Serena's termination was handled quietly, without the public spectacle Elena had half-expected — a negotiated exit, cooperation in exchange for the company not pursuing criminal charges, a nondisclosure agreement thick enough to ensure the full story never reached the industry gossip that thrived on exactly this kind of scandal. It felt, in some ways, anticlimactic after everything that had led to it. Elena found she didn't mind. There had been enough drama for one month.
Mark's situation proved considerably messier. Confronted with Serena's testimony implicating him as the source of the original compromised credentials, he'd alternated between denial and tearful justification, insisting he'd never intended for things to go as far as they had. Alexander, for his part, had been unable to f
