I placed one finger on the control interface built into the right armrest of my chair. The gesture was small, almost invisible beneath the ripple of shocked conversation beginning around us. Blaine smirked because he still believed the room belonged to him.
He did not understand that my chair was more than mobility equipment. It was a workstation, a secure console, a machine I had modified myself over years of necessity, curiosity, and technical obsession. It carried more processing power than half the laptops in that room, and it had been quietly listening to the mansion’s network since I arrived.
My name is Celeste Warren.
By the time the wedding reception ended, Blaine Mercer would leave through the flowered archway in federal custody, three of his closest financial partners would learn their accounts had been frozen for review, and an entire room of Silicon Valley’s most polished minds would remember one rule for the rest of their careers: never mistake patience for powerlessness, and never steal from a woman simply because she has learned to sit still.
