Plot Twists Workplace Short Stories & Novels

At the Alpha Summit, my younger brother Felix accused me in front of everyone. "I grew up crushed under my older sister's thumb. If I so much as ate a piece of candy, she'd pry my mouth open and dig it out." I swirled the red wine in my glass and gave a cold laugh. "That wasn't candy. It was a pill made from wolfsbane. If I hadn't saved you, you wouldn't even have the chance to stand here talking to me." Felix's face froze. Refusing to give up, he said, "When our cousin Toby came to stay with us, you gave him every single moonstone I'd worked so hard to find. I'm your own brother, and you played favorites with someone else?" I sighed. "Your cousin had it rough. A big fire burned his family's house to the ground." "What does that have to do with me? Just because he had it rough, I'm supposed to give in to him every time?" "You set that fire." The room went dead silent. The reporters hammered their shutter buttons, capturing Felix looking as if he'd swallowed something foul. "Well, didn't I find him a job afterward? I went out of my way to help him, but the second you found out, you beat me up. Do you have any idea how badly that scarred my fragile young heart?" His eyes reddened as he spoke, while the memory made my blood boil all over again. "You shipped your cousin off to work in a mine in the Wastelands. How is that any different from exile? "You locked him into a five-year contract when you sent him there, so he's still serving hard labor in the Wastelands. You're telling me you didn't deserve that beating?" The viewers watching the livestream didn't know whether to laugh or cry. [Poor Toby. He still hasn't escaped that family?] [See, no beating is ever wasted.] [Just get a new brother. This one's a lost cause.]

I find a slip of paper on the back of a flyer I'm holding during the first day of club recruitment. It says that the president of the dance club, Donna Shaw, will announce in front of more than 100 people that I'm pregnant. She's got everything ready—ultrasound reports, hospital records, and even eyewitnesses. Henry Baker, her boyfriend and president of the Student Activities Board, will step in to save the day in front of everyone. Consequently, the whole school will condemn me, and I will be expelled. I stare at the paper, wondering what kind of lame prank this is. I turn the paper over. The smile on my face fades when I see that the handwriting is identical to my own. I slip the paper into my pocket. At 3:00 pm, I make my way past the dance club's booth. The second I stop, Donna points at my stomach, her eyes red. "We don't accept people with no morals… I saw it. Your belly is already showing." Everyone looks at me, and someone gasps. I look down at my completely flat stomach, then back at her. I smile. My voice isn't loud, but everyone can hear me. "I'm pregnant? Are you sure about that? "I'm a guy. Tell me. How exactly did the baby get inside me?"

After graduating from high school, I helped the whole class get in touch with my uncle's factory, which offered a 3,000-dollar monthly salary with room and board included, so we could save up some money for our upcoming college life. More than 20 of my classmates signed up. Then Emily June suddenly typed: [3,000 dollars? Are you trying to rip off your own classmates? I found a job online that pays 7,000 dollars a month. It includes room and board too.] The group chat exploded, and my classmates immediately turned on me. [Jasper, are you getting kickbacks from your uncle?] [We trusted you!] Everyone withdrew their applications and followed Emily instead. Well, fine. If they trusted her that much, then they could go ahead. I would not stop them.

On the day I started the job, the offer letter in my hand told a different story than the one I'd been promised. A million dollars a year had turned into three thousand dollars a month, printed in black and white. I looked up. "This isn't what we agreed on." The HR rep just smiled. "Ease into it first. We'll talk about a raise once you're off probation." I picked up the pen and signed. On the day of the signing ceremony, Mr. Pyatt was riding high. He turned to his assistant. "Has the money from the co-investment funds cleared yet?" I slid the offer letter, the one with "$3,000 a month" printed on it, gently across the table until it sat in the middle. "Mr. Pyatt, that $970,000 you saved by lowballing me? I got you something in return." He frowned. "What is that supposed to mean?" "Your three co-investment funds. They just pulled out. "Don't mention it." The room went dead silent.

It took me three months to get our company retreat venue down to $200 a head. All 120 people in the company thought it was a steal, and they couldn't stop telling me so. Then Chloe, the new intern, tagged me in the company group chat. "Ryan, Cookie says this lodge will do $150 a person. You quoted $200. Where did the other fifty go?" Our boss decided on the spot: "Chloe's running the retreat." And all hundred-plus people in the company decided I'd been taking kickbacks. I stared at the screen and typed two words. "Sounds good." What she didn't know was that the $200 was a family rate, one I'd earned by working three months as a server for my dad. The public price? It starts at $380.

