Chapter 1

I was Chloe Miller, a data analyst. That was my official title at a company that was changing the world. In reality, I was the mind, the mother, the secret architect behind "Oracle," our company's revolutionary AI. I was the one who wrote its soul into existence, line by line.

The air in the main conference room was thick with ambition. Mr. Henderson, our CEO, stood at the podium, his voice echoing off the glass walls. He announced the challenge: whoever could fully and seamlessly integrate Oracle with the new global network would be his successor. The next CEO.

A murmur went through the crowd. Everyone knew Oracle was my baby. It was a temperamental, brilliant entity that responded only to my unique algorithms, my specific touch. Suddenly, I was the most popular person in the room. Ambitious colleagues, people who barely knew my name yesterday, crowded around me, their smiles wide and fake. They all wanted the key, and they all knew I was holding it.

I remembered this day. I remembered it with a pain so sharp it felt like a physical wound. In my past life, I had made a choice. I chose the charismatic marketing director, Jake Thompson. He had a smile that could sell sand in a desert and a voice that promised you the world. I believed him. I fell for him.

I poured every ounce of my intellect into his success. I spent countless sleepless nights, fueled by coffee and a naive belief in our partnership, tailoring my algorithms to fit his integration proposal. I handed him my genius on a silver platter.

And once he sat in the CEO' s chair, he thanked me by doing three things.

First, he erased me. He scrubbed my name from every file, every record, every piece of documentation related to Oracle. He credited it all to his fiancée, Sarah Jenkins. My life' s work became her dowry.

Second, he destroyed my reputation. He publicly accused me of corporate espionage, planting fabricated evidence that painted me as a traitor. He had me blacklisted from the entire tech industry. I went from being a hidden genius to a public pariah, facing humiliation and financial ruin.

Third, he took my very essence. He gifted my core algorithm, the most intimate and complex piece of my intellect, to Sarah. He condemned me to a life of obscurity, my mind stripped of its greatest creation, barren and violated.

I remembered the last time I saw him. He had me dragged into his new, expansive office. He clutched a crumpled memo, a printout of my original, elegant code. His face was twisted into a sneer.

"If you hadn't insisted on collaborating with me, Sarah wouldn't have been so distracted," he spat, his voice cold. "She nearly lost her mind trying to compete with you. I could have integrated Oracle and become CEO without you! This algorithm is your penance for what you did to her."

His logic was insane, a self-serving fantasy. He blamed me for his fiancée's jealousy. He blamed me for his own ambition. He had security escort me out. My vision blurred with tears of disbelief and agony. The world went dark.

When I opened my eyes, the world wasn't dark. It was bright. I was standing in the conference room again, the echo of Mr. Henderson's announcement still hanging in the air. I was back on the day of the CEO selection announcement.