than he ever would.

He’d built himself a glass house and handed me the light switch.

Piece by piece, over three days, the affair assembled itself into a folder: the texts, the timeline, the money.

Chapter 6 — The Preparation

The photographs came from a discreet investigator — Warner and Renae entering and leaving four boutique hotels across the city, each frame date-stamped, the pattern beginning six months back and repeating every two to three weeks.