Chapter 4

Over the next few weeks, Rachel and Jackson did everything they could to make my life a living hell.

I didn't know what lies they had fed the staff, but developers who used to treat me with absolute reverence now walked past me without making eye contact. Some even had the nerve to bark orders at me.

The cold reality of corporate loyalty was on full display.

Within days, my desk was moved to the furthest corner of the office, right next to the breakroom trash can that constantly reeked of spoiled food.

Rachel called it "giving me a quiet space to focus on the handover."

Chloe brought over a stack of physical project archives from years ago, demanding that I manually digitize them and write detailed system documentations for each.

I took one look at the files. Most of them were dead projects from defunct clients. It was purely busywork designed to break my spirit.

They tried every petty trick in the book to make me snap and walk out.

But to their frustration, I complied with everything.

I showed up exactly at 9:00 AM, did the training sessions, and wrote the documentation. Whenever I ran into Rachel, she would look at me, searching for any sign of misery or defeat.

But she found nothing. My face was a mask of absolute, terrifying calmness.

Since she didn't get the satisfaction of seeing me break, Rachel decided to escalate.

One afternoon, she called me into her office and threw a stack of financial ledger sheets on her desk.

"Upload these entries into our active database," she commanded.

I picked up the sheets, scanned them quickly, and immediately frowned.

"These are fake transaction records," I said, putting the papers down. "You're inflating your revenue to deceive your venture capital investors. This is wire fraud. I'm not doing it."

It wasn't enough that she wanted me to take the fall for a server crash—now she wanted me to participate in federal crimes.

Rachel’s face darkened instantly.

"You are still an employee of this company, Ethan, and I am your boss! You do what I tell you to do, or you can start packing your bags for court!"

I met her gaze, unflinching. "Being a boss doesn't give you the legal authority to order an employee to commit a felony."

Jackson leaped up from the couch. "Don't talk to us about the law! You're lucky we're even letting you work! Do the input, or we'll find a dozen other ways to ruin your life!"

I looked at Jackson, and a beautiful, wicked idea formed in my mind.

I turned to him, putting on a look of mock confusion.

"You know, Jackson... this kind of database entry is incredibly simple. Anyone with a month of basic coding experience could do it."

"If it's so easy, why isn't Rachel letting you handle it? Unless..."

"You don't actually know how to run a simple SQL script, do you?"

"Are you really as incompetent as everyone in the office says you are?"

The bait was set, and Jackson took it hook, line, and sinker.

"Who the hell are you calling incompetent?!" he roared, his face turning red.

I sighed dramatically, pulling a black flash drive from my pocket and tossing it onto the desk.

"Fine. This USB contains a script I wrote. It will batch-process all the data automatically. Do whatever you want with it, just keep my name out of it."

Rachel and Jackson’s eyes lit up as they saw the drive. Smug, greedy smiles spread across their faces.

Without another word, I turned and left.

I knew exactly how greedy and stupid they were. Give them a tool to commit fraud easily, and they would abuse it until they destroyed themselves.

Sure enough, three days later, Nick, a junior developer who was still friendly with me, approached my desk, looking pale and panicky.

"Ethan... they're going crazy," he whispered, glancing around nervously. "They didn't just modify the investor reports. They forged accounting books, inflated our costs by twenty million, and they're routing international funds to wash the cash."

I smiled gently. "Don't worry about it, Nick. Just keep your head down."