My sister snapped my glasses in half forty minutes before my thesis defense. She didn't drop them by accident.

"Claire, don't you dare talk back to your father!" my mother yelled, her voice high and piercing. "After everything we've done for you! We gave you a roof over your head! We let you stay here while you finished your little degree!"

"You let me stay here," I corrected her, turning to face my mother directly, "because I paid you eight hundred dollars a month in rent out of my graduate stipend. You took my money, and then you helped Brooke steal my work."

My mother froze, her mouth agape. She looked at Dr. Vance, who was currently writing notes on her tablet.

Dr. Vance looked at her watch. "It is currently 8:42 AM. Claire's defense committee is waiting in Boardroom 3B on campus. Dr. Ellis and I came here to ensure our primary candidate was not being unlawfully detained or coerced."

"She's not going anywhere," Dad said, taking a step toward the front door to block the exit. "We need to clear this up right here. Claire, hand over your laptop. We are going to sit down as a family and figure out how to handle the Apex Global submission."

"If you touch that laptop, Mr. Miller," Dr. Ellis warned calmly, "I will call the university campus police and the local Sheriff's department immediately. We are standing in the middle of an active felony investigation regarding digital identity theft and intellectual property fraud."

Dad's jaw clenched. He looked at Brooke, whose face was covered in a cold sweat.

"Brooke," Dad whispered hoarsely. "Did you use your work email to submit her files?"

Brooke didn't answer. She burst into hysterical tears, sinking against the wall. "You said it wouldn't matter, Dad! You said Claire was too soft to do anything about it! You said she'd just accept the withdrawal and go work at the local library!"

The room fell into a suffocating silence.

I looked at my father. He didn't look remorseful. He looked furious that Brooke had confessed in front of witnesses. For years, I had believed that my father simply favored Brooke because she was more outgoing, more charismatic, more "successful." Now I realized the truth: my father viewed me as nothing more than a resource to be harvested for his favorite child's advancement.

"Claire," Dr. Ellis said gently, gesturing toward the open front door. "Grab your backup hard drive and your backup flash drive. You're coming with us."

"She doesn't have a backup!" Brooke sobbed from the floor. "I took the flash drives from her desk drawer last night! I threw them in the storm drain outside!"

My heart stopped. Two years of raw data, field notes, and backup manuscripts... gone.

I looked down at Brooke, then at my laptop sitting on the dining table.

"I don't need the flash drives," I said, my voice dropping into a register of cold, absolute steel. "I have the primary cloud server encrypted with my biometric login. And the master algorithm is stored right here in my head."

I picked up my laptop, put it inside my shoulder bag, and walked straight past my father toward the door.

"If you walk out that door, Claire," Dad growled, his voice trembling with rage, "you are no longer welcome in this house. Your stuff will be on the curb by noon."