Chapter 5

The drive to the city center was fast. The Obsidian Industries building was a towering black skyscraper that dominated the skyline. We rode the private elevator up to the top floor. Dominic led me into a massive, state-of-the-art boardroom. The room was filled with expensive computer monitors and digital whiteboards.

Four people were sitting around the long conference table. They were the elite tech team of the Obsidian Pack. When Dominic walked into the room, they all stood up immediately.

"Sit down," Dominic commanded and took his seat at the head of the table. He pointed a hand at me. "This is Sienna. She is the new Lead Software Architect for this company. She will be directing the Vanguard Destruction Project."

The team stared at me in complete shock. A tall man with glasses frowned deeply. A woman with short red hair looked me up and down with obvious skepticism.

"Excuse me, Alpha," the tall man said carefully. "But is this not Julian Vanguard's ex-wife? She is a wolfless omega. We all know Julian is the genius who coded the Vanguard system. Why is she leading our most important project?"

Dominic’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits, but before he could scold them, he looked at me. He did not fight my battle for me. He wanted me to claim my own space.

"Julian Vanguard is a fraud," Dominic told the room smoothly. "Sienna wrote every single line of that code. Go ahead, Sienna. Explain the system to them."

I walked to the front of the room. I picked up a digital stylus to write on the massive interactive whiteboard.

But when I raised my hand, it started to shake.

The heavy gaze of the four elite engineers pressed down on me. I had spent five years hiding in a freezing garage while Julian stood on stages and gave brilliant presentations. I was the secret ghost behind his success. I had never actually stood in a corporate boardroom and defended my own work.

I froze. The stylus hovered an inch above the digital board. I could not make my hand move.

The woman with the red hair leaned over and whispered loudly to the tall man. "Is she even capable of doing this? She looks like she is going to faint."

Someone at the end of the table secretly rolled their eyes.

I squeezed my eyes shut. A terrible wave of panic washed over my chest. But in the darkness behind my eyelids, I did not see the angry engineers. I saw the cold ultrasound monitor. I saw the harsh hospital lights. I saw the divorce papers hitting my wet coat in the middle of a lavish baby shower. I remembered the freezing rain soaking my skin while Julian kissed Scarlett.

I opened my eyes. I gripped the digital stylus tightly until my knuckles turned white. My hand completely stopped shaking.

I am done letting him speak for me, I decided firmly.

I pressed the pen to the board.

"Julian took the credit for the Vanguard system, but I built the entire architecture from the ground up," I told the room. My voice was quiet at first, but it grew stronger with every word. "I know exactly how the code breathes, how it processes data, and more importantly, I know exactly where it is weak."

I began drawing rapid diagrams on the digital board. I wrote out long strings of complex code. I mapped out the exact server pathways Julian was currently using.

"Wait," Carter, the tall man with glasses, interrupted me abruptly. His tone was sharp and challenging. "If you run the data through that central node, the server load will bottleneck. The latency would be completely unacceptable for a global launch."

"It would bottleneck if I used a standard routing protocol," I answered calmly, without missing a single beat. "But I did not. I wrote a dynamic compression algorithm that splits the data packets before they reach the central node." I wrote the specific formula on the board. "The latency is zero."

Carter blinked in surprise and leaned forward in his leather chair.

"That is impossible with their current encryption," the red-haired woman challenged me next. She crossed her arms defensively. "The firewall would block a split packet. You cannot bypass the security layer."

"You can, if you write the firewall yourself," I replied smoothly. I turned back to the board and wrote a complicated mathematical equation. I broke down the exact security layers I had spent three years designing. "The firewall does not block the packets because the algorithm masks them as internal system updates. It bypasses the security layer entirely."

The room went completely dead silent.

The red-haired woman dropped her pen onto the table. She stared at the brilliant math on the whiteboard with her mouth slightly open. The engineer who rolled his eyes earlier was leaning so far forward he was almost out of his seat.

Carter took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He looked at the whiteboard, and then he looked directly at me.

"Hmmm..maybe I judged you too early," Carter said quietly. The heavy skepticism was gone from his voice.

I let out a small breath. I looked down the long table at Dominic. He was leaning back in his chair, watching me with a dark and incredibly proud smirk. The magnetic chemistry between us crackled in the cold air of the boardroom. I had pushed through my fear, and I had won the room.

Suddenly, the large television screen mounted on the far wall flared to life. The morning news channel was broadcasting a live press conference.

I turned my head and stared at the screen.

Julian stood behind a wooden podium surrounded by flashing cameras and eager reporters. Scarlett stood right next to him, wearing a tight designer dress and holding her pregnant stomach proudly. The banner behind them featured the Vanguard Corporation logo.

"Mr. Vanguard," a reporter shouted over the noise. "Can you confirm the rumors about your sudden divorce from your wife Sienna?"

Julian leaned close to the microphone. He arranged his handsome face into a mask of fake sorrow.

"It is with a very heavy heart that I confirm the rumors," Julian lied smoothly to the cameras. "Sienna was a very troubled woman. She suffered from severe mental instability. I tried to help her for five years, but last night, I discovered she was attempting to steal millions of dollars from the Vanguard corporate accounts."

The reporters gasped loudly and started writing furiously on their notepads.

"I had to freeze the accounts and terminate her contract immediately to protect our investors," Julian continued his wicked lie. "It breaks my heart, but the Vanguard Pack must move forward. I am focusing all my energy on my beautiful fated mate, Scarlett, and the upcoming launch of our revolutionary software."

I stood frozen at the front of the boardroom. The digital stylus slipped from my fingers and clattered onto the floor.

The triumph I felt just a minute ago vanished completely. I looked at the television screen in absolute devastation. He was not just stealing my company. He was actively destroying my entire reputation on national television.

The tech team looked at me with skepticism and sympathy.

Dominic stood up from his chair. He walked slowly to the front of the room and stood right next to me. He radiated raw power, but he did not rush me. He looked at the television screen, and then he looked down at my devastated face.

"What do you want to do?" Dominic asked quietly.

I was completely silent.

The news anchor continued to talk about Julian's massive success. The ticker at the bottom of the screen praised Vanguard Corporation. The entire world believed his terrible lies. Five seconds passed. Then ten seconds passed. The silence in the boardroom was incredibly heavy.

I stared at Julian's smiling face on the television. I looked at Scarlett rubbing her stomach.

Then, I remembered something.

My tears dried up instantly. My sadness transformed into something sharp and cold. My eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.

"He forgot something," I said. My voice was completely steady.

Dominic tilted his head slightly. "What did he forget?"

"He forgot that I built the house he is currently living in," I answered. I turned to the tall engineer. "Carter, bring me a secure laptop right now."

Carter scrambled out of his chair and handed me a thick black laptop. I opened the screen and placed it on the boardroom table. My fingers hovered over the keyboard.

"Julian deleted your access codes," Maya, the red-haired engineer, warned me softly. "You cannot log into the Vanguard mainframe anymore."

"He deleted the front door," I said, and a vicious smile touched my lips. I typed a complex string of hidden numbers into the black terminal window. "But I built a hidden back door in the basement of the code, and I never gave him the keys."