Chapter 10 - The Original They Wanted Me to Choose
Nadia ordered me to place both agreements on the desk.
One preserved my founder ownership.
The other transferred all controlling shares back into the Continuity Trust if Thomas determined I had rejected the company’s strategic interests.
The revocation language was broad enough to make conscience a breach.
Refusing military contracts.
Protecting customer privacy.
Rejecting surveillance deals.
Every decision I considered leadership could be labeled disobedience.
My signature appeared real.
Reed examined it.
“The ink dates correctly.”
“I never signed this.”
“You may have signed a blank founder packet on your twenty first birthday.”
I remembered the celebration inside that office.
My father brought champagne in paper cups. Charles Laurent stood near the window. Martin Reed placed several documents in front of me and said the filing deadline was midnight.
I trusted all three men.
I signed where they pointed.
Nadia had spent years waiting for the revocation agreement to become useful.
She believed Charles’s witness signature made it unchallengeable.
Reed disagreed.
“Charles was legally dead when the witness date was entered.”
“Then Thomas falsified the date,” Nadia said.
“Or Charles survived.”
Tiffany’s father had appeared alive in the Nevada recording after his supposed boating death.
If he lived long enough to sign the agreement, he might also know whether Thomas survived the crash.
Nadia raised the gun toward Reed.
“Open the Laurent clause.”
He refused.
She pressed the weapon against his chest.
I opened the Continuity Annex.
A hidden pocket inside the back cover contained a narrow strip of film.
Marcus moved near the doorway.
Nadia saw him and fired.
The bullet struck the frame beside his head.
Federal agents entered.
Nadia grabbed the revocation agreement and ran toward the roof stairs.
I followed.
The old building shook beneath our feet as officers climbed from below.
On the roof, morning light spread across downtown Los Angeles. Nadia reached the edge where a helicopter descended above the neighboring parking structure.
Malcolm Sloane waited inside.
He had not disappeared.
He had come for the agreement.
Nadia jumped across the narrow gap between buildings.
She landed hard but kept moving.
Malcolm reached for her.
Then another man stepped from the helicopter.
Silver hair.
Black coat.
Carter family signet ring.
My father.
Thomas looked older, but no photograph or synthetic voice could reproduce the way his left eyebrow lifted when he saw me.
“Ava.”
I stopped at the edge of the roof.
Nine years of grief became anger before it could become relief.
“You watched me bury you.”
“I watched you become strong enough to continue.”
“You recruited my husband.”
“To test your judgment.”
“You put Tiffany beside him.”
“To restore what Charles lost.”
“You ordered Nadia to remove me.”
“I ordered her to protect the company.”
Nadia looked at him.
“You said I would replace her.”
Thomas barely glanced at her.
“You were a contingency.”
The word destroyed her.
She had betrayed me because my father made her feel chosen.
Jason had done the same.
Tiffany.
Malcolm.
Every person around Thomas competed for a position he never intended to share.
Nadia raised the gun toward him.
Malcolm shot her first.
She fell against the helicopter skid.
The revocation agreement slipped from her hand and blew across the roof.
I jumped the gap.
My shoulder struck concrete, but I caught the pages before they disappeared over the edge.
Federal agents reached the second roof.
Malcolm aimed at them.
Thomas stepped into the helicopter.
“Come with me, Ava.”
I looked at the man whose death shaped my adulthood.
“Why?”
“Because the company was never the real asset.”
He pointed toward the film strip inside my hand.
“The code on that strip controls an identity network used by governments, banks, and intelligence agencies. Carter Dynamics was built to conceal it.”
My first product had been a secure identity engine.
I believed I invented its underlying architecture during college.
Thomas claimed Charles Laurent designed the original model years earlier for a classified program. My father took the research, funded me, and allowed the world to believe the breakthrough was mine.
“You stole Charles’s work.”
“I refined its future.”
“Did you kill him?”
Thomas looked toward the helicopter cabin.
A weak voice spoke from inside.
“No.”
Tiffany stepped into view behind him.
Beside her sat an older man with an oxygen tube beneath his nose.
Charles Laurent.
Alive.
Tiffany stared at him as though she still did not know whether to call him father.
Charles held up a third agreement.
“The two documents in your hands are both decoys,” he said.
Reed reached the rooftop with federal officers.
Thomas’s expression changed.
For the first time, he looked surprised.
Charles continued.
“The real founder agreement never belonged to Thomas, Ava, or the Continuity Trust.”
“Who owns Carter Dynamics?” I asked.
Charles looked toward Tiffany.
Then toward me.
“Your mother.”
My mother, Eleanor Carter, died when I was fourteen.
A hospital cancer ward.
An open casket.
A death certificate signed by three doctors.
Thomas moved toward the helicopter door.
“Charles is confused.”
Charles laughed weakly.
“No. I am finally finished protecting you.”
He gave Tiffany the third agreement.
A woman’s signature appeared across the final page.
Eleanor Carter.
The execution date was six months ago.
My mother had signed it recently.
Alive.
The helicopter pilot turned toward us.
She removed her headset.
Silver hair fell around a face I had not seen in twenty years.
My mother looked directly at me.
“Do not give Thomas the film.”
Thomas reached for the controls.
Malcolm raised his gun toward Charles.
Tiffany screamed.
The helicopter lifted from the roof before federal agents could board.
I stood at the edge holding two false agreements and the strip of code everyone had tried to steal.
My phone rang.
Attorney Reed answered through my earpiece.
“Ava, there is one more provision in the real prenup.”
“What provision?”
“If Jason attempted to kill you under instructions from a Carter family member, ownership transfers immediately to the surviving spouse of the original founder.”
I watched the helicopter disappear between the towers.
“My mother?”
“No.”
Reed’s breathing changed.
“The document names Charles Laurent as Eleanor Carter’s legal husband.”
Tiffany’s father had not only survived.
He had married my mother while my father was still alive.
Below us, police brought Jason from a transport vehicle to identify Malcolm.
The moment he saw the helicopter, he began shouting.
“Ava, do not trust Charles. He programmed the pool cover.”
I looked at the film strip in my hand.
A final line of microscopic text appeared along its edge.
ACTIVATE ONLY AFTER AVA CARTER’S DEATH.
Behind me, Nadia opened her eyes.
May you like
Her hand closed around Malcolm’s fallen gun.
Cut to black.
