When he woke up from the car crash, Julian looked at me with total confusion. “Who are you? Where is my fiancée, Seraphina?” Seraphina was the one that got away—the perfect girl of his dreams. And I was the wife who had spent seven years helping him build his empire from scratch, the one who had just signed a marriage license with him three days ago. The doctor pulled me out of the room, looking uncomfortable. “Mr. Sterling’s brain CT is completely normal. He hasn’t lost his memory.” Through the crack in the door, I saw Julian smoothly unlock his phone and send a Snapchat to Seraphina: [Seraphina, I can finally marry you openly now. The entire Sterling Group is my wedding gift to you.] I didn’t go in to expose his pathetic acting. Instead, I tossed my wedding ring into the trash can and called my lawyer. “Sell all my shares immediately, and completely revoke Sterling Group’s access to our core technology.” Julian had no idea that the multi-billion-dollar empire he was so proud of was entirely built on my cards. Since he wanted to play amnesia and reset his life to when he was eighteen… Then I would happily oblige. I’d make sure he truly became the penniless nobody he used to be.
“Ms. Vance, we can execute the sale of your shares immediately, but there’s a catch,” my lawyer, Arthur Pendelton, said over the phone. His voice was calm. “In the documents you signed three days ago, there was a spousal lock-up clause. As long as you remain married, any unilateral transfer of your thirty-four percent stake requires your husband’s signature.” Three days ago. The day we got married. When we walked out of the courthouse, Julian held my hand, smiled, and handed me a stack of papers, saying they were for a joint bank account. I signed them. Seven years of absolute trust meant I didn’t even read a single line. “Then start the divorce proceedings first to break the lock-up.” “He’s currently claiming amnesia. The hospital can’t issue a mental capacity evaluation yet. If the court buys his amnesia act, the lawsuit could drag on for over six months.” Using marriage to lock my shares, and amnesia to stall the divorce. It was a perfect trap. I hung up and walked down the hallway toward the elevator. The hospital room door wasn’t fully closed. Seraphina’s sweet, giggling voice drifted out. “Julian, I made some organic bone broth for you. Let me feed you—” “Seraphina, come sit closer to me.” Julian’s voice was sickeningly gentle. In the seven years we’d been together, the sweetest he’d ever sounded was on the night the company went public. He got drunk and mumbled “Clara” just once. Only once. By the door, his assistant, Carter Hayes, saw me. He quickly put his phone away and stood up straight. “Mrs… Ms. Vance, are you leaving?” The title had changed. From “Mrs. Sterling” to “Ms. Vance,” it only took an afternoon. “When did he start planning this?” I asked. Carter didn’t answer. His eyes darted to the corner of the wall. “The lock-up agreement on our wedding day—you prepared it for him, didn’t you?” Carter’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Mr. Sterling asked me to prepare the files. I was just doing my…” “When did Seraphina get to the hospital?” “…” “Her Snapchat Story was posted twenty minutes before Julian even woke up. The location tag is this exact building.” I thrust my phone in front of his face. The photo was taken from inside the hospital room. A thermos, a half-peeled apple, and Julian’s side profile. The caption read: [Watching over you.] There were over thirty comments underneath, all offering congratulations. The pinned reply was from Julian’s account, timestamped three hours ago—when he was still on the operating table. A scheduled post. Carter’s face went pale. I put my phone away and didn’t press further. I turned, walked to the elevator, and pressed the button for the lobby. Just as the doors were about to slide shut, a hand blocked them from the outside. Seraphina. She was holding an empty thermos. Seeing me, she looked taken aback, then her eyes instantly pooled with tears. “Oh, you’re still here?” Her tone carried a perfect touch of confusion, like a polite host asking an unwelcome guest to leave. “Clara, I don’t want to be rude, but Julian really doesn’t remember you. Your presence is only going to stress him out.” I didn’t reply. My eyes fell on her wrist. That watch. Platinum strap, sapphire dial. I had ordered it from Geneva last month, and it hadn’t even officially hit the domestic market yet. “The watch on your wrist is mine.” Seraphina looked down, her smile unfaltering. “Julian gave it to me. He said it was a souvenir from Switzerland. You must have mistaken it.” “The invoice and custom order number are in my email. It’s a custom piece with a unique global serial number.” Seraphina’s eyelashes fluttered. But she quickly sighed, reaching out to gently squeeze my wrist. Her fingers were cold. “Clara, I understand how you feel. It’s devastating to be forgotten by the man you love.” “But clinging to a watch like this… it just makes you look so…” She didn’t say the word “pathetic,” but her face said it all. A nurse wheeled a cart past us in the hallway, glancing over with sympathy. The sympathy was for Seraphina. Not me. The elevator reached the ground floor. The doors slid open. I pulled my hand from her grip and walked out. I paused after two steps. “Tell Julian that the biometric key for the core system refreshes every seventy-two hours. The last refresh was three days ago.” Silence fell behind me. Seraphina’s soft, pitying voice chased after me. “Clara, I don’t really understand all that tech jargon.” “That’s fine. He does.”
