Chapter 4 - THE THIRTEEN PATENTSThe board meeting ended in chaos.
Executives crowded the hallway.
Lawyers rushed toward Aaron.
Phones rang.
Investors demanded answers.
But I stayed in the boardroom.
Victor approached me.
“You've triggered the change of control provision.”
“Yes.”
“That means the patent licenses are now under review.”
“I know.”
He lowered his voice.
“You realize what happens if they're terminated.”
“Yes.”
“Prescott's flagship products become commercially unusable.”
“I know.”
Victor studied my face.
“You planned this for a long time.”
“No.”
He looked surprised.
“I planned to forgive him.”
That answer seemed to unsettle him more than anything else.
I left Prescott Tower at noon.
At 12:17, a message arrived.
Aaron wants to meet privately.
I ignored it.
At 1:02.
He says he'll agree to anything.
Ignored.
At 2:44.
He says he can explain Jasmine.
Ignored.
At 5:13.
Please call him.
I didn't.
Instead, I opened an old storage box in my bedroom.
Inside were thirteen blue folders.
Patent numbers.
Legal opinions.
Negotiation records.
Banking transfers.
Letters from inventors.
Each folder represented a piece of Aaron's empire.
People assumed Aaron had invented everything.
He had not.
He had been brilliant at assembling ideas.
I had been the one who made sure those ideas were protected.
The first patent came from a research team in Berlin.
The second from a Japanese robotics lab.
The third from a French semiconductor company.
The fourth from a professor in California who refused every offer Aaron made until I personally negotiated with him.
The thirteenth was different.
I had bought it anonymously.
Aaron never knew.
It was the core patent.
The one without which Prescott's entire software architecture collapsed.
I pulled out the original license.
There was one clause.
A sentence I had insisted on.
License remains valid only while the controlling shareholder is not in breach of fiduciary duty.
At the time Aaron had laughed.
“Why are you so paranoid?”
I told him.
“Because success makes people careless.”
He kissed my forehead.
“Then I'll never become careless.”
I closed the folder.
He had become exactly that.
At 7:30, Aaron arrived at my house.
Alone.
I let him in.
He looked at the library table.
The blue folders were there.
His eyes narrowed.
“You have everything.”
“Yes.”
“The patents.”
“Yes.”
“The funding.”
“Yes.”
“The board documents.”
“Yes.”
He sat down.
“What do you want?”
I looked at him.
“I wanted a husband.”
He flinched.
“I wanted you to come home.”
Silence.
“I wanted you to remember my birthday.”
His lips parted.
“I wanted you to stop introducing me as your wife while making me feel like an employee.”
“Alyssa…”
“And I wanted you to look at me the way you looked at her.”
His face hardened.
“It wasn't what you think.”
“Then tell me.”
He stared at the floor.
“She was helping me.”
“With oranges?”
He winced.
“No.”
“With late nights?”
“Alyssa…”
“With an apartment?”
His head snapped up.
“You knew?”
“I know everything.”
He rubbed his face.
“What do you want from me?”
“I told you.”
“What?”
“A husband.”
“I can be that.”
I laughed quietly.
“No.”
“I can change.”
“You had four years.”
“I made mistakes.”
“You didn't make mistakes.”
I leaned forward.
“You made choices.”
His eyes filled with something that looked like fear.
“Do you still love me?”
The question stunned me.
I looked at him for a long time.
“Once.”
He swallowed.
“And now?”
“I don't know.”
He reached across the table.
I pulled my hand away.
His face crumpled.
Then his phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
“It's the patent office.”
He answered.
“Hello?”
His expression changed.
“What?”
He stood.
“No. That's not possible.”
I watched him.
His voice rose.
“You can't freeze the licensing agreement!”
Silence.
Then:
“Who authorized this?”
He slowly lowered the phone.
I didn't ask.
I already knew.
He looked at me.
“Your father.”
I shook my head.
“My father has been dead for three years.”
Aaron went still.
“Then who?”
I smiled.
“Me.”
His phone slipped from his hand.
The last thing he said before leaving was:
“You've been waiting for this.”
“No.”
I watched him walk away.
“I've been waiting for you to stop giving me reasons.”
At midnight, I opened my email.
One message sat at the top.
From Jasmine.
You don't know who Aaron really is.
I almost deleted it.
Then I saw the attachment.
A photo.
Jasmine was not alone.
Standing beside her was Victor Chen.
And between them was a locked metal case.
The timestamp was two nights before the jet trip.
The subject line contained six words:
He never planned to come back to you.
I opened the message.
May you like
The first sentence made my blood run cold.
Alyssa, Aaron has been hiding something much bigger than me.
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