Chapter 2

"You won't be mad at Yvette, right, Callum? If you are mad, I'll apologize on behalf of her."

Despite his offer of an apology, Henry came up to me and stepped hard on the back of my hand instead, grinding my fingers under his leather shoes.

The pain was intense, and I quickly pulled my hand away, and I fell back hard, leaning against the cold wall while still reeling from the pain. I stopped asking for help or calling out in pain. All I did was reach my bloody hand slowly into my pocket to pull out a phone.

Yvette's expression changed when she saw what I was doing. "What are you trying to do? Call the police? Or call an ambulance?" She rushed over to me, trying to grab my phone. "I'm warning you, Callum. I won't let you off if you dare blow this out of proportion!"

I leaned slightly to the side to dodge her reaching hand. My thumbs moved quickly to unlock my phone and click the button to the secret backup known only to me. It was a basic control system for Yvette's company's core funding.

Three years ago, Yvette's company was on the brink of bankruptcy. I was the one who sold my parents' old house and took out all of my savings, in addition to my independently researched core AI patent, to help rebuild her company.

To give Yvette a stronger sense of security, I let her become the CEO and legal representative of the company, but I did give myself a safety net. It was a command that could freeze her funding and patent rights, and something that I thought I would never use.

It felt like such a joke when I saw the fury on Yvette's face.

This was the woman I had loved for five years, the fiancée I had given everything to and placed on a pedestal.

I took a deep breath as I pressed hard on the red button to pull her funding with my bloodied finger, and my phone screen turned bright red. A huge pop-up window appeared with the words: [Funding has ceased. The core patent rights have been terminated.]

My eyes met Yvette's when I looked up, and I said to her slowly, "The wedding is off. You can start preparing for your company's bankruptcy."

There was silence in the corridor.

Yvette was taken aback but quickly snapped out of it as she noticed the screen of my phone. She burst out in shrill laughter when she saw the bright, red warning on it. "Bankruptcy?"

She was laughing so hard that she was crying. She pointed at my nose, acting as if she had just heard the biggest joke in the world. "Are you hallucinating from the pain, Callum? Do you think you can scare me with a fake app that triggers a red pop-up? Who do you think you are? My company is about to get an IPO on Nasdaq, and is estimated to be worth a billion!"

Yvette walked up to me, showing off her bright, red, polished nails by poking me on the shoulder. "You're just a man who is leeching off me by loitering in my company. How do you plan to bankrupt me?"

Henry leaned in close to me to point his phone's camera right into my face.

"Look at him, fam! This poor bastard even came up with a pointless app to pretend he's the big man! Did you see what that app said? 'Funding has ceased'? That's a pretty impressive effect. Did you buy the source code online for ten bucks?"

The comments section exploded once more.

[What a joke! That man must be delusional.]

[Well, I learned something new today. This must be the first person to get others bankrupt via cyberspace.]