Chapter 1

The company wanted to partner with a big-shot tycoon, and word was that whoever could close the deal would be promoted to vice president.

To make my fiancée see me in a new light and stop looking down on me, I closed the deal.

Everyone in the company assumed I'd get the vice president position, yet my name showed up on the layoff list.

As the assistant read out the names on the layoff list, he mocked me with a sarcastic tone.

"Neil Dickerson, what a shame. I really thought you'd get a promotion and a raise. Who'd have guessed you'd be the first person upstairs wanted to cut."

The meeting room was dead silent. Everyone looked at me with pity and surprise, waiting to see what I would do next.

But I just leaned back in my chair without a ripple, my voice calm and light as a breeze.

"I just landed a deal worth over a hundred million for this company. Fine, no promotion—but you want to lay me off too? Who made that rule?"

The assistant laughed and threw the layoff notice down in front of me. "Me!"

...

1

"You?"

I looked up at the assistant, his face full of arrogance. Right now he was sitting in my fiancée's CEO's chair.

Using a chicken feather as an arrow of command, so to speak.

"That's right, it's me!"

He answered freely, not a trace of fear in his eyes.

The air conditioning in the conference room really wasn't turned up that high, and yet everyone present couldn't help but shiver.

The atmosphere turned suddenly cold and stiff, and no one dared to speak up at that moment.

All because Sean Delgado was my fiancée's most cherished adopted brother. Whenever she wasn't around, every decision in the company was his to make.

And there it was—jealous that I'd landed the deal, unwilling to see me get a promotion or a raise, he'd come up with a layoff scheme to deal with me.

But even if he wanted to deal with me, he'd need something convincing!

"So what's the reason for the layoffs?"

Sean smiled, picked up the coffee on the table and took a sip, then curled his lips and spoke. "The reason I'm doing layoffs is that the company's performance has slipped lately, and some people are lazy freeloaders who collect a paycheck and do nothing."

"After I looked into their backgrounds, I found out those parasites all got in through the back door. They never passed an interview."

"What a company fears most is nepotism in its ranks. They're bound to use it to run wild in the company, seize other people's positions, and get truly capable people fired."

"So I'm helping Ms. Harding clean house—for the sake of the company, the shareholders, and the capable people. Is there anything wrong with that?"

I couldn't help letting out a soft laugh. "And what does any of this have to do with me?"

He wasn't wrong! Look—plenty of people below were already backing him.

"Because you got in through connections too!"

"I checked on you several times, and the result was always the same: you never passed an interview, you got in straight through the back door."

"Ms. Harding once mentioned to me that if your family hadn't once helped her grandfather, she'd never in a million years have gotten engaged to you, or let you come work at the company."

"Isn't that just forcing Ms. Harding to settle for you!"

The moment he finished speaking, the conference room finally broke into murmurs.

"I think Assistant Delgado is right."

"It's exactly because too many parasites got in that the company's performance dropped, while genuinely capable people out there can't find work."

"I support Assistant Delgado."

"I support it too!"

In an instant, the meeting room buzzed with heated talk, everyone lining up to support Sean Delgado.

Sean's lips curled in a faint smile. Inside he was clearly thrilled, yet he still put on a troubled, reluctant expression.

"Everyone, calm down and hear me out."

All the heated talk fell silent at once.

Sean was pleased with how obedient they were. Then he looked at me and said outright, "The one in a bit of a bind right now is Neil Dickerson."

"Since we're purging nepotism, we have to purge him along with the rest to satisfy everyone."

"I actually didn't want to put his name on the layoff list, because I thought he was very capable."

"But then I heard something—that deal wasn't originally negotiated by him. It was someone else."

"Only in the end, Neil Dickerson deliberately got that person out of the way so he could slip in and take advantage."

"Everyone wants to get promoted and make money, but you can't use dirty tricks like that!"

"Wouldn't you all agree?"