“Verification failed. Please contact the administrator.” The smart lock on my front door repeated the same cold message. My fingerprint and iris scan had been deleted. I designed this smart home system. Every single line of code, from the base protocol to the voice interaction module, was written by me. I entered the administrator bypass code. The lock clicked open. The living room was bathed in a warm yellow glow. There were two new pink cushions on the couch, and a vase of lilies sat on the coffee table. Next to the shoe rack lay a pair of white stiletto sandals—size five, Seraphina’s size. All of my shoes had been packed into a cardboard box by the door. I opened the walk-in closet. The entire left side was filled with Seraphina’s dresses. Trench coats with tags still attached, neatly folded silk pajamas. At the very back hung a men’s dress shirt with lipstick on the collar. My clothes had been stuffed into two black trash bags and thrown into the corner. This wasn’t something that could be done overnight. I opened the local log of the smart home system—a layer ordinary users couldn’t access, restricted only to administrators. The security camera logs started from two months ago. Seraphina had walked into this house with her suitcase. Julian carried it to the master bedroom for her. They stood in front of the hallway mirror, and she stood on her tiptoes to kiss his jaw. Two months ago. I was in California coordinating a mass production plan with a chip manufacturer. Julian had called me, complaining about how lonely the house felt and begging me to come home early. I scrolled to the logs from a week ago. In the living room, Julian stood in front of the full-length mirror, repeating the same line over and over. “Who are you? Where is my fiancée, Seraphina?” The first time was too stiff. The second time, his eyes weren’t vacant enough. By the third time, he finally perfected it—the slightly dilated pupils, the parted lips, a carefully crafted look of innocent bewilderment. Seraphina sat on the couch behind him, grading him. “Seven out of ten. Make it blanker. Look right through her, like you’re looking at something else.” Julian practiced twice more. Seraphina clapped. “Perfect score.” My phone buzzed. A group chat notification. It wasn’t one of the chats I had been kicked out of—it was a group I didn’t even know existed, named “Julian & Seraphina’s Wedding Planning.” Created four months ago. Carter had sent me the screenshot without a single word of explanation. The group included Sterling Group executives, Seraphina’s bridesmaids, and two wedding planning teams. The latest message was from 3:00 PM today. “The amnesia act is done. Seraphina is officially taking over. Everyone, get ready for the next steps.” “What about Clara?” “Doesn’t matter. She can’t do anything anyway.” The person who sent that message was Julian himself. My phone buzzed again. Caller ID: Mrs. Sterling. “Clara, do you have any idea Julian was in a car crash?” “I do.” “Then why aren’t you at the hospital taking care of him? Seraphina told me you had a horrible attitude—” “Mrs. Sterling, he’s faking the amnesia. His brain CT is completely normal.” Silence on the other end for three seconds. “It takes two to tango, Clara. If Julian were happy with you, would he have to resort to this?” “You’ve been married to him for seven years and haven’t even given him a child. Seraphina has been loyal to Julian for so long, working tirelessly without complaint. What right do you have to be so picky?” “My seven years—” “I don’t understand your patents and tech stuff. But Julian said those are company resources anyway. Clara, let me give you some advice: take what you can get and leave. Don’t make a scene. It won’t end well for anyone.” She hung up. I leaned against the closet doorframe. In front of me were Seraphina’s dresses; behind me were trash bags filled with my clothes. The system chimed softly. “Hello, Administrator. A new live-stream forwarding address has been detected on the master bedroom camera. Would you like to terminate it?” Seraphina was using my own system to spy on my every move. “Terminate forwarding. Clear all external authorizations.” “Executed.” I grabbed the two trash bags and walked out of the house I had lived in for five years. The door locked automatically behind me, and the system gave one final broadcast. “Goodbye, Administrator.”
