Chapter 19 – Old Ghosts, New Weapons

Evelyn wasn't sleeping well.

The nights had grown long and restless, filled with fitful dreams where she was running through endless glass corridors and always chasing something, always being chased. Her thoughts tangled with numbers, data, whispering threats, and the cold certainty that the walls around her life were slowly closing in.

And now, there was another ghost in the hallways of Drake Industries: one from Alexander's past, one who had come home not to heal, but to conquer.

Genevieve.

The longer she stayed in Seoul, the more emboldened she became. She smiled wider, whispered more poison, turned allies into question marks. She didn't just attack Evelyn's work; she attacked Evelyn's identity. Carefully, cruelly, without fingerprints.

But Evelyn was no longer the trembling girl in the garden after spilling coffee.

Now she had a secret weapon.

Several, in fact.

"I ran the forensic comparison," Noah said, sliding a folder across Evelyn's desk. They were alone in a forgotten meeting room on the 34th floor, a place nobody used since corporate had moved the executives for renovations.

Inside the folder was a line-by-line comparison of internal memos, drafts, and submissions for the campaign that Evelyn had authored most of which had mysteriously never reached final presentations.

"Her assistant rerouted your drafts," Noah said. "Three different times. All of them replaced by versions that misquoted sources, cut your conclusions, or twisted them just enough to make them ineffective."

"She's tanking my ideas and making it look like I'm incompetent," Evelyn said flatly.

Noah nodded. "But she left a digital trail. Sloppy. She was arrogant enough to think no one would check the metadata."

"I should bring this to Alexander."

Noah hesitated. "You could. But if you do, she'll know. And if she feels cornered, she won't go down alone."

Evelyn looked up. "You think she'd expose the marriage."

"I think if she finds out you're Mrs. Drake, she'll turn the board, the staff, and the press against you overnight. You'll be accused of everything from nepotism to seduction."

"Even if none of it's true."

"Especially because it's not."

Evelyn closed the folder slowly. Her heart thudded against her ribs, her breath shallow. "So what do we do?"

"We play the long game," Noah said. "We don't just prove she's sabotaging your work. We prove she's a liability to Drake Industries itself."

Meanwhile, across the city, Genevieve stood in front of her own reflection. The luxury apartment Alexander had once offered her during her US tenure had been fully restyled upon her return. The cold marble replaced with warm woods, steel counters traded for quartz and soft edges.

But the person in the mirror hadn't softened.

She held her phone in one hand, scrolling through photos from the gala a few weeks ago. Her gaze stopped on one image: Evelyn in a green dress, looking flustered, standing just behind Alexander. Their eyes didn't touch, but something told her they had before the camera had arrived and after.

Her manicured nail tapped the screen.

She was running out of patience.

Genevieve picked up her burner phone and dialed a contact she hadn't used since her New York days.

A voice answered, rough and informal. "You sure you want me digging?"

"I want her history," Genevieve said. "Every mistake, every address, every person who wouldn't want her name whispered in a room of power. I want to know if she's ever lied. Cheated. Broken."

"And if she hasn't?"

"Then find someone willing to lie for a price."

The line went dead.

Back at the office, Evelyn took a calculated risk. She invited two junior members of the campaign team to a late-night working session in the East Tower.

She showed them both the two versions of the marketing strategy - hers and Genevieve's edits.

"I want your honest opinion," Evelyn said, voice steady. "If you didn't know who wrote either, which one actually serves our demographic?"

There was a long silence.

Then the younger one, a quiet analyst named Jihoon, spoke. "Yours. Hers is… glossy. Too Western. Yours speaks to Seoul. It respects the nuance."

The second, a designer, nodded. "Hers looks like it was made for New York, not Gangnam."

Evelyn nodded. "That's what I thought too."

She didn't tell them everything. But she saw the flicker of awareness in their expressions. They had questions now. Maybe even doubt.

That was how revolutions started.

Not with loud declarations.

But with one person quietly noticing that something doesn't add up.

Later that night, Alexander sat at the piano in his penthouse and playing a quiet melody he hadn't touched since his teenage years.

His phone buzzed with a message.

Evelyn: I've got proof. She's been rewriting my work. Noah's helping. Can we talk tonight?

He stared at the screen for a long time before typing back.

Alexander: Always.

But as he turned off the piano light and looked out over the glittering cityscape of Seoul, he had a nagging feeling.

The war had begun.

And Genevieve wasn't done.

Not yet.