Chapter 3

Three days later, I stepped back into the bullpen.

As I walked down the hall, the chatting colleagues immediately snapped their mouths shut, shooting me stealthy, complicated looks.

I reached the door of the breakroom. Before I even walked in, I heard Sloane's voice.

"Honestly, my heart just breaks for Maeve. You guys don't know this, but the pressure of this project was completely crushing her. I caught her crying at her desk multiple times."

Sloane lowered her voice, dripping with synthetic sympathy. "I gave her the gentlest hug that day, but she was so out of it she just stumbled right into my clipboard. honestly? I think she was subconsciously terrified of pitching to the big boss and was looking for a way out. I mean, her proposal had a few clever tricks, but overall, it was just way too juvenile."

"Oh, that makes so much sense. I was wondering how you could have accidentally hit her that hard."

"Right? If she couldn't handle the heat, she should have just said so. She almost tanked the entire department. Good thing you stepped up."

Spinning aggravated assault into a victim's mental breakdown. Rebranding blatant plagiarism as saving the day.

Sloane's ability to gaslight a whole room meant her talents were truly being wasted outside of Hollywood.

I pushed the door open and walked right in.

But Sloane's theatrical performance was just getting started. To cement her generous, innocent-victim persona, she immediately pivoted to fawning over me.

"Maeve! You're back! I know you're probably still so mad at me. Look, I woke up early and waited in line to get you this blueberry juice—it's supposed to be amazing for eye recovery. I feel incredibly guilty about what happened, and I swear I will never joke around with you again. Can you ever forgive me?"

I looked at the cup she was holding out, making no move to take it.

"I'm good. Thanks."

Right on cue, Sloane's eyes turned red. Tears spilled over her lashes like broken pearls. "Maeve... are you still blaming me for taking over the runway project? I was just trying to do what was best for the company. If you're going to keep giving me this silent treatment, I really don't know what to do..."

"Is this really necessary, Maeve?" a female coworker muttered beside me. "Sloane swallowed her pride to apologize to you. What more do you want? It was an accident."

"Seriously," another chimed in. "Who hasn't had a rough day at work? She needs to drop this whole 'the world owes me' act."

Listening to their grating whispers, I didn't utter a single word in my defense.

I knew Sloane's playbook inside and out. She was deliberately baiting me, trying to trigger a public meltdown so she could definitively stamp me with the label of the petty, bitter, jealous loser.

Ignoring them entirely, I quietly poured myself a coffee and walked out.

For the next two weeks, I was treated like a pariah. Sloane basked in the spotlight, celebrated as the department's savior, while I was buried under the scut work no one else wanted to touch.

But what they didn't know was that I had acquired the hallway security footage.

I had greased the palms of the building's security guards to make a direct copy of the video from the day of the "accident."

The footage showed it all in brutal clarity: the moment Sloane saw me coming, she deliberately adjusted her grip on the acrylic clipboard, aiming the sharpest corner directly at me, before swinging it upward with every ounce of strength she had.

On top of that, I had secured a comprehensive forensic medical report from the hospital. The doctor explicitly noted that the exact nature of the laceration proved it was caused by massive, highly dangerous blunt force.

But I didn't throw these cards on the table. I knew that if I brought them to Diane now, she would just bury the evidence again to keep the Manhattan project running smoothly.

Meanwhile, I used my personal laptop to covertly mock up "Plan B" for the art gallery project. Sloane may have stolen my initial sketches, but she didn't possess a shred of understanding regarding the underlying load-bearing logic or the integration of the sustainable materials.

I was willing to bet everything that she was currently floundering, pulling her hair out trying to push through the design development phase.

Sure enough, I noticed Sloane leaving work later and later. Every time she walked past my cubicle, her eyes darted toward me, flashing with unmistakable anxiety and probing desperation.

On Friday night, I intentionally left a folder on my work computer's desktop, loudly titled: "Project_Core_Data_Model_Version_B".

I didn't encrypt it. Instead, I simply embedded a highly stealthy metadata tracker deep within the folder's source code.

If anyone copied the file or opened it on an external device, the tracker would instantly log the exact timestamp, IP address, and device information.

Over the weekend, I did nothing but sit peacefully in my apartment, watching the tracking pings roll in on my phone.

Staring at the rows of compiled data on my screen, a cold smile spread across my face. You finally took the bait, Sloane.

Monday morning brought our routine weekly department meeting.

Diane sat at the head of the conference table.

"Sloane, your progress is dragging. The client is breathing down our necks."

Sloane immediately deployed her victim face. "You can't blame me for that. There's some underlying data that I need to completely audit and verify—"

"I don't care how you do it, I need the final drafts by this Friday!" Diane cut her off, irritated.

Right at that moment, the conference room doors swung open.

Julian rushed in, clutching a printed screenshot.

"We have a massive problem."

Julian walked straight to the projector and cast the screenshot onto the massive screen. It was an anonymous whistleblower email. The attachment contained the exact core data models for the Manhattan project.

"Someone inside this company stole the core files and has been trying to sell them to our biggest competitor at a premium."

A dead, suffocating silence fell over the conference room.

Diane shot up from her chair, her face turning a livid shade of purple as she stared at the screen. Then, slowly, she turned her head, glaring at me with lethal intensity.

"Maeve. The person trying to sell out this company's trade secrets... is you."

Sloane let out an exaggerated, theatrical gasp. "Maeve, how could you?! Look, I know you're upset that I'm leading the project, but you can't take your revenge out on the whole company!"

Every single pair of eyes snapped toward me, sharp as knives.

I looked up at the familiar "Version B" files displayed on the big screen, and slowly leaned back in my chair.

The real show was finally about to begin.