Chapter 8

Gerald Hayes's office smelled of old paper and buried truths. The senior partner sat across from me, hands resting on a file thick enough to need its own chair. "Your father was brilliant, Aria," Gerald began. "He was also haunted. By one mistake." "What mistake?" "Trusting Robert Hale." He opened the file. "Three years before his death, Marcus documented everything. Robert had been siphoning intellectual property from Webb Technologies through shell companies — filing patents under false...