Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 28033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 140(@200wpm)___ 112(@250wpm)___ 93(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 140(@200wpm)___ 112(@250wpm)___ 93(@300wpm)
The interns exchanged glances, and then their faces lit up with an enthusiasm that made Leonidas’s stomach drop.
“You play Street Fighter too?” The shorter one looked like he might actually combust from excitement. “That’s so cool, sir. Who’s your main? I’m a Ken guy myself, but Diego here thinks Guile is—”
“Street Fighter,” Leonidas repeated slowly.
“Yeah, you know—the game? Guile’s the American Air Force guy with the flat-top, and Ken’s the blond martial artist with the red gi—”
The words washed over him like ice water.
American Air Force. Flat-top. Blond martial artist. Red gi.
His wife’s voice echoed in his memory.
He was American. Air Force. Very tall. Muscular. Flat-top haircut. Always wore his dog tags...
Japanese-American. Also blond. Really into martial arts. Had his own dojo. Always wore this red training outfit...
Leonidas closed his eyes.
“Sir? Are you okay?”
He had been jealous—genuinely, furiously, irrationally jealous—of video game characters. He had interrogated his wife about fictional men. He had spent actual mental energy seething over a martial artist in a red training outfit who did not, in fact, exist.
“Fine,” he managed. “Thank you for your time.”
He walked away before they could see the color rising in his face, their confused murmurs fading behind him as he turned the corner and allowed himself exactly three seconds to process the sheer absurdity of what had just happened.
His wife had panicked and invented fake ex-boyfriends using Street Fighter characters.
And he had believed her.
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or groan or find the nearest wall and introduce his forehead to it repeatedly.
Later, he told himself. He would deal with this particular humiliation later. Preferably never.
****
The tech wing was a maze of glass-walled rooms and humming servers, the air sharp with the smell of coffee and stress. Aivan was in the main control center when Leonidas arrived, standing before a wall of monitors that displayed scrolling data Leonidas couldn’t begin to interpret, his dark hair disheveled and his shirt wrinkled in a way that suggested he hadn’t slept since the breach was discovered.
“Leon.” Aivan turned, and despite the exhaustion carved into his features, there was relief in his voice. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”
“What do we know?”
Aivan gestured to the screens. “The attack was sophisticated. Professional. They targeted the adaptive control system files specifically—your wife’s work.”
Your wife’s work.
The words landed strangely, even now.
“How much did they get?”
“Less than they wanted.” Aivan moved to a nearby console, pulling up a series of diagrams that meant nothing to Leonidas but clearly meant everything to the exhausted engineers scattered throughout the room. “Our security protocols held longer than expected. They breached the outer layers, but the core algorithms—the parts that actually make the system work—those are still secure.”
“Do we know who’s responsible?”
“Not yet.” Aivan’s jaw tightened. “But we have theories.”
He led Leonidas through the facility, past rooms full of engineers hunched over laptops, past servers blinking with activity, past whiteboards covered in equations that looked more like art than mathematics. And as they walked, Aivan explained—the breach, the response, the ongoing efforts to fortify their defenses—but Leonidas found himself only half-listening.
Because everywhere he looked, he saw evidence of her.
Her notes in the margins of printed schematics. Her handwriting on a whiteboard in the corner, a formula circled three times with the word YES!! scrawled beside it. Her coffee mug—the one with the faded cartoon robot that she’d had since university—sitting on a desk like she’d just stepped away and would be back any moment.
“She’s been working remotely,” Aivan said, following his gaze. “Even after she filed for divorce, she never stopped. If anything, she increased her hours.”
Leonidas said nothing.
She had asked for a divorce.
And then she had kept working on the system that would bring him back to racing.
Why?
“There’s something else you should see.” Aivan’s voice had shifted, careful now in a way that made Leonidas’s instincts prickle. “We’ve been compiling footage for investor presentations. Testimonials, technical explanations, that sort of thing. One of the files we recovered from the breach attempt was a recording your wife made.”
They stopped before a smaller room, this one quieter than the others, with a single large monitor mounted on the wall.
“She doesn’t know we’re showing you this,” Aivan added. “It was meant for the technical committee, not for you. But I think you need to see it.”
He pressed Play.
And there she was.
Lexy, on screen, seated at a desk Leonidas didn’t recognize, her hair pulled back in that practical ponytail she wore when she was working, her serious dark eyes fixed on the camera with an intensity he’d rarely seen directed at anything other than her machines.
“The adaptive control system isn’t just about compensating for physical limitations,” she was saying, her voice clear and steady. “It’s about preserving what makes a driver extraordinary in the first place.”
She paused, glancing down at notes he couldn’t see.