She took a fast, aggressive step toward Evelyn, reaching out with her right hand. “Show me that screen! Show me what you’re looking at right now!”
Evelyn didn’t flinch. She didn’t step back.
With a smooth, elegant flick of her wrist, Evelyn shifted the phone out of Chloe’s reach and tapped the side button. The screen instantly went black, locking the encrypted database away.
Evelyn looked down at Chloe’s outstretched hand, then slowly raised her eyes to meet Chloe’s frantic, panicked stare.
“Middle management,” Evelyn said quietly, her tone dripping with absolute, lethal authority, “does not have the security clearance for what is on this device.”
Chloe’s hand hung in the air for a long, agonizing second before she slowly let it drop to her side. She looked at the blank screen of the phone, then at Evelyn’s unwavering, unbothered expression, and finally, she looked at Arthur.
She expected Arthur to back her up. She expected the Chief Operating Officer to demand the phone, to call the tech department, to validate her suspicions.
Instead, Arthur Vance looked like he wanted to murder her.
All of the fear, all of the panic, all of the terror that Arthur had been directing toward Evelyn suddenly pivoted and locked onto Chloe. The blood rushed back into his face, turning his pale cheeks a dark, mottled red. His hands balled into tight fists at his sides, the veins in his neck bulging against the crisp white collar of his dress shirt.
He realized in that moment that Chloe wasn't just digging her own grave. She had rented an excavator and was actively trying to drag him into the pit with her.
“Chloe,” Arthur said. His voice was no longer trembling. It was a low, dangerous growl, barely contained fury vibrating in his chest.
Chloe swallowed hard. “Sir… she hacked our system. We need to—”
“Shut up,” Arthur hissed, taking a step toward her. “Shut your damn mouth and listen to me very carefully.”
Chloe recoiled, her mouth snapping shut. The few employees who were still whispering in the background went completely silent.
Arthur pointed a shaking finger at the phone in Chloe’s pocket.
“Take out your phone,” Arthur ordered, his voice echoing in the dead quiet of the lobby.
Chloe blinked, completely lost. “My… my phone?”
“Take it out!” Arthur roared, the sudden volume making the receptionist behind the desk physically jump in her chair.
With trembling hands, Chloe reached into the pocket of her pink blazer and pulled out her company-issued smartphone. The screen lit up with her lock screen—a picture of her golden retriever.
“Open your email,” Arthur commanded, his chest heaving. “Open your corporate email right now.”
Chloe’s thumbs moved clumsily over the glass. She unlocked the phone and tapped the blue mail icon.
“Now,” Arthur said, his voice dropping back down to a venomous whisper, “open the company-wide digital memo that was sent out by the Board of Directors at 6:00 AM this morning. The one marked Urgent.”
Chloe’s breath hitched. She had seen the notification that morning while she was in a taxi, but she had swiped it away. She never read the board’s morning memos; they were usually just dry financial updates about quarter-over-quarter growth or minor executive shuffling that didn't affect her marketing department.
Her finger hovered over the screen. She scrolled down past three emails from her team, finding the bolded subject line from the Board of Directors.
URGENT: Finalization of Corporate Acquisition and Leadership Restructuring.
Chloe tapped the email.
The message opened.
“Look at it,” Arthur Vance said, his voice thick with absolute disgust. “Look at the name, Chloe. Look at the face.”
Chloe’s finger hovered over the glowing screen of her phone, trembling violently.
The morning memo, sent from the Board of Directors with the highest priority flag, sat open in front of her. At the very top, beneath the bolded headline announcing the immediate finalization of the corporate buyout, was a professionally shot portrait photograph.
It was the same woman standing two feet away from her.
The same dark skin. The same calm, impenetrable eyes. The same quiet, lethal confidence.
Beneath the photograph, the text was brief and devastating:
We are pleased to announce the successful acquisition of the North American Consumer Division by Davis Holdings. Effective immediately, Ms. Evelyn Davis will assume the role of Chief Executive Officer and majority shareholder. Please welcome our new owner.
Chloe’s lungs seized up. The air in the grand marble lobby suddenly felt thick, heavy, and impossible to breathe. The ambient noise of the building—the soft hum of the elevators, the distant ringing of phones, the quiet murmuring of the gathered employees—all faded into a dull, rushing roar in her ears.
She looked up from the screen.
Evelyn Davis, the new CEO and owner of the entire company, was still standing perfectly still in her cream-white suit, her expensive handbag clasped loosely in front of her. She was watching Chloe with the same cool, unbothered expression she had maintained since the moment the marketing manager had marched up to her.
“No…” Chloe whispered, the word slipping out as a breathy, panicked denial.
She looked at Arthur Vance, the Chief Operating Officer, desperately hoping for him to say it was a mistake, a prank, some bizarre misunderstanding. But Arthur was staring at her with a look of pure, unadulterated disgust. The kind of look a man gives to a rabid dog that has just bitten him. He had taken two distinct steps away from her, physically distancing himself from the blast radius of her impending career destruction.
“Mr. Vance…” Chloe choked out, her voice barely audible. “I… I didn’t… I mean, she didn’t say…”
“Ms. Miller,” Arthur said, his voice cold and hard as granite. He didn’t shout this time. The anger had condensed into something much sharper. “You are addressing the Chief Executive Officer of this company. I suggest you choose your next words with extreme care, though I doubt it will make any difference.”
Chloe’s mind scrambled, desperately searching for a lifeline in a sea of fire.
She snapped her head back toward Evelyn. The sheer, overwhelming arrogance that had fueled her just three minutes ago vanished, instantly replaced by a pathetic, groveling desperation. Her face, previously flushed red with self-righteous anger, was now completely ashen.