Email engagement.
Travel patterns inferred from store visits.
Publicly available corporate affiliations.
Luxury-category spending models purchased from third-party data brokers.
Property-value estimates.
Zip-code wealth indices.
Social-media engagement.
Professional-network probabilities.
Anonymous payment-preauthorization patterns.
And what the report called lifestyle affinity features.
Naomi read that phrase twice.
Lifestyle affinity.
Her father had circled it.
Three question marks.
Beside it:
WE REMOVED THE SALESWOMAN’S EYES AND BUILT NEW EYES OUT OF DATA. DID WE REMOVE THE ASSUMPTION?
Naomi became very still.
Camille watched her.
“What?”
“I think Dad was worried about something.”
“Your father was always worried about something.”
“No.”
Naomi handed her the paper.
Camille read enough.
Then looked up.
“He thought they rebuilt the old system.”
“Maybe.”
“With computers.”
“Maybe.”
Camille sighed.
“I hate when dead people leave homework.”
Naomi closed the folder.
Her first instinct was to call the CEO of Arden & Vale.
She stopped.
Marcus’s voice arrived inside her head so clearly she nearly looked toward the door.
Verify before you decide.
She hated him a little.
“Fine.”
Camille raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“I’m going to check.”
“Good.”
“You sound like him.”
“Don't insult me.”
The Bennett family trust owned only 3.4 percent of Arden & Vale by then.
Enough to receive reports.
Not enough to command.
Naomi was no longer practicing antitrust law full-time.
At sixty-two, she had become chair of a consumer-markets policy institute in Washington.
She understood data governance better than most board members, but not well enough to evaluate an AI model by herself.
So she called the person she least wanted involved.
Her son.
Jordan Bennett answered on the fourth ring.
“Mom.”
“Are you busy?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“That means you're going to ask something.”
“Yes.”
Jordan was thirty-four, a machine-learning systems auditor with a reputation for being brilliant, skeptical, and almost pathologically unwilling to be impressed by family wealth.
Marcus had adored him.
Mostly because Jordan argued with him.
At sixteen, Jordan had watched the old boutique video and said:
“Grandpa, you know the satisfying part is also the dangerous part.”
Marcus had looked delighted.
“What?”
“Everybody likes it because you secretly own company.”
“Yes.”
“So audience is still judging whether you deserve respect based on status.”
Marcus had turned to Naomi.
“This one can stay.”
Jordan had never forgiven either of them for telling story at his wedding.
Now Naomi emailed him the old report.
He read while she waited.
Twenty minutes later he called back.
“Where did you get this?”
“Grandpa’s office.”
“Of course.”
“What do you think?”
“I think it’s incomplete.”
“That's not answer.”
“It’s correct answer.”
“Jordan.”
“Mom.”
She closed her eyes.
Genetics.
“What would you need?”
“Model cards.”