Chapter 27- The Anonymous Threat

The office was unusually silent the next morning, as if the entire building was holding its breath. I stepped in, clutching my bag tightly, the weight of the flash drive inside a constant reminder of what I was getting into. Kevin's confession had shifted something inside me. I was no longer simply trying to reclaim my career—I was trying to uncover a dangerous lie.

I powered on my computer and checked my emails. Nothing new from Kevin. I opened a fresh notebook and began scribbling names, dates, and fragments of the evidence I'd found. AtlasPhoenix. RedSparrow. VisionTech sabotage. Internal override. Hidden development. Third-party investors.

Each piece was a thread, and I was finally starting to see the web.

Then, without warning, my screen flickered.

A message popped up. No sender. No subject.

"Stop digging, Lily. You don't know who you're dealing with."

My heart stopped.

I read it again, then a third time. The message vanished.

I stared blankly at the screen. No trace. No draft. No pop-up log. Someone was inside the system, watching me in real time.

I grabbed my phone and messaged Nany: **"We need to meet. URGENT."

But the day wasn’t going to give me peace. By mid-morning, Samantha was back to her tricks.

First, she switched my seat reservation in the conference hall so I arrived to find my name missing from the guest list. Then, she conveniently 'forgot' to forward the revised schedule William had sent out for the weekly department reviews.

"Didn’t you get the memo?" she asked sweetly, when I showed up late.

"No, Samantha. I didn’t. Because you didn’t send it."

Her smirk widened. "You should check your spam folder. Rookie mistake."

If she thought she could break me with this nonsense, she had no idea who she was dealing with.

But it wasn't just Samantha now. People had started whispering again. I felt it in the corridor glances, the quiet stops in conversation when I passed by. The rumors were spreading.

And the worst part?

William was silent.

He hadn't said more than a few words to me since our tense meeting days ago. I couldn't tell if he was testing me or deliberately pushing me away.

At lunch, I met Nany behind the company cafeteria in a secluded garden.

"They messaged me directly," I whispered, showing her the screenshot I'd managed to capture with my phone. "Someone’s watching my computer."

Nany frowned. "Then stop using it. Use your own devices. Everything inside the office is compromised."

"I can’t work without my system. And besides, William will notice."

"Good. Maybe he should. He dragged you into this mess."

I hesitated. "He may be cold and distant, but I’m starting to think he didn’t know everything."

Nany raised an eyebrow. "You’re still defending him?"

"No. I’m just trying to understand the enemy."

She didn’t push further. Instead, she handed me a burner phone. "Start using this to message me. Don’t call. And back up everything from Kevin’s drive on a separate encrypted folder. I’ll get my friend from cybersecurity to help."

By the time I returned to my desk, the entire office was buzzing. A new circular had been released: mandatory employee evaluations, starting tomorrow. Every department. Every role.

And guess who was in charge of coordinating the paperwork?

"Congratulations, Secretary Lily," Samantha cooed as she dropped a thick stack of forms on my desk. "Looks like you have your hands full."

It took everything in me not to throw them at her.

As I sorted through the files, I found mine at the bottom. A yellow post-it stuck to the corner read:

"We’ll see how long you last this time."

That was it.

Enough was enough.

I walked straight to William’s office. His secretary tried to block me, but he waved me in without lifting his head from the paperwork.

"You asked for evaluations? Now Samantha’s coordinating? Do you have any idea what she’s doing?"

He didn’t react.

"Sir! She’s sabotaging me. Again. And if you won’t stop her, then maybe I should start looking into why you brought her back in the first place."

That got his attention. Slowly, he looked up.

"Be careful with your words, Lily."

I met his gaze. "You be careful with your silence. Because people are watching. Not just me."

He stood up and walked to the window, back to me.

"The evaluations were Natasha's idea," he said flatly. "I agreed because the board was pressuring me."

"And what about Samantha?"

"She’s temporary. Her contract ends next month."

"Why bring her back at all?"

He turned slightly, his expression unreadable. "Because I wanted to see what you would do."

"This isn’t a game."

"Isn’t it? You say you want answers, Lily. Sometimes the best way to find the truth... is to let the pieces fall."

I walked out before I could scream.

Back at my desk, I took out my phone and texted Nany:

"He knows. He’s watching everything unfold. Like a test."

Nany: Then pass it. And be ready. You’ll need more than strength. You’ll need proof.

That evening, just as I was about to leave, I found a sealed envelope inside my desk drawer.

It wasn’t there earlier.

I opened it.

Inside was a printed photo.

It was me.

Standing in the café garden.

With Nany.

The angle suggested it was taken from across the street.

Below the photo was a typed note:

"This is your final warning."

I left the building without saying a word to anyone. The night air felt thick as I walked to my apartment.

This wasn’t office politics anymore.

It was war.