Chapter 3

"Oh, right," Rupert continued. "And Carter still isn't that familiar with our products. Put together some of your client case studies and give him some material to work with."

My grip tightened around my pen.

That summit was a project I'd been following up on for six months. The organizers had given our company a speaking slot only because of my relationship with them.

And now, he wanted Carter to swoop in and take the credit. Worse still, he expected me to hand over the results of my hard work on a silver platter.

"Mr. Ribeiro, the organizers specifically invited me by name. They know me. They don't know Carter."

Rupert slammed his hand down on the desk.

"Kate, how can you be so immature? The organizers invited the company, not you personally. You work for the company, so your connections belong to the company. Asking you to pave the way for Carter is me thinking highly of you.

"Don't be so ungrateful!"

Breathing heavily, he pointed toward the door.

"Get out! Send the PowerPoint slides to Carter by tonight! If it's not done properly, I'm docking your performance bonus!"

When I walked out of Rupert's office, I found Carter leaning against the doorframe, waiting for me.

"You heard him, right, Kate? Make the slides extra pretty. Don't make me look bad. Also, give me the contact information for Mr. Gonzalez, your largest client. Mr. Ribeiro said I'll be handling his account from now on."

Jermaine Gonzalez was my biggest client, contributing a third of the company's annual revenue. He was also one of the key clients mentioned during my call with the headhunter.

It was clear that they weren't just trying to push me aside. They wanted to bleed me dry before kicking me out the door.

Looking at Carter's greedy expression, I suddenly smiled.

"Sure. I'll make the slides and give you Mr. Gonzalez's number. Let's just hope you can handle it all."

Carter blinked, apparently surprised by how cooperative I was being. "Glad you know what's good for you."

Then he walked away, whistling to himself.

Back at my desk, I opened PowerPoint.

If that was what they wanted, then I'd give them a gift they wouldn't forget.

I made a few subtle changes to some of the key figures in the presentation. They weren't easily detectable unless someone looked really closely.

However, anyone who actually knew their stuff would see right away that the figures were completely fabricated.

As for Jermaine's phone number, I gave Carter a dead number.

Once I was done, I sent the file to him. "Done. Take a look."

Carter replied almost instantly. "Got it. Alright, you're done here. You can go home now."

I glanced at the clock. It was 4:00 pm. For the past ten years, the earliest I had ever clocked out was 7:00 pm.

I used to believe that hard work always paid off. Only today did I realize that, to them, I was just a cog in the machine. And cogs didn't have human rights.

I packed up my things and slung my bag over my shoulder.

The moment I stepped out of the main entrance, I turned back to look at the office building one last time.

I had poured ten years of my life into that place, only to end up like this. But since they were going to be merciless, they couldn't blame me for fighting back.

…

On the day of the summit, I took the day off, but I wasn't just sitting around doing nothing.

I met Jermaine for coffee.

"Kate, I heard your company sent someone else to speak at the summit?" Jermaine asked as he took a sip of his coffee, looking at me with a half-smile.

"Yeah, a new hire from a top university. Mr. Ribeiro thinks very highly of him."

"Ha! Top university, my ass. He couldn't even get a phone call right."

Jermaine set down his coffee cup, looking thoroughly annoyed.

"Someone called me yesterday claiming to be from your company. And the first thing he did was call me 'Mr. Peterson'. I asked who he was, and he said he was your boss. I hung up on him immediately."

I bit back a laugh.

It seemed like Carter must have panicked when he couldn't reach him, so he randomly pulled a contact number from the company directory and ended up mixing up the names.

"I apologize for the trouble, Mr. Gonzalez," I said.