Chapter 4

Two security guards stood by as I packed my personal belongings into a cardboard box. My office, once my sanctuary of logic and order, felt like a crime scene.

The door opened and Matthew walked in, dismissing the guards with a nod.

He closed the door behind him. The supportive, concerned act was gone. His face was hard, his eyes cold.

"You should have taken my advice and stayed out of it," he said, his voice low.

He pulled an envelope from his jacket pocket and tossed it on my desk.

"Fifty thousand dollars," he said. "Consider it severance. All you have to do is sign this." He slid a document across the desk-a full confession and a non-disclosure agreement.

I stared at the paper, then back at him, my disgust rising. "You orchestrated this whole thing. You and Molly. For what? My job?"

He laughed, a dry, ugly sound. "Your job? Don't be so naive, Jennifer. This is much bigger than that. But you don't need to worry about the details. Just sign the paper, take the money, and disappear. Start a new life somewhere else."

"I will never sign that," I said, my voice shaking with rage. "I will clear my name, and I will expose you."

His smile vanished. He took a step closer, his demeanor turning menacing.

"You still don't get it, do you? You're not in a position to make threats."

He pulled out his phone, his thumb swiping across the screen. He turned it to face me.

It was a photo of me. An intimate one, taken in what I thought was a private moment between us.

"We had a lot of good times, didn't we?" he said softly, a cruel twist to his words. "I have photos. Videos. Things you wouldn't want your future employers to see. Things you wouldn't want posted on every tech forum and blasted through the company's internal chats."

My blood ran cold.

"You wouldn't," I whispered, horrified.

"Watch me."

Right in front of me, he selected the photo and sent it to a private group chat. A preview popped up on his screen: "The Silicon Valley Traitor."

"Sign the confession, Jennifer," he hissed, his face inches from mine. "Or by tomorrow, your professional reputation will be the least of your worries. Your entire life will be public property."

He left the envelope and the document on my desk and walked out, leaving me in the ruins of my career, facing a new, more personal kind of destruction.