Chapter 1

An hour before the annual investor pitch, the conference room was a total disaster zone.

Paige, the intern in charge of coordinating all our presentation files, stood in front of me with red, teary eyes.

"Chloe, I'm so sorry."

"I was double-checking the files just now, and your final pitch deck is gone."

Before I could even speak.

My ex-boyfriend, Tyler, stepped in front of her, scowling at me.

"Don't look at her like that."

"Paige is fresh out of college, and this is her first time handling such a massive pitch. It's totally normal for her to be overwhelmed."

"Aren't you usually great at whipping up decks? It wouldn't take you long to throw together another draft."

The rest of the team chimed in to smooth things over.

"Come on, Chloe, don't make a scene. The investors are pulling up right now."

"Yeah, you come from money anyway. The worst that happens to you is a smaller bonus. The rest of us literally need this deal to hit our quotas."

"Paige is on the verge of tears. Do you really have to back her into a corner?"

Everyone was telling me to suck it up and take the hit.

Until Paige plugged in her USB drive, ready to project the final combined slides for our department director.

Suddenly, bold red text flashed across the giant screen.

"The project cloud drive was wiped clean by the administrator yesterday at 11:47 PM."

Dead silence fell over the room for three whole seconds.

Then, utter chaos exploded.

"Wiped clean? What does that mean?!"

"I thought it was just Chloe's pitch deck that went missing!"

"If the entire cloud drive is empty, what are we supposed to pitch to the investors?!"

The door to the director's office slammed open.

Marcus walked out in his sharp suit, his face stormy.

"What's all this shouting about?"

"The investors just stepped into the elevator."

"Are the decks ready or not?"

No one dared to breathe.

Every drop of color drained from Paige's face.

Her fingers clutched the USB drive until her knuckles turned chalk-white.

"Marcus, I... I don't know why this happened."

"Everything was completely fine just a minute ago."

I leaned against the conference table, staying quiet.

Tyler rushed to jump in.

"Marcus, it has to be a system glitch."

"Didn't the company cloud update its servers last night?"

"Paige stayed late organizing files. There's no way she deleted anything on purpose."

Marcus's sharp gaze locked onto me.

"Chloe, didn't you lose your slides too?"

"You were the last person to leave the conference room yesterday."

"Did you mess with the main shared drive?"

I looked up at him.

"Marcus, are you asking me a question, or are you just convicting me?"

Marcus frowned, annoyed.

"This isn't the time to throw a tantrum."

"If you touched it, just admit it."

"Do you have a backup or not?"

Rachel, one of our teammates, immediately stood up clutching her laptop.

"I have some of the financial spreadsheets saved locally, but they're not the latest versions."

"Paige had all the final files."

Panic started ripping through the room.

"Paige, didn't you say you organized everything into the final folder?"

"You literally told everyone in the WhatsApp group yesterday that you'd make sure nothing went wrong!"

"How is the entire main database wiped out now?"

Paige's eyes welled with tears.

She bit her lip and looked at me.

"I really don't know."

"I was just following standard archiving procedures last night."

"Maybe... maybe there was something wrong with the format of Chloe's file."

I let out a cold laugh.

"My file format is so powerful it wiped out the entire team's database?"

Cut off by my words, Paige's tears spilled down her cheeks instantly.

Tyler's face darkened.

"Chloe, that's enough."

"Look at what time it is! Do you really have to be so sarcastic?"

"Paige is already terrified. Why are you trying to pin the blame on her?"

I stared straight at him.

"Tyler, you're getting dangerously good at playing her knight in shining armor."

His eyes flickered.

Then he got even angrier.

"I'm just being reasonable!"

"You're the most capable person here. Can't you just take on a little more responsibility?"

"Paige is just an intern, and her family is struggling. She needs this project to secure her full-time offer."

"What about you?"

"Even if you lose this bonus, you won't starve."