Chapter4: Stolen Genius

VIVIAN POV

The word hung in the air, heavy and suffocation-thick. Termination.

"You can't do this," I whispered, the paper blurring before my eyes. "You know my work, Director Raymond. You’ve seen me sitting at that drafting table until dawn for three years. You know my hand. You know my style!"

Raymond didn't even blink. He adjusted his silk pocket square with precise, agonizing slowness, his face a mask of cold, corporate indifference. "What I know, Vivian, is that emotional outbursts and unsubstantiated claims have no place in this house. The documentation is absolute. Miss Chen filed the digital copyrights and physical blueprints with the board at seven this morning. Her signature is on the notarized drafts."

"Because she stole them!" My voice shattered, rising to a desperate, ragged tear. "She wiped my cloud drive last night! She took the leather binder straight off my workstation while I went to get water!"

Zara stepped beside Raymond, placing a gentle, trembling hand over her heart. She played the part of the grieving, benevolent friend with a terrifying, sociopathic perfection. "Vivian, please... stop this. It’s breaking my heart to see you like this. I know how badly you wanted to lead a collection, but trying to claim my months of labor just because you helped me pin a few hems at the end..." She shook her head, a single, flawless tear slipping down her cheek. "It’s tragic. Truly."

"You lying snake!" I lunged forward, pure, unfiltered instinct driving my hands toward her face, but two heavy security guards—men I had shared casual morning greetings with for years—stepped out from the alcove and caught my arms.

Their grip was brutal, pinning my elbows to my ribs.

"Escort her to the main boardroom," Raymond commanded, not even bothering to look at me as he turned back to the gallery garments. "The emergency executive board meeting begins in five minutes. I will not have her creating a spectacle in the hallway. We will address her termination and this attempted theft behind closed doors, quietly."

"Let go of me!" I thrashed against the guards' hold, my heels dragging uselessly across the thick navy carpet. "Raymond, look at the stitching! Look at the inner lining of the flagship gown! My mother taught me that blind hem stitch—Zara doesn't even know how to hold a curved needle!"

Nobody answered me. The guards dragged me down the glass-walled corridor like a criminal, my soaked clothes sticking cold and heavy against my skin, my frantic gasps echoing off the sterile walls.

They shoved open the heavy mahogany doors of the Grand Executive Suite.

The boardroom was a pit of sharks in tailored suits. Twelve senior board members sat around the forty-foot obsidian table, their laptops open, their faces grim and unreadable. At the head of the table sat Mr. Kelvin—the company's chief legal counsel and primary corporate investor. He was a man with eyes like polished silver coins and a mouth that had never once softened into a genuine smile.

Beside him, sitting in the row of guest chairs with his head bowed and his hands clasped tightly between his knees, was Leo.

My heart did a sickening, violent flip. "Leo," I choked out, pulling against the guards' grip. "Leo, tell them. Look at me! Tell them who drew those sketches!"

Leo slowly raised his head. For a fraction of a second, I saw a flicker of raw, gut-churning shame in his dark eyes. But then he looked at Mr. Kelvin sitting beside him, looked at the promises of corporate power dangling right in front of his face, and his expression hardened into stone.

He looked right through me. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Vivian," he said, his voice flat, rehearsed, and entirely dead. "I came here today as legal counsel to witness Zara's submission. I watched her draft those concepts in her personal studio over the last four months. You had nothing to do with it."

A cold, hollow void opened up inside my stomach. The room seemed to tilt, the overhead lights flaring into blinding white streaks. I felt the air leave my lungs, leaving me suffocating on the threshold of the room. The double betrayal—the woman I called my sister, the man I had slept beside for four years—swallowed everything I was.

"Bring her in and shut the door," Mr. Kelvin ordered, his gravelly voice cutting through the ringing in my ears. "Let’s get this over with. The press briefing for the Spring Gala line is in two hours."

The guards forced me into a leather chair at the far end of the table, holding me down by my shoulders.

Raymond and Zara entered a moment later. Zara walked to the front of the room, plugging a sleek silver flash drive into the podium's digital projector. The massive glass screen behind her flickered to life, illuminating the dark room with high-resolution scans of my designs.

My sketches.

There was the fluid line of the dusk-blue evening gown I had spent three weeks perfecting while sitting on my living room floor. There was the intricate embroidery draft for the blazer I had drawn while listening to rain on my windowpane. Every line, every shadow, every piece of my soul was projected fifty feet wide across the wall—and Zara’s name was printed in sharp, bold font across the bottom of every single frame.

"Distinguished members of the board," Zara began, her voice ringing out with smooth, majestic confidence. She gestured toward the screen, her movements fluid and regal. "I present to you the Celestial Dawn collection. A narrative of rising from obscurity into absolute power, crafted through organic textures, ancient structural draping, and modern elegance."

The board members nodded in unanimous, rapt attention, murmuring low words of praise as Zara glided through the slides.

"The flagship piece," Zara continued, pausing on the digital render of the ivory dress, "was inspired by my personal journey. The golden needle anchoring the drape represents the singular focus required to build an empire from nothing."

"She's lying!" I forced myself up from the chair, the guards instantly tightening their painful grip on my arms, pushing me back down. "That brooch was my grandmother's concept! The specs were written in my notebook—the notebook she stole out of my apartment two weeks ago!"

Mr. Kelvin slammed his pen onto the table, the sharp crack echoing like a gunshot.

"Silence the girl," Kelvin growled, turning his piercing gaze onto me. "Miss Vivian, you are currently committing slander, breach of contract, and attempted intellectual property theft in front of this entire board. Your digital footprint at this company was thoroughly audited at six AM. There is not a single file, single draft, or single line of code linking you to this collection in our system."

"Because they wiped it!" I screamed, tears finally cutting hot tracks through the dirt and rain on my face. "Check the server logs! Check the IP address that accessed my drive at three AM!"

"We did," Kelvin said, a slow, predatory smile creeping onto his thin lips. "The deletion request originated from your personal laptop, using your private security password."

My jaw dropped. The air completely vanished from my lungs.

My laptop. The laptop I had left sitting on my drafting table in Studio 4B while I went to get water. The password only two people in the world knew.

I looked at Leo. He squeezed his eyes shut, turning his face away toward the window.

He had given her the password.

"The board has seen enough," Director Raymond announced, standing up beside Zara. "Zara Chen is officially named Lead Designer for the House of Raymond. Her contract is executed effective immediately."

The room erupted into polite, elegant applause. Board members leaned over to shake Zara's hand, offering congratulations, praising her genius. Zara smiled, accepting their touch with gracious, humble nods, her glittering eyes catching mine across the long table.

She leaned down toward Mr. Kelvin, whispering something in his ear.

Kelvin nodded, his eyes sliding over to me with cold malice. He reached into his leather briefcase and pulled out a thick red folder, sliding it across the polished glass table toward me.

"And now, Miss Vivian," Kelvin said, his voice dropping into a chilling whisper that carried across the room. "We address the criminal charges the company is filing against you."