Framed
1050 Words
The video played on a loop in my head.
Me. Parking garage. Last Thursday.
"I'll make sure Ethan Park doesn't get that presentation."
It was my voice. My face. My jacket.
But I didn't remember saying that.
"Pause it," I said, my voice steadier than I felt.
Ethan hit pause. The screen froze on my face mid-sentence, eyes hard, jaw tight. It looked bad. It looked like guilt.
"Explain," he said. Not angry. Worse. Quiet.
I swallowed. "I was in the parking garage Thursday. I met Maya there. She was giving me the updated stakeholder list. But I never said that line. Someone edited it."
Ethan stared at me for a long second.
"You expect me to believe that?"
"No," I said honestly. "I wouldn't believe me either if I was in your shoes."
The lights were still out. Only the laptop screen lit our faces. His eyes were unreadable.
"Check the metadata," he said suddenly, turning the laptop back to him. "Timestamp, file origin, edit history."
I blinked. "You trust me enough to check?"
"I trust evidence," he replied. "Right now, that's all we have."
He worked fast. Faster than IT had all evening. His fingers flew over the keyboard, pulling up the video file properties, running a hash check, searching for frame inconsistencies.
Two minutes later, he swore under his breath.
"It's edited," he said. "Clean edit. Whoever did this knows what they're doing. The audio was spliced from three different calls you made last week. They stitched it together."
Relief hit me so hard I almost sat down on the floor.
"So you believe me?"
"I believe the file is fake," he said. "That doesn't mean I believe you're innocent. Not yet."
Fair.
The emergency lights flickered on, bathing the office in red. Power was back.
Ethan closed the laptop. "We can't use this in the board meeting. It's not proof, and bringing it up without evidence makes us look paranoid."
"What do we do then?" I asked.
"We present," he said. "Like nothing happened. We give them the best presentation they've ever seen. And after we win, we hunt whoever did this."
"And if we lose?"
"Then it doesn't matter who framed us," he said. "We're both out."
He was right.
We spent the next three hours going over the presentation one more time. No more mistakes. No more gaps. If we were going down, it wouldn't be because we were unprepared.
At 5:00 AM, I finally leaned back and closed my eyes for ten minutes.
When I opened them, Ethan was watching me.
"You should go home," he said. "Shower. Change. You look like hell."
"So do you," I replied.
"Board meeting's at 6 PM. Be back here by 4. We'll go down together."
I nodded. "Together."
The word felt different now.
---
4:15 PM.
I walked back into the office in a fresh blazer, hair up, nerves under control. Ethan was already there, suit immaculate, tie loosened just enough to look human.
He looked me over once, nodded once.
"Ready?"
"Ready."
The elevator ride down was silent. Not hostile. Just focused.
The boardroom was packed. CEO Park sat at the head of the table, flanked by six directors. Across from us sat Marcus Hale, CEO of Hale Technologies—our competitor for the Meridian deal. He smiled when he saw us. It wasn't a nice smile.
"Miss Rivera. Mr. Park," CEO Park said. "I hope you have something impressive for us."
Ethan stepped forward first. "We do."
We started.
I handled the financials. Ethan handled the technical specs and stakeholder relations. We moved like we'd been partners for years. No interruptions. No contradictions.
For 45 minutes, the room was silent except for our voices and the click of the presentation remote.
When we finished, there was a beat of silence.
Then CEO Park leaned forward. "Impressive. Hale Technologies had a strong bid. But this… this is better."
Marcus Hale stood up, face red. "You can't be serious! They submitted 24 hours ago! There's no way they rebuilt this from scratch that fast!"
"Unless they didn't lose the original files," I said before I could stop myself.
The room went quiet.
CEO Park's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
Ethan cut in smoothly. "We had a technical issue. It's resolved. The presentation you see now is the final version."
"Convenient," Marcus muttered.
The board voted.
Unanimous.
Meridian Project was ours.
For a second, I couldn't breathe. We'd done it. We'd actually done it.
Then CEO Park spoke again.
"Congratulations, Ms. Rivera, Mr. Park. You're co-leads. Effective immediately.
Now… about that video circulating internally."
My blood ran cold.
"What video?" Ethan asked, voice flat.
CEO Park slid a tablet across the table.
It was paused on my face.
The same frame.
"Someone sent this to three board members this morning," he said. "Care to explain, Ms. Rivera?"
All eyes turned to me.
I opened my mouth.
And the doors burst open.
Security dragged in a man in a maintenance uniform. His face was familiar.
It was the man from the stairwell last night.
He looked straight at me and said:
"She paid me to delete the files. 50,000 dollars."
---
The room exploded.
I stared at him, shock making my limbs numb.
"I never met you before last night!"
"You met me twice," he said, grinning. "Once in the garage. Once here."
Ethan stepped forward, putting himself between me and the board.
"This is a setup. Check his employment records. He's not Park Industries staff."
"It doesn't matter!" Marcus Hale said. "The video is real! She admitted it!"
"No, she didn't," Ethan said, voice cold. "Play the full file. Let's see what was cut."
CEO Park hesitated, then nodded to IT.
The video played again.
But this time, it didn't stop at my line.
It kept going.
"…I'll make sure Ethan Park doesn't get that presentation… because I found out he's being blackmailed. I was trying to stop him."
The room went silent.
The man in the maintenance uniform went pale.
CEO Park looked at me. Then at Ethan. Then back at me.
"Explain. Now."
I looked at Ethan. He was staring at me like he'd never seen me before.
And for the first time, I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.
- Writer
