I’m so sick of pretending to love you… Those heart supplements I brought you every night? Digoxin… In mine, given the right way over enough months, it does exactly the opposite… Gareth and I are going to spend every last cent of it…

The recording ran for perhaps thirty seconds. No one in the room moved. Gareth’s face drained of all its color, going a strange bloodless white, and his mouth opened and shut without producing anything.

Teresa Pearson looked at her hands. Brandon looked at the table.

Demi lunged for the console.

Seth Coleman was faster, coming half out of his chair and putting himself between her and the desk, one broad hand raised. She pulled up short.

“That’s fake!” Her voice cracked on the word. “That’s — that’s not me, that’s a fake, you can do anything with computers now, that’s AI, that’s generated, my husband hated me and this is his revenge, that recording is a fabrication—”