Chapter 4 - The Man Kenton Could Never Reach
The storage device was inside a safety deposit box belonging to Amber’s late mother.
Accessing it required a court order because the estate had never been fully settled.
Naomi introduced Amber to a quiet attorney named Daniel Reyes, who specialized in intellectual property disputes.
Daniel examined the available evidence.
“This could prove authorship,” he said. “But we need resources. Northstar will bury us in motions until you run out of money.”
“I’m already running out.”
“There may be another option.”
Daniel sent a confidential summary to several litigation-finance firms.
Most refused to challenge Northstar. The company’s hospital agreement was expected to make it nearly untouchable.
One week later, Daniel received a response from Mercer Global Ventures.
Amber assumed it was a mistake.
Isaac Mercer did not personally evaluate small legal disputes. His company invested in global infrastructure, pharmaceutical development, and major healthcare systems.
Yet two days later, Amber sat across from him in a private conference room.
Isaac was in his early forties, reserved, and more interested in documents than appearances. He asked detailed questions about Aurora Shield’s architecture that Kenton had never bothered to learn.
After an hour, Isaac closed the technical file.
“I know Northstar’s hospital contract,” he said.
Amber’s shoulders tensed.
“Are you an investor?”
“No. They have asked me to invest nine times.”
Despite everything, Amber almost smiled.
“Only nine?”
“Officially.”
“Why did you refuse?”
“The numbers never made sense. Their claimed development timeline was impossible, and Kenton couldn’t answer basic questions without consulting someone off-camera.”
“That someone was usually me.”
“I know.”
Amber looked at him.
Isaac opened another folder.
It contained a photograph from a medical engineering conference six years earlier.
Amber stood on a small stage presenting an early version of her monitoring research.
“You attended that conference?”
“My mother was recovering from surgery at the time. Your presentation stayed with me.”
Amber had spoken to fewer than forty people that day.
“I thought nobody important was listening.”
“That depends on how you define important.”
He offered to fund the legal investigation without demanding control of her invention. In return, Mercer Global would receive the opportunity to negotiate a future manufacturing partnership if Amber recovered her rights.
Daniel reviewed the proposal twice.
“It’s unusually fair,” he said.
Amber signed.
Isaac did not rescue her.
He gave her the resources to fight for herself.
With his support, Daniel obtained the court order for the safety deposit box. Inside, they found the original storage device, early patent drafts, handwritten equations, and a sealed copy of Amber and Kenton’s first cofounder agreement.
More importantly, the encrypted key unlocked the authorship records embedded within Aurora Shield.
Each version carried Amber’s unique digital signature.
The records proved that she had created the central system before Northstar existed.
They also revealed something nobody expected.
Three months earlier, someone had attempted to remove the authorship ledger from Northstar’s servers.
The deletion request came from Kenton’s executive account.
But the system had automatically created a hidden backup.
Amber stared at the report.
“He knew the ledger existed.”
Daniel nodded.
“And he deliberately tried to destroy it.”
Isaac stood beside the window.
“That changes this from an ownership dispute to possible fraud.”
Amber looked at the growing stack of evidence.
For months, Kenton had portrayed her as an emotional pregnant woman seeking revenge.
Now she possessed proof that he had stolen her work.
But Daniel warned her not to act yet.
“We need to know how far this goes,” he said. “If we confront him now, he’ll destroy whatever remains.”
So Amber waited.
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And Isaac quietly began investigating Northstar’s hospital deal.
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