Chapter 1

The emergency board meeting was a slaughterhouse, and I was the lamb. The air in the room was thick with the smell of fear and expensive cologne. Mr. Benton, the firm's powerful founding partner, wasn't physically present, but his fury radiated through the speakerphone in the center of the massive oak table.

"Billions," his voice crackled, a sound like gravel grinding stone. "Billions in lawsuits. Our reputation, fifty years of it, gone. Who is responsible for this?"

All eyes turned to me. I felt them like physical blows.

Jen, my fiancée of six years, stood at the head of the table. She looked pale, but her voice was steady, sharp as glass. She was a senior partner, my superior, my future wife.

"It was Ryan," she said, not looking at me. "Ryan Scott. He was the junior architect responsible for the final structural integration. He signed off on the blueprints."

Caleb Hughes, the intern she' d taken under her wing, nodded eagerly beside her. His family's money had gotten him the internship; his looks and charm were supposed to do the rest.

"I warned him," Caleb chimed in, his voice full of fake sincerity. "I ran a simulation and saw the load-bearing miscalculation. I told him, but he said he was the expert. He was too arrogant to listen."

A lie. A complete, total lie. I looked at Jen, searching her face for any sign of the woman I loved. I saw nothing but a desperate, cornered animal. Her eyes met mine for a fraction of a second, and in them, I saw a silent, frantic plea: Just take it. For us.

For six years, "us" had been my entire world. So I stood up. The room was silent.

"It was my mistake," I said, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears. "I take full responsibility. I am resigning, effective immediately."

I didn't wait for a response. I turned and walked out of the boardroom, the silence behind me more damning than any accusation.

Later, Jen found me at my desk. She wrapped her arms around me from behind, her head resting on my shoulder.

"Thank you, baby," she whispered. "I know this is hard, but it's the only way. Once this blows over, we'll go to Italy. Just like we always dreamed. We'll get married on the Amalfi Coast."

I just nodded, my hands frozen on my keyboard. She kissed my cheek and left, a ghost of her expensive perfume lingering in the air.

She had no idea. No one did.

No one knew that two weeks ago, at Mr. Benton's secret request, I had personally overseen the installation of a state-of-the-art, cloud-based surveillance system. Audio, video, and screen recording on every single workstation and in every meeting room.

I knew exactly who made the error. I had the recording of Caleb's screen as he ignored the flashing red warnings from the design software. I had the audio of Jen coaching him on how to cover it up. I had everything. And I had just become a ghost.