“Clara Vance? I have a patent ownership dispute notice from the legal department of Sterling Group. Please sign here.” At the door of my lab, a courier handed me a manila envelope. Inside was a stack of cease-and-desist letters. The wording was polite, but the intent was vicious. Sterling Group claimed that all thirty-seven core patents under my name were developed using company resources and platforms. They wanted them classified as “work-for-hire” and transferred to the company. Attached was a court notice. They had already filed for a temporary injunction to freeze my rights to transfer or sell these patents. My lab was on the top floor of an old office building on the west side of the city. After Sterling Group moved to the flashy downtown tech district, no one came here anymore. But today, the security logs showed that someone had bypassed the smart lock physically at 2:00 AM. They had tried to be careful, but they weren’t careful enough. The server rack had been opened, and there were scratches on the drive bays from hard drives being pulled out. Too bad for them, my encryption protocol wasn’t some commercial package. I wrote it myself. Without my biometric key, even if they stole the physical drives, all they would see was gibberish. They got absolutely nothing. But this was no longer just about stealing patents. This was war. My phone rang. Seraphina. “Clara, it’s me.” Her voice was still soft, slow, and overly sweet. “Julian wanted me to reach out. He doesn’t want to make this ugly.” “You received the legal notice, right? Julian says it’s just standard procedure. If you cooperate and voluntarily transfer the patent ownership to the company, he’s willing to offer you a settlement. Five million dollars.” A technology foundation worth thirteen billion dollars, and she was offering five million. “Those chip architectures and base algorithms were projects I started back during my PhD. I had the first working prototype running five years before Sterling Group was even founded.” Seraphina paused for a moment. “But Clara, Julian said that back when you held those technologies, no one would invest a single dime. He was the one who brought his team to take them out of the lab and into the market. Without his business genius, your code would just be a pile of useless trash.” “Did he actually say that?” “He said you’re just a coder.” Seraphina probably didn’t realize the weight of those words. Or maybe she did, which is why she said them. “Tell him he can take his five million dollars and shove it.” “Then what do you want?” “What I want isn’t money.” Seraphina was quiet for a few seconds. When she spoke again, her voice had a sharp edge I hadn’t heard before. “Clara, let me be real with you. The court is going to award those patents to the company sooner or later. Take the five million and walk away with your dignity. If you get kicked out by the court, you won’t even get a dime.” “You know Julian. When he wants something, he always gets it.” She hung up. I sat in my lab’s swivel chair, the monitor glowing in front of me. I compiled the logs of the break-in into a security file. It included the physical lock-tampering data, the fingerprint dust left on the server rack, and the login timestamps from Sterling Group’s IT VPN—which matched the break-in down to the second. He had sent his own tech team to rob me. But what truly sealed his fate was another document Arthur sent over. Julian’s car accident. The police report showed he rear-ended another car while driving at only twenty-five miles per hour. The airbags deployed normally, and he only suffered minor scrapes and a mild concussion. Yet, the insurance claim had been submitted two days before the accident. The policyholder was Seraphina. The beneficiary was Julian. The crash was a setup from the very beginning. He needed a hospital stay to act out his amnesia, and he needed medical records to back up his story. Meanwhile, Seraphina had bought the insurance policy beforehand, making sure not to lose a single penny. Arthur had added a note at the bottom of the file: “The patent registration company under your name is ‘Vance Technologies,’ which was incorporated before Sterling Group. Section 11 of the Technology Licensing Agreement states: If the marriage or cohabitation relationship between Party A and the legal representative of Party B is dissolved, all licensing authorizations terminate automatically, and licensed technologies cannot be reverse-engineered or retained.” He added: “Ms. Vance, you wrote this clause yourself seven years ago.” Yes, I did. Seven years ago, when I licensed my technology to Julian, I prepared for the worst-case scenario. I just never expected that the worst-case scenario would actually happen. A new message popped up on my screen. It was from Carter on WhatsApp. “Ms. Vance, there is an emergency board meeting tomorrow at 10:00 AM. Julian demands your presence.” I stared at the word “demands” and shut off the screen. “Arthur, I need you at the board meeting tomorrow.” “What files should I bring?” “Bring video recording equipment.”
