On the eve of the IPO, Julian slid a termination agreement across the desk, announcing his marriage to an heiress. He demanded I remain his ghost CTO, leaving the severance blank to test my limits. I wrote down one dollar, signed my name, and walked out. I took my independent architecture and dialed Liam, the CEO of his biggest rival. I chose to become his partner to expose Julian. The price was irreversible: three years of my hidden labor on Julian's old system would be completely destroyed, forcing me to start from zero. When his servers inevitably crash, Julian will try to claim my new work. He has no idea the Intellectual Property Affidavit he signed to secure his fiancée's funding is the exact weapon waiting for him at the upcoming summit.