He started with the timeline.
That was always where he started—not with the emotion of a thing, not with the appetite for it, but with the facts. The specific, verifiable architecture of what was true before he decided what to do with it.
The I.N.G. Foundation.
He'd had Gerald call Liam directly. Had delivered the threat through a lawyer the way you delivered things that needed deniability attached to them—clean, measured, the specific language of someone communicating intent without committing to action. Step back from the Rora AI alliance. Withdraw the TechCorp defense. And the Foundation's funding structure would remain a private matter.
Liam hadn't stepped back.
Hadn't withdrawn anything. Hadn't called, hadn't responded through counsel, hadn't done anything except continue the alliance with the specific, unhurried momentum of a man who had received a threat and decided it wasn't credible enough to react to.
And then Aurora had come to his office.
