firmware that controlled Alexander’s mobility systems.

Whoever was probing the network was not after money alone.

They were after him.

That night Alexander asked her to stay after the others left.

The security lab emptied into a hush of cooling servers and city light.

He had removed his suit jacket, and fatigue showed more plainly at the edges of his face.

On the monitor between them glowed the code she had just annotated.

“You noticed the access pattern matches the one from four years ago,” he said.

Felicia nodded.

“Not identical.

Evolved.

But whoever wrote this either saw the original attack or learned from the same source.” Alexander’s jaw tightened.

“The attack that put me in this chair was supposed to kill me,” he said.

“Instead it taught me that broken systems and broken loyalty usually live in the same building.”

It was the first time he had spoken plainly about the assault.

Felicia did not offer pity.

She had already learned he hated the polished kind.

Instead she asked, “Does everyone around you know they’re being tested?” For the first time, one corner of his mouth lifted.

“Everyone except you, apparently.” He told her the truth then, or enough of it to matter.

After he saw the hotel footage, he had asked for her background because genuine goodness made him suspicious before it made him hopeful.

What he found was a lost father, predatory debt, a stepmother who used obligation as a leash, and a woman smart enough to build small miracles in secret.

“I meant to offer you work,” he said.

“Possibly friendship, if I proved worth having.

I did not mean for my interest to become a market around your life.”

Over the next two weeks Felicia’s world rearranged itself around work that finally used the parts of her mind she had spent years hiding.

She and Mina traced shell vendors to a consulting company called Mercer Strategies.

Mercer billed for accessibility compliance, but its servers were scrubbed too clean and its invoices landed whenever Alexander’s devices were upgraded or his travel routes changed.

Felicia kept following the pattern until it led to a name that made even Mina curse under her breath: Damian Reeves, Alexander’s cousin, board vice-chair, and the man investors liked to whisper about as the safer public face of the company.

When they dug deeper, they found a smaller transfer from Mercer to Linda Hart two days before Felicia had been handed the marriage papers.

Alexander went very still when he saw the connection.

“Damian visited me in the hospital after the shooting,” he said.

“He held the cup while I couldn’t.” His voice was flat, but hurt moved underneath it like something still bleeding.

The theory became brutally simple.

Damian had learned Alexander was interested in an unknown woman tied to no powerful family.

He had paid Linda to force that woman toward him, hoping for one of two outcomes: either Felicia would become a frightened informant inside Alexander’s life, or the arrangement would explode publicly and make Alexander look predatory, reckless, and unfit to lead.

If Damian could tie scandal to the man in the wheelchair, the board would do the rest.

“We need proof he can’t explain away,” Mina said.

Bank transfers were not enough.

Damian could bury them under