Chapter 2

The office doors at the end of the hall flew open.

Mark Davis stormed in, his handsome face twisted into a mask of fury. He didn't even look at me. His eyes went straight to a tearful Chloe.

"What did you do to her?" he snarled, pushing past me to wrap a protective arm around Chloe's shoulders.

"Mark, she's lying," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "She fired me."

"I heard the whole thing, Ava!" he yelled, his voice echoing in the now-silent open-plan office. "You're harassing my Head of Product. I can't believe you."

He turned to face me fully, his eyes cold and hard.

"What is wrong with you? Are you that jealous? That insecure?"

Then he did something I never thought possible.

He slapped me.

The sound cracked through the air. My head snapped to the side, my cheek stinging instantly. A collective gasp came from the crowd outside my office.

In that moment of ringing silence, everything became clear. The late-night "board meetings." The scent of Chloe's perfume on his clothes. The way they looked at each other now, a shared, triumphant gleam in their eyes.

It wasn't just a professional betrayal. It was personal.

"You're sleeping with her," I stated. It wasn't a question.

Mark didn't deny it. He pulled Chloe closer, almost protectively.

"This isn't about that," he said dismissively. "This is about your instability."

I looked from his face to Chloe's smug, victorious one. The years of work, of love, of shared dreams-they evaporated in an instant.

"My instability?" I laughed, a broken, hollow sound. "Mark, I built this platform. While you were out giving interviews and going to parties, I was here, writing the code that made you a star. Do you even remember our first apartment? The one with the leaky ceiling? We sketched out the first version of Nexus on a napkin at that kitchen table."

"Don't you dare bring that up," he spat, his face reddening. "I'm the visionary. I'm the one who sold the dream. You were just the help. A glorified typist."

"A code monkey," Chloe added sweetly, nestling into his side. "That's what the staff calls you."

The crowd of employees snickered. They were on his side. They always had been. I was just the weird, quiet programmer in the back room. He was the charismatic leader.

"You're all fools," I said, my voice shaking but clear. I looked past Mark and at the sea of faces. "This platform is a complex ecosystem. It needs constant maintenance, constant innovation. Without me, it will crash and burn within six months."

Mark laughed out loud, a cruel, mocking sound.

"We have a whole team of engineers. We don't need you, Ava. The company has outgrown you."

The finality in his voice was like a door slamming shut. The life I had built, the man I had loved, the company that was my entire world-it was all gone. A lie.

My mind went numb, then cold and clear.

"Fine," I said, my voice stripped of all emotion. "I want a divorce. And I want my fifty percent."