Chapter 3

Chloe burst out laughing, a shrill, victorious sound that grated on my nerves.

She detached herself from Mark and sauntered over to her expensive handbag, pulling out a folded document.

"A divorce?" she mocked, her eyes glinting with malice. "That' s adorable. But you can' t divorce a man you were never married to."

She dramatically unfolded the paper and shoved it in my face.

It was a marriage certificate.

The names printed in stark black ink were Mark Davis and Chloe Miller.

It was dated three weeks ago.

My breath hitched in my throat. I looked from the paper to Mark, my mind reeling. "What is this? Our certificate... you said we filed it at city hall..."

Mark' s expression was one of pure, unapologetic contempt.

"The one I gave you?" he said with a shrug. "I printed it off the internet. It was just a piece of paper, Ava. A way to keep you focused, to make you feel secure while you did all the hard work."

The depth of his deceit was bottomless. Five years of my life, my love, my loyalty, all built on a lie I was too trusting to question.

"The shares..." I stammered, a new wave of panic washing over me. "The co-founder agreement. The 40% stake you promised me."

He actually chuckled. "Oh, Ava. You really should have hired a lawyer. Those documents you signed? They named you as a salaried employee with a generous bonus structure. Nothing more. You don' t own a single share of ConnectCorp."

I had been stripped of everything. My job, my partner, my life' s work, my financial future. All gone.

Chloe walked around my apartment, my home, as if she already owned it. "We' ll be selling this place, of course. It' s far too small."

Mark held up a hand, a gesture of mock generosity.

"No, no. I' m not a monster," he said, the words dripping with sarcasm. "As a severance package, for all your hard work, I' m letting you have our very first apartment. You know, the one in the bad neighborhood with the leaky ceiling. I think it' s a fitting place for you."

He was giving me back the symbol of our struggle, now tainted as a monument to my stupidity.

The humiliation was complete.

Then, his eyes narrowed, a greedy light entering them. "Now, give me the USB drive."

I instinctively clutched the small device in my pocket. It was my master key. On it were the final core algorithms, the complete client data, the very heart of Nexus that wasn't yet uploaded to the main server. It was the culmination of my last six months of work.

Without it, the platform was a hollow shell.

"You have nothing, Ava," Mark threatened, taking a step toward me. "Don' t make this harder on yourself. Hand it over."

I looked at his outstretched hand. I looked at Chloe' s smug, triumphant face. I looked at the laughing crowd outside.

And in that moment, something inside me snapped.

I pulled the USB drive from my pocket.

I looked at it, then back at them.

With all the strength I had, I threw it.

It didn't go into his hand. It clattered onto the floor at their feet, a tiny piece of plastic holding a billion-dollar company's future.

"There' s your data," I said, my voice eerily calm. "You want it? Pick it up off the floor like the dogs you are."

I turned my back on them, on my apartment, on my entire life.

As I walked to the door, I paused and looked over my shoulder.

"I wish you a very public, very painful bankruptcy."

And I walked out, leaving them to scramble for the pieces.