Chapter 4

I replied:

"Workplace disasters aren't the past. They're a risk log."

Tears gushed from Paige's eyes.

"I'm sorry!"

"I'm just not as smart as you!"

"I know I don't deserve to be on this team!"

Tyler glared at me, exasperated.

"Happy now?"

I snapped my laptop shut.

"Not really."

"Because she's still the admin of the master drive."

With that, I took my bag and walked out.

Just before stepping into the elevator, I received a text from an unsaved number.

"Don't think you can win everything."

No sender name.

I stared at the words for a few seconds.

Took a screenshot.

Saved it.

And forwarded it to my backup email.

At 11:50 PM.

I had just finished showering and was about to sleep when my phone chimed.

It was a security notification from the company cloud:

"Mass file modification detected in your watched folder."

I tapped the notification.

The alert vanished.

Because my access permissions had been revoked.

Sitting on the edge of my bed, I snapped wide awake.

I flipped open my laptop.

Logged into my private cloud backup.

Confirmed Version 9 was intact.

Confirmed the demo videos were intact.

Confirmed the raw financial models were intact.

Finally, I shot a message to Scott, a friend in IT.

"If our project shared drive goes down tomorrow morning, pull the audit logs for me."

Scott replied almost immediately:

"Your team playing office politics again?"

I replied:

"Likely corporate sabotage."

He sent a question mark.

I typed back:

"To ruin my bonus."

The next morning, I arrived early.

8:20 AM.

Paige was the only person in the conference room.

She was bent over, plugging her laptop into the projector.

Hearing the door click open, she whipped around like a startled rabbit.

"Chloe? Why are you here so early?"

I offered a faint smile.

"Couldn't sleep."

She hurriedly yanked a USB drive out of her port.

"I was just testing the projector."

I watched her hands.

"Did it work?"

She shoved the flash drive into her pocket.

"Yeah, all good."

I walked over to my seat.

Opened my laptop.

Sure enough, my pitch deck was completely gone from the company shared drive.

I wasn't surprised in the slightest.

I looked up at her.

"Paige, where's my file?"

She blinked innocently.

"What file?"

"Version 9," I said.

She opened the cloud drive, clicked around dramatically, and put on an act of sheer horror.

"How is it not there?!"

"Chloe, I'm so sorry!"

She stood up, tears on cue.

"I honestly don't know what happened!"

"Did the upload fail yesterday?"

Before I could answer, the door swung open.

Tyler walked in with a few colleagues.

Paige looked at him like he was her savior.

"Tyler..."

He rushed straight over to her.

"What's wrong?"

Marcus was pacing back and forth in the conference room, frantic.

"How much longer until IT gets here?!"

Rachel checked her phone.

"They said five minutes. They're checking the admin logs."

Tyler lowered his voice, comforting Paige softly.

"Don't cry. It's not necessarily your fault."

Paige's shoulders shook with sobs.

"But everyone is blaming me."

"I just wanted to keep the files organized."

I laughed out loud.

"'Organized' all the way into oblivion?"

She snapped her head toward me.

"Chloe, why do you have to be like this?!"

"Did you already know something was going to go wrong?!"

The room went quiet again.

That was a poisonous accusation.

Tyler seized on it instantly.

"Wait. You're right."

"You just said you had a backup."

"Did you anticipate the files would go missing?"

"Chloe, what did you do?"

I stared at him.

"Tyler."

"Your logic is impressive. You should become a defense lawyer for con artists."

"Because the victim took precautions, that proves the victim is guilty?"

His face flushed crimson.