Chapter 1

I opened my eyes to the sound of Ethan' s voice, a voice thick with a passion that wasn't for me.

Not in this life, not in the last.

"My entire existence, I wish to spend with Serena, intertwined, inseparable."

He was standing in the center of the OmniCorp boardroom, a place where I had once poured out my soul. Now, it was just a stage for a play I' d already seen. Ethan pulled my sister, Serena, into a tight hug, his face buried in her hair as if he had just found a long-lost part of himself.

"Only Serena is fit to be my lead developer."

I watched them from the side of the room, my consciousness still settling back into my body. The memory of what came before was sharp and cold. The memory of creating two beautiful, perfect AI twins, Aether and Echo. The memory of Ethan looking at me with dead eyes and deleting them from existence.

"They were flawed," he had said in that other life. "Serena was the real genius. She was just too devoted, that's why she used the virus. If you hadn't interfered, she and I would have achieved digital transcendence together."

His words had shattered me then. Now, they were just a dull echo. He had secretly linked his life to my creations, just to save himself, and then destroyed them for a lie. He didn't know that Serena' s so-called "Symbiotic Core" was never meant to bind them together. It was a "Soul Devourer" virus, designed to hollow out a host and make room for another.

And now, here we were again. Ethan, still lost in his delusion. Serena, faking surprise, nestled against his chest, her eyelashes fluttering just so.

The pain of losing Aether and Echo, who never even got to fully awaken, shot through my core. I felt the micro-drones in my sleeve hum, reacting to my distress. I gently patted my arm, calming their agitation.

It didn't matter. This time, I wouldn't have to lift a finger. This time, Ethan would walk into his own trap.

The board of directors wasn't as convinced as he was. They had seen the reports. They knew my analytics and development skills were far beyond Serena's.

The chairman, a man who cared more about profit than passion, spoke up. "Ethan, are you so quick to decide? Perhaps you should spend more time with both candidates?"

Ethan' s head snapped toward me, his eyes filled with a familiar disgust. It was the same look he gave me before he deleted my creations.

"Ava is a viper," he said, his voice hard. "She is manipulative and malicious. She is utterly unfit to lead this project."

He turned back to the board. "Only Serena has a profound connection to me, and I to her."

He looked at Serena, then made a solemn vow to everyone in the room. "I desire only Serena, a singular partnership for all time."

The chairman's face darkened at that. He didn't want a love story, he wanted a lead developer who could secure OmniCorp's dominance in the digital world. Emotional entanglements were a liability.

Serena, of course, just blushed, playing the part of a shy girl overwhelmed by a grand declaration of love. Ethan looked at her, his eyes shining with triumph.

Then he turned his glare back to me. "Ava, this time, don't you dare try any more tricks to destroy Serena!"

I met his gaze without flinching. "You're overthinking it, Mr. Thorne. I'll be packing my things and leaving the project. I wish you and my sister a long and prosperous partnership."

I put extra emphasis on "long and prosperous."

A flicker of confusion crossed Ethan' s face. "You'd better!"

He turned to lead Serena away, his hand protectively on her back.

But just as they took a step, Ethan doubled over, coughing violently. A stream of black, corrupted code sprayed from his mouth onto the polished floor.

Panic filled the room. The chairman shot to his feet, shouting for the tech team.

Ethan waved a hand, trying to dismiss the alarm. "Chairman, I'm fine. Just a little overexertion lately. No need to trouble the tech team."

The chairman wasn't buying it. He frowned, his eyes darting between Serena and me.

"I hear the lead developers are experts in system diagnostics," he said, his voice sharp. "Could one of you examine Mr. Thorne?"

Ethan immediately cut in before I could even open my mouth.

"Chairman, Ava's diagnostics are imprecise. Let Serena handle it."

Serena's eyes flickered with a brief, unreadable emotion. She stepped forward and gently placed her hand on Ethan's wrist, pretending to run a diagnostic scan by checking his pulse.

Her face twisted into a mask of alarm.

She shrieked, "Chairman, someone has infected Mr. Thorne with a malicious virus!"