Chapter 2 - The Trojan Horse
Julian didn't confront Preston. Instead, he made himself visible. He began leaving pieces of code, brilliant fragments of a decentralized financial algorithm, on the whiteboards in the library before Preston’s study group arrived.
It didn't take long for Preston to take the bait.
"Vance," Preston cornered him one afternoon, holding a printed sheet of Julian's code. "I see you're dabbling in crypto-trading algorithms. It's cute. But you don't have the capital to test this. I do."
Preston offered Julian a deal: Julian would write the program, and Preston would fund it, splitting the profits. Julian knew it was a lie. He knew Preston intended to steal it, slap the Sterling name on it, and use it to impress his father.
"Alright, Preston," Julian said, his voice smooth and devoid of emotion. "Let's build it together."
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For three months, Julian worked out of Preston’s luxury penthouse. He built a masterpiece of software—a predictive trading bot that could analyze market shifts faster than anything on Wall Street. But Julian built a backdoor into it. A tiny, undetectable line of code that would allow him to control the entire system remotely.
He wasn't building Preston a ticket to success. He was building him a Trojan Horse.
