General Knight's study was a museum of war. Swords on the walls, medals in glass cases.

The General sat behind his desk. Roman stood to the left, pacing like a caged tiger. Nova sat on the right, examining her fingernails.

"Well?" The General barked.

"She's a fraud," Roman spat. "A liar. And she's delusional."

"She told you the truth," the General said, hiding a smile. "You just aren't smart enough to see it."

"She's a Sterling reject!" Roman shouted. "She brings nothing to the table. No equity, no connections."

"She brings genes," the General said, tapping a folder. "The Knight family needs brains. You have money. We need IQ."

Roman scoffed. "Her? She didn't even finish undergrad."

The General couldn't say 'She has three PhDs and is a national asset' because of the clearance levels. He just grunted. "It's an order. Marry her, or I keep the trust frozen and remove you as CEO."

Roman slammed his hands on the desk. "This is blackmail!"

"I agree," Nova said. "This is a stupid idea."

Roman looked at her, surprised.

"I don't want to marry him," Nova said, standing up. "He's arrogant and emotional."

"Nova!" The General warned. "Think about the funding for the... project."

Nova stopped. Her shoulders slumped. The fusion project. It needed billions. The Knight Foundation was the silent backer.

"So you are in it for the money," Roman said, his voice dripping with venom.

Nova turned to him. "Yes. I need the money."

Roman looked at her with a mix of triumph and loathing. "At least you're honest about being a gold digger."

"Compromise," the General said. "A fake engagement. Six months. A trial run. You live together. If you still hate each other after that, I unlock the funds, and you go your separate ways."

Roman calculated. Six months. He could break her in three weeks. He could make her life so miserable she would run back to the gutter she came from.

"Fine," Roman said. "But she'll regret it."

Nova looked at him. Her face was blank. "I just came back from a war zone, Roman. You're just a man in a suit."

"Deal," the General said. "Call the lawyers."

The conference room table was long enough to land a plane on.

Roman sat at one end, flanked by three lawyers in grey suits. They looked at Nova like she was a stain on the upholstery.

The lead lawyer slid a document across the polished wood. It was thick.

"Standard pre-nup," Roman said, spinning a pen. "You can get a lawyer to read it, if you can afford one."

Nova pulled the document toward her. She flipped past the assets section. She flipped past the alimony section. She stopped at the back.

"Clause 45," she said. "Intellectual Property."

"What IP do you have?" Roman sneered. "Recipes?"

Nova picked up a pen. She slashed through the paragraph. "Any invention, code, or patent created by me during the cohabitation period remains my sole property. Knight Industries gets zero percent."

The lawyer chuckled. "Miss Sterling, surely-"

"Clause 82," Nova interrupted, writing in the margins. "I need a dedicated fiber optic line. Unmonitored, with direct access to the exchange. No corporate firewalls."

"What for?" Roman asked, eyes narrowing. "Running a scam?"

"Algorithmic trading," Nova said without looking up. "High-frequency. It's latency-sensitive."

Roman rolled his eyes. "Unbelievable."

Nova scanned the rest of the pages. Her eyes moved vertically, taking in whole paragraphs in seconds. She flipped to the signature page.

She signed her name. It wasn't a cursive loops-and-swirls signature. It was sharp, jagged. A complex glyph.

Roman watched her sign. He frowned. He had seen that style of handwriting before. On a classified briefing document he wasn't supposed to see. A chill traced its way down his spine, a flicker of instinct he had learned not to ignore. He pushed it down. It had to be a coincidence.

He shook his head. Coincidence.

"The contract is active," Roman said, standing up. "Move into the penthouse tonight."

"Put me in the room furthest from yours," Nova said.

"Don't play hard to get," Roman said. "I know you'll be trying to crawl into my bed by Tuesday."

Nova looked him dead in the eye. "Your mattress is memory foam. It's bad for lumbar support. I prefer the floor."

The lawyers choked back laughs. Roman's face turned a dark shade of red.

Nova grabbed her copy of the contract and walked out. At the door, she paused. "I don't cook. I don't clean. I'm here for the trial, not to be your maid."

She closed the door.

Roman stared at her signature. He pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of it.

He texted it to Silas. Cross-reference this signature. Knight Industries internal security database and all federal watchlists. Priority Alpha.

Nova turned the guest bedroom into a fortress within an hour.

She pushed the expensive bed against the wall. She set up three monitors on the antique desk. A server tower hummed in the closet.

She taped a piece of paper to the door: BIOHAZARD. DO NOT ENTER.

In his office across town, Roman's phone buzzed.

Silas burst in. "I found something!"

"Dirt on Nova?" Roman asked, hopeful.

"No. 'The Sage'," Silas said.

Roman sat up straighter. He was a Go fanatic. 'The Sage' was the anonymous grandmaster who had been crushing AI bots online for months. Roman idolized the strategy.

"The IP address pinged in New York," Silas said.

"Find him," Roman said. "I want a game. Name the price."

"Also," Silas said, his face falling. "Nova's college transcripts. MIT."

"Let me guess," Roman said. "Failed out?"

"Attendance record: Zero," Silas said. "She never went to a single class."

Roman laughed, a cold, satisfied sound. "I knew it. A complete fraud."

He didn't know that 'Zero Attendance' was the code for 'Honorary Professor / Classified Research Fellow'.

"And the signature?" Roman asked.

"No direct hits," Silas said. "But the glyph pattern has markers consistent with high-level cryptography signatures. It's not handwriting, Roman. It's an encryption key."

Roman went home early. He wanted to catch Nova doing something stupid.

He walked into the penthouse. It was quiet. He walked to the guest room door and saw the BIOHAZARD sign. He scoffed.

Inside, Nova was sitting at her monitors. She had a window open. An online Go board.

Her username was TheSage.

A notification popped up. Challenge Request from KnightKing.

Nova looked at the stats. "Aggressive opening. Weak mid-game. No patience."

She clicked Decline.

In the living room, Roman's phone pinged.

REJECTED.

"Dammit!" Roman shouted, throwing his phone onto the sofa. "He rejected me again!"

He glared at the guest room door. "And what is she doing in there? The power grid is spiking."