Chapter 2 - The Gold Jet
The gold jet had barely cleared Manhattan when Grant called Serena eleven times.
She answered none of them.
Across from her, Dominic Moretti quietly poured two glasses of water.
“No champagne?” Serena asked.
Dominic almost smiled.
“You never liked champagne.”
“You remembered.”
“I remembered everything.”
That hurt more than Serena expected.
She turned toward the window.
Manhattan shrank beneath them.
Somewhere inside that maze of glass was the penthouse where she had spent eight years pretending that being underestimated was the same as being safe.
Dominic placed a glass beside her.
“You could have called.”
“I know.”
“For eight years, Serena.”
“I know.”
“I would have come.”
“That was why I didn’t.”
Dominic leaned back.
The years had changed him. More silver in his hair. Deeper lines around his eyes.
But the same stillness remained.
People mistook silence for softness in Serena.
They never made that mistake with Dominic.
“You were afraid of what my name would do to his life,” Dominic said.
“I wanted one thing that belonged only to me.”
“Grant?”
“My marriage.”
Dominic looked toward the clouds.
“And did it?”
Serena did not answer.
A secure phone rested on the table.
It began ringing.
Dominic checked the screen.
His expression changed.
“What?”
“Someone accessed the old Moretti research archive eleven minutes ago.”
Serena straightened.
“Who?”
“They used Holloway credentials.”
Grant.
Her father did not need to say it.
Serena closed her eyes.
Eight years earlier, she had met Grant at a university finance conference.
He had been ambitious, funny, impatient, and utterly unimpressed by family names because Serena had never given him hers.
She had introduced herself simply as Serena Hale.
Her mother’s surname.
Grant had fallen in love with the quiet woman who drank cheap coffee and filled notebooks with impossible equations.
Or Serena had believed he had.
When he launched his investment firm, she helped.
At first, openly.
Then investors began praising Grant.
He enjoyed it.
Serena discovered something painful: Grant listened more carefully when he believed an idea was his.
So she stopped correcting him.
One compromise became another.
Eventually, Serena disappeared from her own work.
Her phone lit up.
GRANT.
She declined the call.
Dominic watched.
“You still love him?”
Serena stared at the dark screen.
“Some part of me probably loves the man I thought he was.”
“That man may have existed.”
“Maybe.”
“And the man in court?”
Serena’s jaw tightened.
“He existed too.”
The jet climbed.
Back in Manhattan, Grant stood inside Holloway Financial’s technology archive with Marcus and CTO Evelyn Park.
Forty-three folders covered the conference table.
Grant opened one.
Serena’s handwriting.
Another.
Serena.
Another.
Serena.
“How did these get here?” he demanded.
Evelyn folded her arms.
“They were always here.”
“I’ve never seen them.”
“That doesn’t mean they weren’t here.”
Marcus picked up a folder.
“Chain of custody?”
“Digitized backups, internal scans, metadata, emails.”
Grant turned sharply.
“Emails from whom?”
Evelyn opened her laptop.
“You.”
Silence.
She displayed an email from 2017.
Grant remembered sending it to his analytics team.
Try this structure. I think there’s something here.
Attached was a photograph of Serena’s notebook.
He remembered taking the picture.
He did not remember asking permission.
Another email.
Another photograph.
Another model.
Marcus looked sick.
“How many?”
Evelyn answered quietly.
“All forty-three.”
Grant sat down.
“No.”
“You asked us to investigate.”
“I built this company.”
“No one is saying you didn’t.”
“You’re saying Serena did.”
“I’m saying the mathematical foundations appear to be hers.”
Grant stared at the folders.
A memory surfaced.
Serena at the kitchen table.
Bare feet tucked beneath her.
Pencil moving.
Grant leaning over her shoulder.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing finished.”
“Can I see?”
“Tomorrow.”
He had photographed the page after she went to bed.
The next morning, he forgot he had done it.
A week later, the model became his breakthrough.
Grant stood abruptly.
“Get Serena here.”
Marcus shook his head.
“You no longer have the authority to tell Serena where to go.”
“I need to talk to her.”
“You need independent counsel.”
“You are my counsel.”
Marcus held his gaze.
“Not for this.”
Grant’s phone rang.
Camille.
He rejected it.
Then another notification appeared.
A transfer alert.
Holloway Financial’s largest institutional client had requested an emergency review.
Then another.
Then another.
The gold jet had been photographed.
Serena’s identity was spreading.
Reporters were asking questions.
Grant paced toward the window.
“This is retaliation.”
Marcus looked at him.
“For what?”
“The divorce.”
“Serena hasn’t made a single public statement.”
“Her father—”
“Hasn’t either.”
Grant stopped.
That was worse.
His phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number.
No words.
Just a photograph.
Serena’s oldest leather notebook.
It lay open on a desk Grant had never seen.
On the left page were equations.
On the right was a legal document.
At the top:
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ASSIGNMENT AGREEMENT.
Grant zoomed in.
His own signature appeared at the bottom.
He stared at it.
“I never signed this.”
Marcus took the phone.
His face hardened.
“Grant.”
“What?”
“This signature was notarized.”
“So?”
Marcus enlarged the date.
It was their wedding day.
Grant remembered signing dozens of documents that morning—venue forms, financial papers, last-minute contracts his assistant had brought.
But he did not remember this one.
Marcus scrolled farther down.
The agreement did not assign Serena’s work to Grant.
It did the opposite.
Every derivative model based on Serena Hale’s original research remained legally hers unless she explicitly transferred ownership in writing.
There was no transfer.
Grant whispered, “Who drafted this?”
Marcus looked at the bottom of the document.
His expression changed.
“Grant…”
“Who?”
Marcus turned the phone around.
The attorney listed on the agreement was someone Grant knew very well.
Someone who had been beside him throughout the divorce.
Someone who had just spent months convincing him Serena had no leverage.
May you like
Marcus Wynn.
And Marcus was staring at his own signature as though he had never seen it before...
