Chapter 4

Lock the servers? In my past life, I did exactly that.

And because I locked the servers to stop the exploit, they accused me of restricting admin access and preventing the company from taking the product offline.

I wasn’t falling for that twice.

But I was curious: how did this exploit happen?

I had checked the code repeatedly. How did Liam hide the backdoor?

And who was the hacker who locked the servers in the past life?

Only a few of us had root access. Who changed the core code?

Before I could figure it out, Chloe burst into the tech department.

"Ethan! Why are you just sitting there?! Why haven't you told the team to patch the exploit?!"

She was shaking with anger and anxiety.

I leaned back in my chair. "Well, the official ticket hasn't been approved yet. Why should I patch it?"

My voice finally woke up the sleeping devs.

One of them jumped up so fast he knocked his chair over.

"Ethan! Why didn't you wake us up?!"

"You're destroying the company!"

"We're losing a million dollars a second!"

I calmly nodded.

"Yes, it's a major glitch. But management hasn't sent me the official ticket to fix it."

The devs were furious. "Do you even know what responsibility means?!"

"None of us are as fast as you! How can you just watch us burn?!"

"Do you know how many people will lose their jobs and jump off buildings if this startup goes bankrupt?!"

I shrugged and shut down my computer. "What does that have to do with me?"

"At worst, I'll just resign. No big deal."

Chloe’s face contorted.

She whipped out her phone and played a video.

In the video, I was sitting at my desk, complaining.

"This company is a joke. Working until 3 AM every day is toxic. I’m going to make sure this launch ruins them. I don't care if it goes bankrupt, as long as I get my revenge."

I saw right through it. It was a Deepfake.

In my past life, right after I was arrested, Chloe leaked this exact video onto Snapchat and Instagram.

I had begged the police to run a forensic analysis on it, but they claimed the video was authentic.

I had to prove it was fake myself, because I had never said those words, nor had I ever thought them.

No one wanted this company to succeed more than me—not even Donald.