Chapter 1

Slap.

A folder landed on my desk, tossed there light and careless. Not much force behind it. Plenty of insult.

"Kent Fox, this is your new compensation package. Sign it."

Geraldine Harding stood with her arms crossed, looking down at me. Her voice gave nothing away, but it carried an order that left no room for argument.

I picked up the thin sheet of paper.

Under the line marked "Base Salary," the number staring back made my pupils shrink.

Three hundred thousand.

Three hundred thousand a year.

I looked up and met her eyes, my voice level. "Ms. Harding. My salary was one point eight six million before."

Geraldine seemed to have expected the question. The corner of her mouth curved into a rehearsed smile. "Kent, the company is going through a strategic adjustment right now. What we need are people with vision, people who can weather the hard times with us. Don't fixate on the money in front of you. Think long-term."

A pretty little speech.

I pushed down the cold laugh rising in my chest and pointed at another line. "And the project bonus for Blue Ocean—"

"Oh, that." Geraldine cut me off, her tone lifting. "To motivate the new blood and give the young people more of a chance, the project bonus mostly went to Jude this time. He's my cousin, after all. He just joined, he needs the encouragement."

She paused, as if announcing something entirely routine.

"Right, and given his outstanding performance on this project, Jude's salary has been adjusted too. One million a year. He's coming along fast. You'll need to take him under your wing from now on."

Jude Lambert. Graduated last year, joined the company fresh, base salary sixty thousand.

Now, one million.

A jump of nine hundred forty thousand.

And me, the one who actually ran this project, from concept and strategy all the way through the technical breakthroughs, who burned through countless all-nighters and personally landed the two-hundred-million-dollar Blue Ocean project, I had my salary cut from one point eight six million straight down to three hundred thousand in a single stroke.

The fire in my chest flared up in an instant, then went out just as fast under a wave of bone-deep cold.

Looking at Geraldine's exquisite, indifferent face, I suddenly laughed.

I rose slowly, took the pen off the desk, and signed my name with two quick strokes.

Then I handed the folder back to her, a flawless professional smile on my face.

"Of course, Ms. Harding. Congratulations, Assistant Lambert. And thank you for the mentorship, Ms. Harding. I understand."

Geraldine nodded, satisfied, certain her little mind games had worked. She took the folder and turned, her heels striking the floor with a crisp, victorious click.

I watched her walk away, the smile still on my face, my eyes going cold inch by inch.

In that moment, my heart went cold all the way through.

Three years ago, when the old chairman handed the company to his only daughter, Geraldine, he called me into his office alone, clapped a hand on my shoulder, and told me something straight from the heart.

"Kent, Geraldine's young. There's a lot she doesn't understand yet. You're the one I trained myself. Nobody knows what you can do better than I do. From now on, look after the company for me. Help her out."

I held on to that trust. I held on to what he'd asked of me.

For three years I worked without slacking off, never letting up for a second. Every technical breakthrough the company made, every major project, I had a hand in almost all of it. I turned myself into a brick, hauled wherever I was needed.

And Geraldine, just as the old chairman had said, didn't understand the first thing about the technology or the projects. But office politics and playing people off against each other, that she'd mastered without a teacher.

She enjoyed the results I brought her with a clear conscience, and at the same time never stopped guarding against me, the holdover from her father's regime.

The Blue Ocean project was the perfect example.

When the project launched, so she could plant her fresh-out-of-school cousin Jude in it with a legitimate title, Geraldine named him project assistant outright, dressing it up as, "Go learn from him."

And in reality?

During the two most critical weeks of the crunch, I practically lived in the office. Night after night I sat at the screen reworking the plan and hammering out code, while my "assistant" Jude played games on his phone in the break room next door, snoring loud enough to rattle the walls.

One night around three in the morning, I finally broke through a key technical bottleneck and stepped out of the office, exhausted, to catch my breath. There was Jude, holding up his phone taking a selfie, my still-lit office window right there in the background.

He saw me and didn't so much as flinch. He came over grinning. "Kent, you've been working so hard! I'm posting this. Something to remember our nights in the trenches."

I glanced at his screen. The caption read: "Fighting for the dream. Every sleepless night is worth it!"

In the photo, his eyes looked "weary" and "resolute."

At the time I just found it ridiculous and let it go.

On the day of the project presentation, faced with the client's sharp technical questions, Jude stumbled through the script in his hands, cold sweat beading on his forehead.

I was the one who stood up, answered every question off the cuff, ran an impromptu technical demo on the spot, and got the client to sign the contract right there.

The conference room erupted in applause.

Geraldine rose, beaming, walked over to Jude, and patted his shoulder. Her voice wasn't loud, but it was loud enough for the core team around them to hear.

"Jude, see that? Learn from Kent. Everything he's doing now, one day it'll all be handed over to you."

In that moment, the looks from my colleagues came in every flavor. Pity, spite, contempt.

And I stood there like a naked clown on a stage, on display for everyone to inspect.

So that was it. In Geraldine's eyes, I was nothing but a stepping stone she was using to pave the way for her cousin.

A useful stepping stone. One she could kick aside the moment she pleased.