Chapter 4

The next morning, Emily and I were sitting in a sterile coffee shop, waiting for Richard Stone. He had agreed to meet with us, a small professional courtesy he probably felt he owed my father' s memory.

He walked in, looking exactly like his author photo: sharp suit, sharper eyes. He offered a polite, distant smile.

"Sarah, Emily. Thanks for meeting me."

"Thank you for coming, Richard," I said, keeping my voice even.

He ordered a black coffee and got straight to the point. "Look, I have a lot of respect for your father. He was a true visionary. But the evidence Mark Johnson presented is compelling. His patents are filed, and his timeline seems to check out."

I watched him as he spoke. He was expecting tears, or anger, or a desperate plea. I gave him none of that. I just sat there, calm, letting him lay out Mark' s version of the story. My quietness seemed to unnerve him.

"You don' t seem surprised by any of this," he noted, leaning forward slightly.

"I' m not," I said. "I' m disappointed. I thought you were a journalist who valued the truth."

A flicker of irritation crossed his face. "I do. But the truth needs to be backed by facts. Right now, Mark has the facts."

"He has manufactured facts," Emily interjected, sliding a folder across the table. "These are my father' s initial research proposals from six years ago. They outline a project that is functionally identical to what Johnson Dynamics is calling their 'revolutionary' new system."

Richard opened the folder and scanned the documents. I could see he was intrigued, but still skeptical. "These are proposals, Sarah. Not working code. Not a finished product. Mark built a finished product."

"He built it using a roadmap he stole," I said.

This was the fight for the narrative. Mark had his patents, his PR team, his army of lawyers. All I had was a folder of old papers and my word against his. He was painting me as the jilted ex-fiancée, unstable and emotional, trying to lash out. It was a clever, cruel strategy, and it was working.

Richard Stone sighed, closing the folder. "What are your plans now? Are you going to proceed with the lawsuit?"

"My plans are my own," I said, my voice deliberately vague. I knew I couldn' t show him my hand. Not yet. He was still too deep in Mark' s camp.

He took my caution as a sign of weakness, a confirmation of the story Mark was spinning.

"Sarah, a piece of friendly advice," he said, his tone softening into one of pity. "A legal battle against a giant like Johnson Dynamics will ruin you. Sometimes, the smartest move is to cut your losses and walk away."

His words felt like a slap. He thought I was beaten. He thought I was just going to let Mark erase my father' s name and steal his life' s work.

As he spoke, I saw a news alert on his phone. A picture of Mark, smiling, ringing the opening bell at the stock exchange. He was on top of the world. And in that moment, Richard Stone' s well-meaning, condescending advice felt like being pushed to the ground. It was a reputational blow, another injury inflicted by Mark' s campaign.

I stood up, my chair scraping against the floor.

"Thank you for the coffee, Richard," I said, my voice cold.

Emily and I walked out of the coffee shop, leaving him sitting there with his pity and his incomplete story.

"He didn' t believe us," Emily said, her voice frustrated.

"He will," I said, looking up at the sky. "He just doesn' t know it yet."

The meeting had been a failure, but it clarified everything. A simple defense wasn' t enough. I couldn' t fight Mark on his terms. I needed a bomb. And I was going to find it in my father' s box.