“I believe everyone here already knows her. This is Seraphina Finch.” Julian sat at the head of the conference table, looking sharp in his designer suit, his arm draped casually over the back of Seraphina’s chair. Thirteen board members sat around the table, their eyes darting back and forth between Seraphina and me. He wasn’t acting like he had amnesia anymore. At this table, he didn’t need to. “We have only one agenda item for today’s emergency meeting—the ownership of the thirty-seven patents under Clara Vance’s name.” He opened the folder in front of him, and the projector lit up. “These patents cover Sterling Group’s chip architecture, AI scheduling algorithms, and full-chain control protocols. While currently registered under Clara’s individual name, they were developed using a massive amount of company resources, including our servers, testing equipment, and engineering teams.” “Our legal team has already filed a lawsuit regarding the ownership. Today, I ask the board to vote on suspending Clara from all duties at Sterling Group and freezing her technical access during the litigation.” Seraphina flipped open her notebook, looking as poised and comfortable as if she had sat at this table a hundred times. In fact, she was sitting in my old seat. I sat at the very end of the long table. “Clara, do you have anything to say?” An unfamiliar board member in wire-rimmed glasses spoke up. “My patent holding company, Vance Technologies, was incorporated eight years ago. One year before Sterling Group. All development logs, experimental data, and published papers predate the creation of Sterling Group. As for the so-called company resources—” “For the past seven years, you have been using Sterling Group’s servers and equipment for iteration and development,” Julian interrupted, his voice flat. “Your employment contract clearly states that any technological achievements produced during your employment belong to the company.” “That contract applies only to newly developed projects. All thirty-seven core patents were fully registered before I joined—” “That’s enough.” Another board member waved his hand dismissively. “We aren’t judges here. Let the court decide the ownership. Today, we are only voting on one thing: whether to suspend Clara’s management access during the lawsuit. All in favor, raise your hands.” Out of thirteen hands, eleven shot up. Seraphina didn’t have voting rights, but she turned her head slightly to look at me, a tiny smirk playing on her lips. It was a subtle, mocking look, as if saying—*See? You can’t even protect this.* After the meeting adjourned, the crowd dispersed. I stood by the elevator, waiting. Footsteps sounded behind me. Julian walked up and stood right next to me. The projector lights were off, and the hallway was lit only by the cold, sterile glow of the emergency lights. With no one around, his polite, gentlemanly mask slipped off. “Don’t blame me.” He didn’t look at me, keeping his eyes on our blurry reflections on the metallic elevator doors. “You hold too much power, Clara. Seven years ago, when you had nothing, I was the one who gave you a platform to shine.” “You gave me?” I turned to face him. “Seven years ago, when I found you, you were running code on a second-hand laptop in a cramped basement apartment in the suburbs. You couldn’t even afford to pay for domain registration.” “I was the one who gave you the full technology license to Vance Technologies. That was the only reason you could take those slides and land your first round of funding.” Julian’s lips curled into a faint sneer. “So what? Without my business strategies, your code would still be gathering dust in a lab. At the end of the day, you’re just a technical worker.” The elevator arrived. The doors opened, then closed. I didn’t step in. “Julian, you just declared in front of thirteen board members that we have absolutely no relationship.” “So what?” “The spousal lock-up clause only applies during a valid marriage. You denied knowing me in front of thirteen witnesses. Once this recording is presented in court, the judge will rule that you have voluntarily waived your spousal claims.” Julian’s expression froze. “Since the lock-up clause is invalid, my thirty-four percent stake can be traded freely starting tomorrow morning.” “You—” “And one more thing.” I pulled my phone from my bag and opened the admin dashboard for Vance Technologies. “Section 11 of the Technology Licensing Agreement. When the marriage or cohabitation relationship between the parties is dissolved, all licensing authorizations terminate automatically. You said it yourself today—we have no relationship.” Julian lunged to grab my phone. I took a half-step back. My thumb tapped the screen. [Authorization Status: Terminated.] A confirmation window popped up. I tapped ‘Confirm’. Julian’s face went completely pale. I called Arthur. “Did you get the recording of today’s meeting?” “Every single second of it.” “Put in the sell order before the market opens tomorrow. Thirty-four percent. Sell every single share.” “Ms. Vance, Sterling’s current stock price is eighty-six dollars. Are you sure you want to dump everything? Once the market sees a major shareholder liquidating—” “I know. Do it.” I hung up and took one last look at Julian. “You wanted to play amnesia and reset your life to when you were eighteen. I’m happy to help you. In seventy-two hours, every single chip running Sterling Group’s systems will stop functioning. When that happens, the multi-billion-dollar empire in your hands won’t be any different from that dusty second-hand laptop in your basement.”
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