Thirty Days to Goodbye

Chapter 3 Hollow Promises

Alerts began hitting my phone before the alarm went off. Genesis was losing data, and the monitoring dashboard showed one critical error after another.

The European cluster had stopped syncing. Two recovery jobs were colliding, and the error count doubled each time the monitor refreshed.

Someone had altered a core architectural module during the night. The commit carried Chloe's credentials.

My laptop was open before I caught myself. For five years, every alarm had sent me straight into the code. This time, I closed it.

My fingers stayed on the lid for a few seconds. I knew where to look and how quickly I could stop the damage. That was exactly why Alexander had never built a proper backup plan.

The internal line rang. Alexander had bypassed the switchboard.

“There’s a Code Red on the main server. Chloe may have deleted a root file. Fix it. Now.”

He had called me before the CTO or the emergency response team. Some habits survived longer than affection.

Whenever a system failed, I had taken the call, calmed him down, fixed it, and removed my name from the report before morning.

“That’s a Tier 1 emergency,” I said. “Follow protocol and route it through the CTO’s office.”

Silence.

“What are you talking about? Fix it, Evelyn. I don’t care what it takes.”

“My role is tech support. My access is limited to standard queries. I’ll be in at nine.”

I ended the call.

Ten minutes after I reached my desk, Alexander appeared beside it. He leaned close enough to block the overhead light.

His tie sat crooked, and he had not shaved. The dashboard alarm was still sounding from a nearby workstation.

“I don’t know what game you’re playing, but it ends now.”

I kept reading my handover checklist.

“Look, I know you’re upset about the launch. Fine. We still have to be professionals.” He lowered his voice. “Once the project goes public, I’ll take you to Paris.”

He waited for me to look up.

“The two of us,” he added. “We’ll stay at the George V and get that suite you wanted. A proper vacation. Consider it compensation. For now, humor Chloe and fix her mistake quietly.”

Paris had been our first-anniversary trip. A board meeting canceled it. Every year after that, he moved the promise to some safer date in the future.

I had once kept a folder of hotel options and museum tickets. By our fourth anniversary, the folder held only cancellation emails.

“No.”

He stared at me. “No?”

“It’s outside tech support's scope. I’ll send Chloe the standard recovery documents.”

I turned back to the monitor. He stood there for nearly a minute before walking away.

I completed my handover checklist and sent Chloe every document company policy required. The architecture map, recovery manual, and escalation contacts all went into her inbox.

I left out my private recovery scripts and the custom patch that could have repaired her mistake in under an hour. Those had never belonged to the company.

That night, I made dinner and opened our shared calendar. Alexander's meetings filled the screen. My canceled plans sat between them.

One blue entry covered a week two months away: *Paris Anniversary Trip.*

I selected it and clicked *Delete Event*.

Three days remained on my countdown. I closed the calendar and confirmed the one-way ticket in my inbox.