I breathed once. Slowly.
Then I reached for the black binder beneath my chair.
Jason’s gaze dropped to it.
He knew that binder too.
Not because he had ever seen it before, but because men like Jason recognized danger when it appeared in an ordinary form.
I placed the binder on the table and opened it to the first page.
“My name is Iris Mitchell,” I said. “Before I married Jason, I was Iris Caldwell. I had a master’s degree in biomedical engineering. I developed the original prototype for what later became the Mitchell Adaptive Port System. I have copies of my lab notes, dated design sketches, email exchanges, and the original provisional patent filing.”
Daniel slid copies toward the clerk.
Jason stared at me as if I had spoken a language he thought I had forgotten.
