Pregnant Woman's Revenge

The pawn shop smelled of lemon polish and desperation, a sickly sweet cocktail that coated the back of my throat. I placed the Rolex Submariner on the velvet tray. The heavy thud of the steel case echoed in the quiet room. It was a 1982 vintage, unpolished. I had eaten instant noodles for eight months to buy this for Kian’s thirtieth birthday. He had worn it twice before complaining it was "too heavy" for typing.

"Four thousand," the broker said, barely looking up from his loupe. He was a man made of grease and skepticism, his eyes flicking over my oversized coat.

"It’s worth twelve on the secondary market, and you know it," I said, my voice steady. Three weeks ago, the old Emilia would have taken the four grand and apologized for the inconvenience. But the old Emilia wasn't pregnant, homeless, and running on three hours of sleep. "I have the original box, the papers, and the service records. Seven thousand. Cash. Now."

He paused, finally looking me in the eye. He saw the dark circles, sure, but he also saw the set of my jaw. I wasn't asking. I was transacting.

"Six," he countered.

"Seven," I repeated, leaning in. "Or I take it to the guys on 47th Street who know a Submariner from a Seiko."

Ten minutes later, I walked out with a thick envelope in my purse. I didn't feel relief. I felt lighter, as if I were carving away pieces of the past to fuel the engine of my future. I stopped at a pharmacy first—prenatal vitamins, the expensive kind with iron and DHA. My hand hovered over my stomach for a fleeting second. *You eat first,* I thought. *Then we hunt.*

***

The sublet I’d found in Queens was a closet with a window, but it had high-speed internet. That was all Sarah needed. Sarah Chen, my best friend from the graphic design days, sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by empty Thai takeout boxes and the hum of three cooling fans.

"You need to see this, Em," Sarah said, not turning around. Her voice lacked its usual sarcasm. It was hollow.

I knelt beside her. The screen was a waterfall of cascading code, lines of syntax I recognized from the nights I’d spent debugging Kian’s work while he slept.

"I decrypted the 'Dummy Data' folder," Sarah said, pointing a chopstick at the monitor. "Kian’s proprietary compression algorithm? The one he’s pitching to investors as 'revolutionary AI'?"

"Yeah?"

"It’s a fork of an open-source library from 2018. He didn't write it. He just renamed the variables." Sarah hit a key, bringing up a spreadsheet. "But that’s the small stuff. Look at the user metrics."

Rows of data blurred before my eyes until Sarah highlighted a column. *User_IP: 192.168...* Repeated. Thousands of times.

"Bots," I whispered. The air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. "Sixty percent of his active daily users are bots."

"He’s inflating the valuation for the IPO," Sarah said, looking at me with wide, fearful eyes. "Em, this isn't just lying. This is federal fraud. If you go public with this..."

"He goes to prison," I finished.

I looked at the hard drive sitting innocently on the floorboards. Kian had offered me fifty thousand dollars to kill my child and disappear. He thought I was a liability. He had no idea I was the executioner.

"I’m not going to the police," I said, standing up. My legs were cramped, but my mind was razor-sharp. "The SEC moves too slow. I need someone who can kill the deal before the ink dries."

I walked to the window, looking out at the gray skyline. One name flashed in my mind. Maxwell Lewis. The Wolf of Wall Street. Kian’s biggest competitor and the only man ruthless enough to appreciate a weapon like this.

***

The lobby of Lewis Holdings was a cathedral of glass and intimidation. The air conditioning was set to a temperature that suggested weakness was not tolerated. I checked my reflection in the polished marble pillar. My suit was thrifted, but I had tailored it to within an inch of its life. I looked sharp. Dangerous.

I had slipped the courier fifty bucks to let me hold the door, bypassing the biometric scanners. Now, I just had to wait.

At 8:45 AM, the revolving doors spun. Maxwell Lewis entered.

He was taller than he looked in magazines, moving with a predatory grace that parted the sea of employees. He wore a charcoal suit that cost more than my parents' house, and his expression was a mask of bored indifference. Two security guards flanked him, their eyes scanning for threats. They didn't look at me.

I stepped directly into his path.

The guards surged forward, hands reaching for my arms. Maxwell didn't flinch. He didn't even stop walking, expecting me to move.

I didn't move.

"Kian Turner is selling you a hollow shell," I said. My voice didn't shake. I pitched it low, ensuring only he could hear.

Maxwell stopped. The sudden stillness was more terrifying than his movement. He looked down at me, his eyes the color of ice. "Excuse me?"

"StreamLine," I said, holding his gaze. "The algorithm is stolen. The users are bots. I have the source code and the server logs on a decrypted drive."

The guards grabbed my elbows. "Ma'am, you need to leave."

"I can give you the proof," I said, ignoring the hands bruising my arms, focusing entirely on the man who could destroy Kian with a phone call. "Or I can take it to the SEC, and you lose the acquisition of the year. You have five minutes."

Maxwell studied me. He looked at my cheap shoes, my defiant chin, and the cold, hard rage burning in my eyes. He saw something he recognized.

He raised a hand. The guards released me instantly.

"Five minutes," Maxwell said, his voice a deep, resonant baritone. He gestured toward the private elevator. "Don't waste them."