Chapter 10 — The First Fracture
983 Words
By the time we reached the office, the sun had already dipped low behind the glass towers downtown.
Marcus didn’t say anything while we rode the elevator up.
He knew that look on my face.
The one that meant someone had just made a mistake they didn’t understand yet.
The office lights came on automatically when we stepped inside.
My phone buzzed again.
News alert.
“Market reacts to Harlow scandal: Investors question leadership stability.”
Marcus glanced at the notification and snorted. “They work fast.”
“Vivian works fast,” I corrected.
I slipped my coat off and sat at the long conference table.
For a moment I just looked at the screen in front of me.
Three different financial feeds.
Two industry chats.
One legal contact.
This wasn’t just reputation damage anymore.
This was positioning.
Vivian wasn’t trying to win an argument.
She was trying to rewrite the board’s memory of me.
Marcus opened his laptop. “So what's the move?”
“Trace the leak,” I said.
“We’re already doing that.”
“No,” I said quietly. “Trace everything.”
He looked up.
“All server access logs. Vendor contacts. Investor calls. Even personal devices if we can get them.”
Marcus leaned back slowly.
“That’s a war-level request.”
“Yes.”
He studied me for a second.
“Then we’ll need leverage.”
“Already have it.”
I slid a document across the table.
Marcus looked down.
His eyebrows lifted.
“Well,” he said after a moment. “That’s interesting.”
Interesting was one way to put it.
The document was a transfer record.
Not large enough to trigger automatic compliance alarms.
But big enough to matter.
“Vivian?” he asked.
“Indirectly.”
Marcus let out a quiet whistle. “If this connects…”
“It will.”
“But not yet,” he said.
“Not yet,” I agreed.
Timing mattered.
Right now Vivian thought she controlled the narrative.
Right now the board thought they were managing a scandal.
Let them.
Because when people get comfortable, they stop watching the door.
Marcus closed the file and rubbed his chin.
“You know what's funny?” he said.
“What?”
“If Vivian really believes you sabotaged the supply chain…”
“She’s smarter than that.”
“Exactly.”
Marcus tapped the table once.
“So she must know something we don’t.”
I leaned back in my chair.
Or she thinks she does.
There was another possibility too.
Someone else was moving pieces.
Someone neither of us had accounted for yet.
That thought lingered longer than I liked.
My phone buzzed again.
This time it was Ethan.
Marcus glanced at the screen.
“You going to answer?”
I watched the name for a second.
Then I did.
“What do you want?” I asked.
Direct.
No greeting.
No politeness.
Ethan exhaled like he'd expected that.
“Where are you?”
“Working.”
“You left the building fast.”
“I had things to do.”
A pause.
Then, quieter:
“Are you okay?”
The question almost caught me off guard.
Almost.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You don’t sound fine.”
“That’s because you’re not used to hearing me like this.”
Silence stretched on the line.
Then Ethan spoke again.
“Vivian is filing the inquiry tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“How?” he asked.
“Because she told me.”
That clearly wasn’t the answer he expected.
“What did she say?” he asked slowly.
“That you’d choose her.”
Ethan’s voice hardened.
“She doesn’t get to decide that.”
I stared out the window at the city lights flickering on.
“No,” I said quietly.
“You did.”
The words landed harder than I intended.
He didn’t respond immediately.
When he did, his voice was rougher.
“You think I don't know that?”
I didn’t answer.
Because the truth was, I didn’t know what Ethan knew anymore.
Or what he was pretending not to know.
“You need to be careful,” he said.
“That's funny,” I replied. “I was about to say the same thing.”
“For who?”
“For you.”
Marcus looked up at that.
Ethan went quiet.
“Vivian isn’t just ambitious,” I continued. “She’s desperate.”
“And desperate people make mistakes.”
Ethan’s tone shifted.
“You’re planning something.”
“I’m surviving.”
“That’s not the same thing with you,” he said.
Maybe not.
But I didn’t give him the satisfaction of answering.
“Goodnight, Ethan,” I said.
And hung up.
Marcus stared at me for a moment.
“That felt… loaded.”
“It was.”
He tapped the transfer document again.
“So when do we pull the trigger?”
I stood and walked to the window.
The city below was alive.
Millions of people moving through their own problems.
Their own betrayals.
Their own wars.
“Not yet,” I said.
Marcus groaned softly. “You’re killing me.”
“Patience.”
I rested a hand on the glass.
The cool surface grounded me.
Because the truth was—
Vivian thought she was setting a trap.
Ethan thought he was holding the line.
But neither of them understood something important.
I wasn't playing defense anymore.
And when the first real c***k appeared—
The entire structure they built against me would start to collapse.
Marcus closed his laptop.
“So tomorrow,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow we start breaking things.”
I looked back at him.
And for the first time that night—
I smiled.
“Yes.
Tomorrow we do.”
- Writer
