Chapter 3

My phone started buzzing wildly again.

I stared back at Lydia, then suddenly laughed.

"What are you laughing at?" She flinched and let go of my arm like she'd been burned.

"I'm laughing at how pathetic you are," I said, enunciating each word. "You've spent so much time on your knees that you've forgotten how to stand up."

Trembling with rage, she raised her hand to slap me, but I caught her wrist midair and clenched it so hard she let out a sharp cry of pain.

"Let go! You loser! You're nothing without this company!" she shrieked.

On my phone screen, Jason's name kept flashing. The background was a happy photo of his family of three.

I could picture him and the rest of the team on the other end of the line, standing at the print shop and calling me over and over, waiting for the news of a hard-won victory.

Lydia noticed the caller ID, too. "Answer it! Why aren't you answering? Are you afraid of telling your team that you tanked their project out of spite, that you just cost them their jobs, and that their three months of work were for nothing?"

She stepped closer and lowered her voice to continue, "Take a good look at yourself, Elliot. You sold out your entire team for your pathetic little ego.

"How do you think they'll look at you when they find out their manager threw it all away over a pack of paper? Will they pity you or tear you apart?"

Her words twisted like a knife in my gut. She was right that I'd betrayed them.

But in the next second, the rage roared back, hotter than before.

I raised my head and locked eyes with her. "You're right. I'm a bastard."

Under her stunned gaze, I turned and delivered a brutal kick to the mountain of exclusive A4 paper boxes.

The boxes collapsed with a crash. Sheets of crisp white paper spilled out like an avalanche and buried half the administrative office.

Lydia screamed, her heel catching as she stumbled back and fell awkwardly into the pile.

In the middle of the paper storm, I bent down and picked up my phone with the cracked screen. Then, I looked at her pale face and said, "Here's your paper. Tell Mr. Thorne that I'm done serving in this dump."

With that, I returned to the project department, gripping my cracked phone. Lydia's words "you sold out your entire team" echoed in my mind.

The moment I opened the door, every pair of eyes in the room locked on me.

Jason was the first to rush over. "Elliot, the print shop—"

His words died in his throat as his eyes fell on my empty hands and the raw, dangerous expression on my face that they'd never seen before.

"Where's the proposal?" Walter abruptly stood up, his chair scraping harshly against the floor.

I opened my mouth. The words "we're pulling out" were heavy on my tongue, but I couldn't force them out.

Claire timidly asked, "Elliot… did something happen?"

When I looked at them, three months of grueling hard work came crashing over me all at once—the sleepless nights, the endless fights over revisions, and the red, exhausted eyes…

"The administrative office…" My throat tightened as I spat out the next words. "They wouldn't give us paper."

For a moment, there was dead silence before a snort came from the corner of the office, followed by murmurs rising like a tide.

"No paper? What bullshit excuse is that?"

"A 200-million-dollar project held down by a pack of paper? You've got to be kidding me!"

"Elliot, are you messing with us right now?"

Jason gawked at me in disbelief. "Did you pull out just because of a pack of paper? After three months of hard work…"

His words felt like a physical slap on my face.

Walter took a deep breath and clenched his fists so tight his knuckles paled. "Elliot, I know you took some heat, but you're the project manager, so you're responsible for the team. One decision you made threw away months of our work!"

"I—"

I wanted to explain that it wasn't just about paper; it was about dignity and being humiliated. But when I looked at the tired, anxious looks on their faces, the words stuck in my throat.