She leans closer, lowering her voice. “Really.”
“Fuck.”
She studies me for a second, then suddenly bursts into laughter.
“Now you’re turned on,” she says, pointing at me accusingly. “When I talk like that, it turns you on.”
I grin shamelessly. “Absolutely.”
Ellie shakes her head and pushes me away with both hands, still laughing. “You’re ridiculous.”
Maybe I am.
But as she walks away toward the living room, smiling and shaking her head, I follow her anyway.
Because ridiculous or not…she’s still the best thing that ever happened to me.
A few steps later, she glances over her shoulder and catches me trailing behind her.
She groans dramatically. “Stop following me.”
“No,” I reply without hesitation. “I want a piece of you.”
She spins around, eyes wide in mock offense. “I’m not meat.”
I shrug lazily. “That’s debatable.”
For a second, she just stares at me.
Then she bursts into laughter.
The sound fills the house, bright and carefree, and before I can say another word, she turns and bolts down the hallway.
“Ellie!” I shout, already chasing after her.
Her laughter echoes through the house as she runs, barefoot on the wooden floors, glancing back at me with a grin that’s half challenge, half pure joy.
I catch up to her near the staircase, grabbing her around the waist just as she squeals in protest.
We stumble together, laughing like idiots, the sound of it bouncing off the walls.
And in that moment—no enemies, no shadows, no looming threats. Just us.
Running through our home like two people who finally,finally,get to live.
Epilogue – Ellie
“Transparency isn’t the enemy of power,” I say into the microphone, my voice carrying clearly across the vast conference hall. “It is the foundation of trust.”
Hundreds of faces stare back at me from the audience—scientists, policymakers, corporate leaders, journalists. Screens behind me project the architecture of the system I’ve spent the last year rebuilding from the ashes.
The humanitarian version of my algorithm.
Stripped of everything that once made it dangerous. Refined into something that can only serve one purpose.
Saving lives.
“With real-time supply visibility,” I continue, gesturing toward the projection behind me, “medical distribution networks can track vaccines, blood supplies, emergency pharmaceuticals, and surgical equipment from production facilities to the hospitals that need them most. Every shipment accounted for. Every delay identified. Every corruption point exposed.”
