Chapter 2

"I thought I could just suck it up and handle it."

My voice was incredibly raspy. Saying a single sentence took all my energy.

Ethan didn't say a word. He just brought a cup of warm water to my lips with a straw. He had somehow gotten the temperature perfect, though I hadn't seen him do it.

There was a soft knock on the door.

Chloe Watson poked her head in, clutching a plastic bag. "Jane... I, um, came to see how you're doing."

As Ethan stood up, Chloe took a frightened step back.

"Come in," Ethan said calmly. But his deep voice made Chloe’s shoulders tense up.

She walked over to the bed and sat down. Her eyes were red, and her lips trembled before she could squeeze out a sentence.

"Victoria called an emergency meeting at eight this morning."

"What did she say?" Ethan asked, standing by the window, his back to us.

Chloe’s fingers gripped the plastic bag so hard they turned white. "She made everyone sign a document. It was a 'Team-Building Liability Waiver.' It said... all participants joined voluntarily, no safety incidents occurred, and any physical discomfort caused by personal health conditions has nothing to do with the organizers."

Her voice was shaking.

"Did you sign it?" I asked.

Chloe lowered her head. "Victoria said anyone who didn't sign would have their year-end performance review 'remembered' by her. I... I'm so sorry, Jane. I signed it."

I closed my eyes.

"Did everyone sign?" Ethan’s voice drifted from the window, completely flat.

"Lucy Carter refused at first," Chloe said, rubbing her hands together nervously. "But Victoria dragged her into her private office for twenty minutes. When Lucy came out, her eyes were swollen from crying. She took the pen and signed."

Ethan turned around. "What format was the waiver?"

"It was a printed template with a blank space at the bottom for handwritten signatures. But..."

Chloe pulled out her phone, scrolled for a while, and showed me a photo.

"But on the very last page... Jane, your name is on it too."

I zoomed in on the photo.

In the last row of the signature block, "Jane Miller" was written in cursive. The handwriting looked incredibly similar to mine, but the curve of the "J" was slightly too flat.

I had never signed that paper. Yesterday, when I was wheeled into the ambulance, I couldn't even stand.

"How did she get my signature?"

Chloe hesitated. "Remember that feedback form Victoria made us fill out by hand last week? It had our physical signatures at the bottom. Today... I went to the mailroom to check the shredder bin. I found your feedback form in there. The signature block had been neatly sliced off with an X-Acto knife."

The room fell dead silent.

It was so quiet we could hear the rolling wheels of a cart in the hallway.

Ethan walked over, took the photo from my phone, and forwarded it to his own.

"Do not tell anyone you came here today," Ethan told Chloe.

Chloe nodded frantically and practically bolted out of the room.

Not even five minutes after the door closed, my phone rang.

The caller ID showed: Victoria Evans.

I looked at Ethan. He reached over and pressed the speakerphone button.

"Jane, sweetie, it's Victoria," her voice came through, dripping with fake sweet concern. "How are you feeling? Which hospital are you in? I want to come drop off some gifts."

"No need, Victoria."

"Oh, don't be like that, sweetie. But I have to be honest with you—you really should have informed HR about your pregnancy. That was very irresponsible of you. If you had just told me, I would have had you sit out and rest, right?"

She paused, waiting for me to agree.

I kept quiet.

"I mean, it was just a bucket of water. You're young and healthy, who would have thought this would happen? But don't worry, I've handled everything on the corporate side. Everyone at the office is super worried about you."

My nails began to dig into my palms again.

Ethan reached over, gently prying my fingers open, one by one.

"My advice to you, Jane, is to just focus on resting. Don't worry about work. I'll handle any issues with upper management. After all, I'm your supervisor. It's better if I speak to the executives on your behalf, okay?"

"Victoria," I said coldly, "on that liability waiver... who signed my name?"

The line went dead silent for three seconds.

"Waiver? What waiver? Oh, Jane, don't listen to office gossip. Just focus on recovering. Anyway, I have a meeting. Talk soon!"

*Click.*

Ethan turned off the speakerphone and stared at the call log for a moment.

"Is there anything else?"

He wasn't asking me. He was asking himself.

He opened his phone, pulled up a file, and handed it to me.

It was a screenshot that Chloe had secretly slipped into the bottom of her plastic bag on a USB drive.

It was a message Victoria had sent to their private, managers-only WhatsApp group, sent exactly eight minutes after her post in the main company group:

[Do not visit Jane in the hospital. Especially not alone. What if she records you and tries to sue? Just let her stew on her own for a few days, and she’ll drop it.]

The smiling emoji under her first post and the cold period at the end of this message came from the exact same person.

Ethan put the USB drive into his shirt pocket.

"You've been dealing with this monster, and you didn't say a single word to me?"

***