Page 178 of Triplet Babies for my Ex's Best Friend

“And your solution?”

“A bypass.”

I rub my eyes. “Explain.”

“It reroutes the affected logic through a secondary pathway. Keeps the system functional without triggering the corrupted segment.”

I consider that. “Risk?”

“There’s always risk.”

Of course Bryce says it like that. Casual, detached, like risk is theoretical instead of catastrophic.

My jaw tightens. “Define it.”

He chuckles softly. “It’s a patch, not a cure.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It holds the system together. That’s the answer.”

I glance at the code again. At the fault, at the timeline. “How quickly can you send it?”

“Already did.”

Of course he did.

I pull up my inbox. There it is.

“Why?” I ask.

A beat. “What do you mean?”

“Why are you helping?”

A soft exhale. “Because despite everything, I don’t want to see you fail.”

I don’t respond to that.

Under normal circumstances, I’d push back harder on an unverified patch.

But Bryce has always had a bad habit of forcing himself into problems like he can’t tolerate being irrelevant to the solution.

It’s reckless, not criminal.

Plus, the gala is coming way too fast.

“Look,” he adds, tone shifting again, less controlled now, “we can deal with everything else later. You’ve got a problem. I’m offering a solution.”

I end the call without another word.

The file sits there, waiting.

Sara steps back into the office. “We’ve isolated the system.”

Jeffrey follows. “Still no clean fix.”

I look at them. Then at the screen, at the code, at the clock. Time, as always, is the variable that matters most.