Chapter 1

The screen glowed with lines of code, a complex digital tapestry Ethan Miller knew by heart. But one thread was horribly wrong. It was a rookie mistake, a single misplaced command in a critical payment gateway module, and it belonged to Liam Hayes. Ethan ran the numbers again. If this code went live, it could cost them millions in a single day.

He found Liam in the breakroom, scrolling through his phone.

"Liam, we need to talk about the payment gateway commit you pushed this morning."

Liam didn' t look up. "It' s fine. I tested it."

"You couldn' t have," Ethan said, keeping his voice level. "There' s a recursive loop in the transaction validation. It' ll crash the servers under load and could corrupt the entire transaction database."

Liam finally lowered his phone, his expression annoyed. "Look, I know what I' m doing. My aunt reviewed it."

His aunt was Olivia Hayes, the company' s CEO and Ethan' s girlfriend of five years.

"Olivia doesn' t review code, Liam. I do," Ethan said. "This is a major issue. You need to revert it now."

"You' re just trying to make me look bad," Liam whined, his voice rising. "You' ve always had it out for me."

Before Ethan could respond, Liam stood up and walked away, heading straight for Olivia' s corner office. A few minutes later, an email landed in Ethan' s inbox. The subject line was simply: "Meeting. My office. Now."

He walked in and found Olivia standing behind her desk, arms crossed. Liam was slumped in a chair in the corner, looking like a kicked puppy.

"Ethan," Olivia began, her voice cold and unfamiliar. "I' m tired of hearing about your issues with Liam. He is trying his best."

"This isn' t about him trying," Ethan said, incredulous. "This is about a catastrophic error that could cripple our company. I' m trying to protect what we built."

"What you' re doing is bullying my nephew," Olivia snapped. "He' s family. And he' s an intern. He' s here to learn."

"Then he needs to learn not to push untested code to a live production branch!"

Olivia' s eyes narrowed. She looked from Ethan' s determined face to Liam' s feigned tears. Her decision was made.

"I have a solution," she said, her voice dangerously calm. "I' m offering you a choice, Ethan."

He waited.

"Option one: you accept a demotion. You will become Liam' s assistant. You will personally mentor him, approve his every move, and take full responsibility for his work. You will teach him."

Ethan' s jaw tightened. He said nothing.

"Option two," she continued, her gaze unwavering, "is you clean out your desk. And if you choose that, you can clean your things out of our apartment, too. Because we' re done."

The silence in the room was heavy. Liam sniffled in the corner, a theatrical sound. Ethan looked at Olivia, the woman he' d planned a future with, the woman he' d helped build this company from the ground up. He saw no recognition in her eyes, only a cold, hard loyalty to the spoiled boy in the corner.

He felt a strange calm settle over him. The choice was not a choice at all.

"I see," he said softly. He turned to his laptop, which he' d brought with him, and typed for a moment. He printed a single sheet of paper from her office printer. He signed it and placed it squarely in the center of her desk. It was his resignation.

"Then I choose option two," he said, his voice clear and steady. "I quit. And yes, we are done."

Olivia stared at the paper, her mouth slightly agape. She hadn' t expected this. She had built this entire scenario around the belief that he would never leave her, that he was too intertwined with her and the company. She thought she could control him.

"You' re serious?" she whispered, the shock evident in her voice. "You would throw away five years, Ethan? Over this?"

"You' re the one throwing it away, Olivia," he said. He didn' t raise his voice. He didn' t need to. "You' re asking me to choose between my professional integrity and your nephew. You' re asking me to sacrifice my self-respect."

He walked over to the chair where he' d left his jacket. He put it on slowly, methodically. He checked his pockets for his wallet and phone.

Olivia' s shock was turning to panic. "Wait. Ethan, think about this. Where will you go? What will you do? You' re a senior developer, but the market is tough." She was trying to reassert control, to remind him of his dependency on her.

He didn't answer. He simply took the key ring from his pocket. He located the key to their apartment, a sleek, modern key he' d been so proud of. He worked it off the ring, the metal scraping softly. He walked back to her desk and placed it on top of his resignation letter.

The click of the metal on the wood was the only sound. It was a sound of finality.

Just then, Liam, seeing his opening, got up and went to Olivia' s side. He put a hand on her arm, his voice thick with fake emotion.

"Aunt Olivia, I' m so sorry. I didn' t mean for this to happen. Ethan was just so mean to me in the breakroom. He yelled at me."

Olivia looked at Liam' s tear-streaked face, then back at Ethan' s cold, resolute expression. Her confusion hardened back into anger. She chose her blood.

"Fine," she hissed, her voice trembling with rage. She snatched the resignation letter from her desk, the key clattering to the floor. "You don' t quit. You' re fired! Now get out of my office! Get out of my company!"

She ripped the letter in half, then in half again, the sound tearing through the quiet room. She threw the pieces at him. They fluttered to the ground around his feet like dead leaves.

Ethan looked at the shredded paper, then at her face, contorted with a fury he' d never seen before. He didn't feel anger. He didn't feel sadness. He just felt... nothing.

He turned and walked out of the office without a backward glance, leaving her there with her ruined company and her precious nephew.