Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death – Episode 41
Cypher enlarged the encrypted signature on the conference screen. The sequence belonged to Elias Vale, Dominion’s first technical director and Connor’s mentor. Official records said he had died twelve years earlier.
Connor recognized the private variation hidden inside the code. Vale used it when authorizing projects too secret for Dominion’s ordinary archives. No imitator could have known every imperfection.
Richard reacted with less surprise than Scarlett expected. He had funded Dominion when Connor and Vale were still building prototypes in a warehouse. Vale supplied vision, while Connor gave the company discipline.
That partnership ended when Connor discovered tests conducted without board approval. Vale allowed autonomous systems to select human targets and called the casualties necessary data. Connor copied the records and demanded his removal.
The laboratory exploded before the board could hear the evidence. Investigators found remains identified as Vale’s and blamed an unstable power system. Connor inherited operational control of a company built from the ashes.
Scarlett asked whether he had ever doubted the identification. Connor admitted the explosion had been too complete. At the time, grief and a new war had discouraged questions.
Cypher linked the signature to Vanguard Arc’s holding corporation. The two absent founders had transferred enough Dominion shares to give Vale influence over future votes. He had prepared his return before Cross launched the city attack.
Vanguard announced a global defense demonstration for the following day. Its promotional material promised technology capable of stopping any weapon before it reached civilians. The design diagrams carried traces of Aegis.
Connor wanted the patents challenged immediately. Scarlett warned that a legal attack without public proof would make Dominion appear afraid of competition. They needed to learn what Vale had actually built.
Richard offered access to intelligence gathered through Reed investments. Connor accepted the information but not control of the investigation. Their new trust remained fragile enough to require precise boundaries.
Summer entered carrying the repaired watch and asked why everyone looked angry. Connor told her an old teacher had returned after lying for a long time. She asked whether teachers could be bad people too.
He answered that knowledge did not make someone good. What mattered was how they chose to use it. The explanation sounded uncomfortably like a judgment of his younger self.
Scarlett noticed him withdraw and followed him to the balcony. Connor confessed that Vale had once understood him better than Richard did. Destroying that loyalty had shaped the man the world later feared.
She reminded him that exposing Vale had been a choice, not an accident. He had already proved he could reject the person who trained him. This time he would not face that past alone.
Cypher intercepted a transmission from Voss. He appeared beside Vanguard’s logo and introduced himself as its chief systems architect. International warrants had not prevented him from obtaining official protection abroad.
Voss claimed Dominion had corrupted defensive science with family sentiment. Vanguard, he said, would finish the work Connor lacked the courage to complete. Several governments confirmed attendance at the demonstration.
Then another figure entered the broadcast. Elias Vale was older, his face marked by burns, but his voice carried the same calm authority Connor remembered. He described himself as Dominion’s surviving founder.
Vale accused Connor of stealing the company after arranging the laboratory disaster. He promised documents proving that the Merchant of Death had built his empire through betrayal. Markets reacted before the broadcast ended.
Connor’s private terminal opened without Cypher touching it. A secure video showed Vale alone in a dark control room. He addressed Connor by the childhood name only two people had ever used.
Vale smiled at his former student. “You inherited my empire,” he said. “Now I’m taking it back.” Behind him, a map illuminated every Dominion facility in the world.
