Chapter 1 – 4:47 a.m.
The city was still a dark circuit board when Rowan Vale shut the penthouse door with the softest click of her life. Inside, Lachlan Pierce slept—bare-chested, one arm flung toward the space she'd just vacated, black curls crushed against the pillow they'd shared for six forbidden months.
On the marble entry table lay the flash drive that held Helix 1.0—half his code, half hers, all of their late-night laughter soldered into ones and zeroes. She slid it into her laptop bag, zipper sounding like a gunshot in the hush.
She told herself she wasn't stealing. She was reclaiming the future they'd promised to open-source together—the future he'd voted to monetize at sunrise.The elevator arrived too fast.
As doors closed, she spotted the Post-it she'd stuck to the mirror: Choose your empire. I won't be one more asset.She didn't expect him to cry. She didn't expect him to chase. She expected the IPO to win. It always did.
She pressed a hand to a stomach still flat, already hosting the only piece of Lachlan Pierce the stock market couldn't price.Down forty-three floors.
Out into fog that tasted like salt and second chances. Gone.
Five Years Later – 9:11 a.m.
"Mama, Snap Dragon needs a helmet!"Rowan looked up from grant spreadsheets to find her four-year-old astronaut—cardboard colander crooked, felt stars peeling—holding the plastic Venus flytrap like a baby."Helmets are for heads, not carnivores," she said, scooping toast crumbs from his curls.Leo's storm-grey eyes—unmistakably Pierce—narrowed.
"Snap's scared of earthquakes."Rowan's heart stuttered. The Bay had rumbled at dawn, a 3.2 reminder that fault lines never sleep. She hadn't realized Leo felt it through the crib rails.
Her phone buzzed. Calendar notification: Pierce Industries – Grant Hearing – 11:00.Her stomach free-fell.
She'd applied for fifty million for Second Light, the nonprofit AI tutor she'd built from the bones of Helix. She hadn't expected Lachlan himself to chair the committee.
Another buzz—unknown number. Text: Still compiling in your sleep, Rowan?She deleted it, but the ghost of cedar and solder stayed in her lungs.
"Big meeting?" Leo asked, tiny hand on her cheek."Just vultures, Captain." She kissed his helmet. "Back in two hours. Aunt Mari's on standby."He saluted with Snap Dragon.
"Deploy the toast!"She laughed—then caught their reflection in the window: a single mom and a cardboard astronaut, backed by the city that made her, ready to face the man she'd once left in yesterday's sheets.
The countdown started the moment she hit Accept on the calendar invite.Ten feet, thirty days, one roof.No questions about the past—only about the future that had just begun to quake.