Chapter10
1214 Words
Eva woke to the sharp “ping” of her phone, the sound cutting through her half-formed dreams. She blinked hard, her lashes sticking together from sleep, and reached for the device on her nightstand. A notification from her banking app lit up the screen.
Her heart did a small, silly leap.
Finally,
She sat up straighter, the remnants of sleep sliding away. Her lips curved into an irrepressible smile as the numbers in her account confirmed it — the deposit had landed.
She flung the duvet aside and sprang from bed, twirling in the middle of her tiny bedroom like a child on Christmas morning. Her socks slid against the worn wooden floor, making her stumble, but she didn’t care.
“Ah… my one true love,” she murmured to her phone, pressing it to her chest. “My bank account.”
The dingy little apartment suddenly felt like a palace. She moved through her morning with a lightness that had been missing for weeks: humming in the shower, actually bothering to use her favourite vanilla-scented lotion, pulling on a pressed blouse instead of her usual ‘good enough’ shirt. Even her reflection in the cracked bathroom mirror seemed to smile back.
By the time she was on the bus, her earphones in and her favourite playlist drowning out the city’s chaos, she was convinced this day would be a good one. The clouds above looked softer. The traffic didn’t seem as soul-crushing. The barista at the corner café even remembered her order without her asking.
What could possibly go wrong?
She should have known better.
---
The moment she stepped into Hartford Corporation’s gleaming lobby, something felt off. The usual hum of chatter was there, but different — quieter, heavier. As she made her way toward the elevators, she noticed people turning their heads a fraction too long, their conversations tapering off mid-sentence.
When she reached her floor, the atmosphere sharpened. A cluster of employees near the break room seemed to be whispering behind half-raised coffee cups. Sophie, who normally went out of her way to act as if Eva didn’t exist, was at her desk, shuffling papers with unnecessary precision. The air felt charged, the way it does before a storm.
“Morning,” Eva said, forcing brightness into her tone.
No one replied.
She was halfway to her desk when a tall security guard appeared, blocking her path. His uniform was perfectly pressed, his expression unreadable.
“Miss Eva,” he said evenly. “Mr. Ethan would like to see you. Now.”
A small knot formed in her stomach. “Is something wrong?”
He didn’t answer. He simply gestured toward the elevator.
---
Inside Ethan’s office, the atmosphere was even heavier. Lucas stood by the window, arms folded tight across his chest, his jaw set in a way that made him look carved from stone. Ethan sat behind his desk, his laptop open, the cool light from the screen illuminating the sharp planes of his face.
“Do you want to explain,” Ethan began without preamble, “why your workstation was used to create a backdoor into our private servers?”
Eva’s head jerked up. “My workstation? That’s impossible.”
Lucas’s eyes flicked to Ethan. “Ethan—”
Ethan’s tone cut clean through the room. “The same backdoor used to access a classified project file hours before it was stolen. It traces directly to your system login.”
She shook her head, her pulse beginning to pound in her ears. “No… no, I would never do that. There must be some mistake, or someone’s set me up.”
Ethan’s gaze didn’t waver. “Do you have any idea what this costs us? The risks?”
The glass walls of his office made her acutely aware of the people outside. Faces angled toward them, pretending to work but failing miserably. She caught the faint shimmer of a phone camera being raised, the quick flash of a message sent. The humiliation crept hot into her cheeks.
“I swear I didn’t—”
“Effective immediately, you’re suspended,” Ethan said, his voice measured, almost too calm. “Pack your things. Security will escort you out.”
The words slammed into her chest. Her knees felt weak, the floor tilting slightly beneath her. Lucas shifted as if to intervene, but Ethan’s expression stopped him cold.
“That will be all, Miss Eva.”
---
The walk back to her desk felt like being paraded in slow motion through a firing squad. Conversations paused as she passed. Some faces held pity. Others, curiosity. And some — the worst — held quiet amusement.
She packed her bag in silence, hands shaking, aware of every sideways glance, every whispered word she couldn’t quite catch.
By the time she stepped into the elevator, she had forced her chin up. The doors closed, and the tears came, hot and fast.
---
The bus ride home blurred into a haze of noise and motion she barely registered. When she finally reached her apartment building, her eyes were swollen, her breath still uneven. She stopped short when she saw her mother sitting just outside her door, her hands folded neatly in her lap.
“Mum?”
Elena stood instantly, her sharp eyes scanning her daughter’s face. “What’s happened?”
Eva didn’t answer. She stepped straight into her mother’s arms, the dam breaking. “They think I stole from the company. They’ve suspended me. Everyone was looking at me like I was guilty.”
Elena held her close, her hand smoothing down Eva’s hair. “You’re home now. Breathe.”
“I didn’t do it,” Eva whispered, her voice shaking. “But no one believes me. Every time something good happens, something worse follows. Maybe I’m just… unlucky.”
“You are not unlucky,” Elena said firmly, pulling back just enough to look into her eyes. “You are strong. Strong people attract storms — but storms always pass.”
Eva’s lips trembled. “And if this one doesn’t?”
“Then we’ll stand in it together,” Elena said, brushing away her tears. “And when it’s over, we’ll still be here. Both of us.”
---
Later that night, Ethan sat in his penthouse study, surrounded by the quiet hum of the city beyond the glass. He told himself he was only reviewing Eva’s unfinished reports for loose ends, but as he flipped through the pages, his eyes snagged on a small margin note.
The handwriting — bold curves, slightly tilted — made his breath catch. He hadn’t seen it in years, yet it was etched in his memory.
He unlocked a drawer and pulled out a small bundle of coloured envelopes, the edges softened with age. Letters from his college years. Unsigned. Anonymous. But the same slant. The same loops. The same way the i’s were dotted.
His grip tightened. “It’s her…” he murmured, though the empty room offered no answer.
---
Across the city, Clara’s phone buzzed on the nightstand. She glanced at the unknown number before picking it up.
A man’s
voice came through, low and steady. “We need to talk. about our son.”
Clara’s hand went cold around the phone.
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