He Favored Her So I Took My Patent To His Rival Chapter 05

He Favored Her So I Took My Patent To His Rival Chapter 05

Adriel moved faster than I expected.

He didn’t waste time in Silas’s jurisdiction. Instead, he bypassed channels and filed formal

complaints with both the State Supreme Court and the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office.

That day, I sat in his law firm’s conference room, staring at the solid evidence spread across

the table. I finally felt the past three years of endurance had meant something.

“When did you plant those hidden anticounterfeiting codes in the first draft of the

technology?” Adriel asked, flipping through the papers without looking up.

“The first time Leah approached me,” I replied calmly.

His pen paused. He glanced up, reevaluating me. “You were guarding against her from the

very beginning?”

“Not guarding against her,” I said, looking down at my gauze-wrapped palms. The wounds

from the glass shards still throbbed with a dull ache. “It was against Silas.”

I paused for a moment.

“The first time he saw Leah come to him with my manuscripts and accuse me, he didn’t even

ask me a single question. He just chose to believe her.”

That had been last autumn.

Leah had shown Silas a fake timestamp record, crying that I’d stolen my core manuscripts

from her lab’s shared drive.

That night, Silas came home, sat silently on the couch for ages, and finally said only one

thing to me. “Leah has been through a lot.”

He didn’t ask if I’d stolen anything.

And he also didn’t ask me whether I had been wronged.

His silence, in itself, had been a verdict.

From that day on, I’d embedded my unique heritage mark-only visible under UV light-into

the fiber layer of every manuscript page.

“This afternoon, the State Supreme Court’s disciplinary team moved in,” Adriel said, a cold

smile tugging at his lips. “Silas thought the notarization he shredded at the banquet was

gone for good. Too bad it was only a copy. The original’s been in my safe all along.”

I’d known Silas would tamper with evidence.

So that day, I deliberately let him see that notarized certificate. I let him feed it into the

shredder with his own hands. I let him wear that smug, self-satisfied look of a man who believed he held all the power.

Because only if he destroyed the evidence himself could I pin him with the charge of “obstruction of justice.”

As for Leah, she stole my work, but she had no idea that I had made fine, deliberate shifts to

the core parameters.

For me, those adjustments were safety backups. For her, they were ticking time bombs.

The first batch of mass-produced products had already caused a major safety incident.

The afternoon the news broke, the notice of Silas’s suspension pending investigation arrived

at the same time.

His judicial robes were temporarily confiscated, his judge’s license frozen.

The news exploded through legal circles. I simply sat by the window and sipped my tea

quietly.

By evening, sharp brakes screeched outside.

Silas stormed out of the car, suit disheveled, tie loose, eyes bloodshot.

He spotted me, charged up the stairs, and pounded on the door so hard the walls shook.

“Oaklynn! Open the door!”

I ignored him.

“What exactly do you want? Are you only satisfied when you’ve burned everything to the

ground?”

His voice held anger, urgency, and a hint of unrecognized panic.

I grabbed my bag, opened the door calmly, and walked past him.

He reached for my arm. I stepped aside and headed straight for the black car waiting below.

The passenger door opened. Adriel sat behind the wheel, one hand resting casually on it,

watching Silas chase after me.

I got into the car and closed the door.

Silas stood frozen, chest heaving.

His gaze cut through the car window and landed on my face-but I didn’t turn to look at him.

Not even a glance.

Adriel started the engine, and the car pulled away slowly.

In the rearview mirror, Silas stood rooted, face ashen.

He had probably never imagined that one day he would be standing on a roadside, watching

his own wife get into someone else’s car without so much as a backward glance.

Two intersections later, Adriel rolled down the window.

A waiting bailiff jogged over and took the document he handed out.

“Deliver this to Silas,” Adriel said flatly.

The bailiff glanced at the cover and stiffened.

It was a summons.

Adriel spoke casually to the fading figure in the mirror, “Judge Blackwood. Ready to sit at the

defense table?”