Elena sat in her dimly lit apartment, the soft hum of her laptop the only sound in the room. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, eyes scanning lines of encrypted code and backdoor pathways she'd memorized from her past life.
Tonight wasn't about revenge. It was about truth.
She had buried too many questions, how Hale Corp had collapsed so quickly, who had sabotaged her projects, and why her father had turned against her so easily.
She broke through the final firewall.
"Come on," she whispered, pulling up archived emails from five years ago. Deleted, hidden, buried under layers of security. But not gone.
A folder appeared: PROJECT PHOENIX – Internal Correspondence
Inside were dozens of emails. Elena opened one. It was a confidential report, misattributing her marketing proposal to Ava Reynolds.
Another showed Ava leaking it to a competitor, disguising it as "internal optimization."
Elena's breath caught. She used me. Stole from me.
She kept digging. More emails. Ava's name popped up again. And again.
Then one message froze her cold.
It wasn't from Ava.
It was from Julian Park, Damian Blackwood's personal assistant.
Subject line: Re: Hale Corp VulnerabilitiesMessage: Let's keep our involvement discreet. D doesn't need to know.
Her hands trembled. Julian? Working with Ava?
Was Damian in on it?