Marcus dialed Naima’s number before the blood returned to his knuckles. The home office felt too tight, so he moved to the living room, letting the ambient city light paint his shadows across the equipment boxes. The call connected before the first ring completed, as if Naima had been holding the line in anticipation.

  “Hale,” she said, her voice taut and ready, a scalpel’s edge compared to Victor’s sledgehammer.

  “It’s time,” Marcus replied. He let the phone rest on speaker atop a stack of Helen’s textbooks, his hands free to scrub tiredly at his face.

  Naima Rios worked in a world where every word was admissible, every hesitation a tactical opening. “I just read their notice,” she said. “So. ‘Crown Core—Mandatory Return Notice: Final.’” She pronounced it as if reading a prescription label, not a death sentence.

  “They’re sending people tomorrow.” Marcus found himself walking circuits around the coffee table, like a caged animal that understood only the perimeter of its enclosure.

  “I expected as much,” Naima said, unflustered. “Here’s the truth: They have standing. Helen’s employment contract was a masterclass in one-sided drafting. Every ‘original’ contribution, every line of code, every errant napkin sketch—property of Armitage. If this went to court, you’d lose.”

  Marcus stopped, staring at the reflection in the living room’s window. For a moment, he saw Helen there, a negative image flickering just behind the glass.

  Naima continued, “But. If you want to slow them down, there are options. Stipulate a detailed technical audit and request full cross-verification of the inventory. Insist that some of the parts are co-owned—your own postdoc work, for example. I can generate enough confusion in the paperwork to buy weeks, maybe months.”

  Marcus said nothing. The air in the apartment was thick, flavored by the ozone tang of old electronics and Helen’s ancient, perfunctory lavender candle, burning for weeks, more tribute than scent.

  “Marcus?” Naima pressed.

  “I’m listening,” he said. He sat, finally, perched on the arm of the sofa. His gaze landed on the crown—now dormant, or playing dead.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “What is your endgame here?” Naima’s tone softened, but only fractionally.

  Marcus spun his wedding band on his ring finger. A habit he got into when he had to think.

  “Let’s say I buy you two months. What changes?”

  The silence lingered long enough for Marcus to realize he had no answer ready. He tried to imagine a timeline where the boxes were gone, the hardware picked apart by company autopsy, Helen’s work reduced to digestible chunks for a Board presentation.

  “I don’t want to let them go,” he said, then regretted how childish it sounded.

  Naima did not sigh or condescend. “I understand,” she said. “But the other side will paint this as hoarding, maybe even sabotage. You need to at least look cooperative, or Victor will make good on the threats.”

  “He already has,” Marcus muttered.

  “I’ll file the first motions first thing in the morning,” Naima said. “But you need to decide how public you want this to get. If the press finds out Helen’s prototype was this advanced, it gets complicated. Could work in our favor—paint Armitage as bullying the widow, stifling innovation. But there’s risk.”

  He tried to picture himself as a public figure—media lights, the swarm of digital commentary, trolls, and well-wishers alike dissecting his marriage, his motives, the tremor in his hands. Helen would have loathed it.

  “No press,” Marcus said. “Not… yet.”

  “Understood.” A click of the keyboard from Naima’s end, the brisk cadence of someone already drafting the next move. “Expect a courier tonight. You’ll need to sign some affidavits and a digital retention request. Keep everything untouched, catalogued, but do not turn it over. If they call again, refer them to me.”

  He nodded, realized she couldn’t see it, and said, “Thank you.”

  Her tone gentled at the edges. “It’s not a victory, Marcus. Just a stay of execution.”

  He looked around at the boxes, the notes, the crown—every trace of Helen held in a liminal state between preservation and loss.

  “Understood,” he echoed.

  Naima hung up with a click, no parting pleasantries. The living room was left with only the hum of the city beyond the glass and the quieter hum of unresolved grief.

  Marcus leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling as if it might cave under the weight of so many unasked questions. The urge to open the boxes, to rummage through every fragment and find some overlooked piece of Helen herself, was overwhelming.

  He stood and walked to the nearest stack, laying his hands atop the cardboard as if in benediction. Through the taped seam, he traced the word Helen had written there months ago, in her looping, left-handed script: “CROWN.”

  He pressed his forehead against the box and, for the first time since her death, allowed the possibility of crying.

  But nothing came. Only the persistent ache, the sense that every hour lost was another hour further from what he’d hoped to keep.

  He drew a deep breath, then exhaled, slow and deliberate, as if teaching his body to live inside the stasis a little longer.