Chapter 3 - The Illusion of a Marriage
By 4:00 PM, the university campus was swarming with federal agents. The cybersecurity building had been locked down, yellow crime scene tape crisscrossing the doors of Dr. Vance’s office.
I was sitting in a sterile interrogation viewing room at the local FBI field office, a styrofoam cup of black coffee warming my hands. Through the two-way mirror, I watched as two seasoned agents dismantled my husband’s fragile ego.
Daniel had broken in less than twenty minutes.
"It was Vance's idea!" Daniel sobbed, burying his face in his manacled hands. "He approached my mother at a country club charity gala two years ago. He knew she had money. He knew my company was failing. He told us that Sarah was developing something worth millions, but that she was too naive to monetize it."
I stared through the glass, my heart turning to ice.
Two years ago.
Two years ago was exactly when Daniel had suddenly proposed to me. I had been a tired, overworked graduate student, living on ramen and grant money. Daniel had swept in with expensive dinners, relentless charm, and a whirlwind romance that felt like a movie. Lorraine had bought my wedding dress.
It wasn't a romance. It was a corporate acquisition. They hadn't married me; they had married my brain, intending to strip-mine my intellect and discard me when the patent was finished.
"Tell us about the physical assault, Mr. Preston," Agent Miller said, leaning over the metal table.
"My mother..." Daniel stammered. "Vance told us the algorithm was finished. He needed it uploaded by midnight so he could integrate it into the Apex servers before the university performed their annual network audit. But Sarah wouldn't give me the master password. My mother said we had to break her confidence. If she was traumatized, if she felt small and ugly, she wouldn't show up to her defense. We could claim she had a mental breakdown, commit her to a private facility, and take power of attorney over her assets."
I felt my father’s heavy, reassuring hand on my shoulder. I hadn't realized I was shaking.
"They were going to lock you in a psychiatric ward, sweetheart," my father whispered, his voice vibrating with a rage he was fighting to control. "If you hadn't sent me that message, you would have disappeared today."
"But I didn't," I said, my voice hardening. The fear was entirely gone, replaced by a cold, calculating clarity.
Agent Miller stepped out of the interrogation room and entered our viewing booth. "Dr. Thorne at the university has suspended Daniel's employer from all campus recruiting. But we have a problem, Sarah. Daniel only sent them a compiled version of your code. To prove the corporate espionage and take down the Apex syndicate, we need the raw source code on Vance's server. But Vance encrypted his own hard drive. It could take cyber-command months to crack it."
"Vance didn't encrypt it with his own code," I said, standing up. "He used mine. He used the stolen compression algorithm."
"Which means it's impenetrable," Miller sighed.
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I looked at the agent, a slow, sharp smile touching my lips for the first time in days.
"Agent Miller," I said smoothly. "Do you honestly think a woman who spent six years writing the world's most advanced cryptographic algorithm wouldn't build a back door into her own house? Give me a laptop."
