Chapter 6

Amelia Avila POV:

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. Sorting through seven years of my life had taken its toll, but the burning of the past had cleared something inside me. It was done. I was free. Or so I thought.

The next morning, my phone buzzed with an incoming message. It was from Cortney Sims. My stomach churned with a familiar wave of nausea and disgust. I almost deleted it unread, but a perverse curiosity-or perhaps a lingering sense of responsibility for my brainchild, AG Designs-made me open it.

"Hi, Amelia!" the text chirped, sickeningly cheerful. "Gabe asked me to reach out. As his new Chief Architect, I'm taking over all your old projects. There's just one tiny handover issue with the core schematics. They're locked behind a legacy system, and I can't access them without your credentials. It's causing a huge delay. If these proprietary designs leak, it could jeopardize the whole company."

My heart sank. The core technology, the intricate architectural schematics, the groundbreaking algorithms for sustainable design – these were my creations, my intellectual children. I had poured years into developing them, ensuring their security. The thought of them being compromised, especially due to my departure, was a fresh stab of pain. Cortney knew my weaknesses. She knew how deeply I cared about the integrity of my work. She was playing on my lingering sense of responsibility, my professional ethics.

"I need you to log in through this secure portal," another text followed immediately, complete with a link. "Just to confirm everything is transferred correctly. Otherwise, I' m afraid any future data breaches could be attributed to you, given your recent... hasty departure."

Her words were carefully chosen, a veiled threat wrapped in a veneer of concern. She was leveraging my concern for the company, and for my reputation. I knew it was a trap. Every instinct screamed at me to delete the message, block her number, and disappear. But the thought of my years of work, of our company, being vulnerable, possibly blamed on me, gnawed at me. I couldn't just walk away and let it all burn.

With a heavy sigh, I clicked the link. It led to a professional-looking interface, seemingly benign. I entered my old credentials, confirmed the transfer protocols, and clicked 'submit'. The page refreshed, displaying a generic "transfer complete" message. I felt a wave of relief, followed by a deeper sense of foreboding. I hope this is truly over.

The next day, Gabe burst through the door of the villa I was temporarily staying in. His face was a mask of fury, his eyes blazing red. He wasn't alone. Several of our former senior executives, their faces contorted in anger, followed close behind him. They surrounded me, their collective hostility a suffocating weight.

I looked up, startled, from the book I was reading. "Gabe? What's going on?" My voice was barely a whisper.

No one answered. Their glares were enough. Their faces were twisted with a venomous hatred I had never seen directed at me.

Gabe marched forward, his hands clenched into fists. He didn't say a word. He didn't ask a question. He simply raised his hand and struck me across the face, a brutal, open-handed slap that sent my head snapping back. My ears rang. The taste of blood filled my mouth.

"You scheming bitch!" he roared, his voice hoarse with rage. "You left, and now you want to destroy everything I built?! You leaked our proprietary schematics to Sterling Industries, didn't you?!"

My mind reeled. Sterling Industries? The accusation was so outlandish, so utterly baseless, that for a moment I could only stare at him, numb with shock. Then, my eyes snapped to Cortney, who was now standing behind Gabe, her face streaked with carefully applied tears. She looked distraught, clutching Gabe' s arm, but her eyes... oh, her eyes. They held a glint of pure, unadulterated malice, a flicker of triumph that sent chills down my spine.

"She did it, Gabe!" Cortney sobbed, her voice trembling with feigned anguish. "She' s always been jealous of your success! She deliberately sabotaged us, tried to ruin everything!"

A cold, hard clarity washed over me. The link. The "secure portal." It was a phishing scam. Cortney had orchestrated this. She had framed me.

Gabe's eyes, burning with a hatred that extinguished any last flicker of affection I might have held for him, fixed on me. He lunged forward, his hands closing around my throat. His grip was viselike, merciless. I gasped, struggling for air, my hands clawing at his.

"You treacherous snake!" he snarled, his face inches from mine, his breath hot and venomous. "I shared my life with you! I gave you everything! And this is how you repay me?! Trying to sell our company secrets?!"

He tightened his grip, his eyes gleaming with a manic fury. There was no trace of the man I had loved, only a monster consumed by rage and delusion. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't speak. I could only stare into those hateful eyes, the world beginning to spin around me.

He flung me away from him with a violent shove. I stumbled backwards, my feet tangling beneath me, and crashed to the floor. The impact rattled my teeth, and a fresh wave of pain, both physical and emotional, washed over me.