It's summer now, and I've somehow become the stinkiest person in the entire company. Everyone says that I smell terrible. The doctors say that there is nothing wrong with my body, but my colleagues still avoid me like the plague at work. Even the intern secretly puts deodorant on my desk. I can't take it anymore and hand in my resignation. But on the day I'm processing the paperwork, my manager, Joel Winters, chases me to the elevators and stops me. His voice shakes as he says, "I'll give you 50 thousand dollars to continue sitting at your desk." I don't agree to it and call the police instead. When the police cut open the huge eight-foot teddy bear next to me, the entire office falls silent.

At a charity gala in Manhattan, a reporter asked the final question of the night. "Mr. Hayes, whose name will be on the $200 million trust you announced tonight?" The question had barely left her lips before knowing laughter rippled through the crowd. The answer was obvious. It could only be me —— his wife and the heiress to Lockwood Holdings, Chloe Lockwood. I was about to stand and share in his moment. But my husband, Eric Hayes, dropped a bombshell. "It will be named for the most important person in my life: the girl I once shared a bed with." "When I was broke and had nowhere to go, she gave me half her bed. We split the rent on a $350 attic room." "Her warmth was the only reason I could sleep at night." "Without her encouragement, I wouldn't be who I am today." The reporter scrambled to recover. "Mr. Hayes is clearly a man of deep loyalty. What a beautiful story you share with Ms. Lockwood!" "Not Chloe. Another woman." Eric corrected her without hesitation. Every pair of eyes in the room landed on me. Three seconds of silence passed. I leaned toward my assistant Vivian and gave her two quiet orders. "Find her." "Then... strip Eric of everything."

An earthquake suddenly hits the company. I rush into my girlfriend's office, only to find it completely empty. I cover my head and frantically call her phone over and over. Suddenly, someone grabs my arm and leads me through the emergency exit. I look up and see my girlfriend, Leona Sampson. Her blouse is torn, and a man's suit jacket is draped over her shoulders. Her cheeks are flushed, and her legs are trembling. "Where were you just now?" I ask, my eyes burning red. Among the crowd, I spot a shirtless man. He's holding the scarf I gave my girlfriend. I recognize him. It's Matt Ryder, the new intern at the company. It suddenly hits me that the woman who claims to love me deeply is cheating on me. I quietly call my best friend, Ryan Duffman. "I'm in. I'll go abroad with you. Let's start our own business."

During the thunderstorm, I struggled through the Pack Institute alone, dragging a heavy feed cart behind me. My rain-soaked lab coat clung to my skin, and my shoes were caked with mud. The message I had sent through the mind-link to my fated mate, Arthur Voss, half an hour ago was still unanswered. "Could you come down and bring me an umbrella?" I should have heard back from him instantly, but there was still no response. The power had gone out in the animal facility during the downpour. I pulled out my nearly dead phone and found Arthur's number. He was listed as the lab's emergency contact. My finger hovered over the call button. Then I looked up. Through the thick curtain of rain, I saw two figures sitting side by side inside the glass-walled lab. They were my mate, Arthur, and Lina Brooks, a junior researcher in our lab. He was gently ruffling Lina's hair. "Don't worry. I'll take care of everything for you." The instruments on the table were the same ones I had begged Arthur to teach me to use three years ago. His voice was as gentle as I'd ever heard it. I remembered how I had been when I first met Arthur. Back then, I was too scared to take a cab alone. When my wolf spiraled out of control, I would panic. When problems came up, I would hide. When an experiment failed, I would call him for help and keep him on the phone for three hours. Every single time, he brushed aside my pleas for help. "Irene, you need to solve your own problems. You can't keep waiting for someone to rescue you." So I learned. I gritted my teeth and handled everything alone. When samples were contaminated, I tracked down the cause myself. When a project fell apart, I dealt with it on my own. I spent countless nights teaching myself technical skills that had once seemed impossible to master. Yet none of it ever earned me even a hint of his approval. I looked down. This time, I didn't hesitate. With the last sliver of battery, I deleted Arthur's number.

Three years into our marriage, my husband, Derek, confessed that he'd met his true love. He sat across from me, eyes brimming with sincerity. "I was too young back then. You were the only person I ever dated, and I rushed into marriage. "It wasn't until I met Vivian that I understood what real love is. "Just sign the divorce papers already. Set me free." I glanced at the scar on his temple. Without a word, I signed the papers.

The day before my wedding, my ex-boyfriend asked me to meet him in a hotel room. "I heard you're getting married," he said. "Could you meet me, just this once? There's something I need to tell you." I agreed, and that night I went to the address he gave me. But the person waiting for me wasn't him. It was my fiancé, his face like a storm cloud, and beside him, his self-satisfied childhood sweetheart, looking thoroughly pleased with herself. "See, Julian, I told you she wasn't being honest with you," she said. "She's finally slipped up." My fiancé's jaw clenched. He grabbed my wrist hard enough to bruise. "Why?" he demanded. I lowered my eyes and answered calmly, "Because I don't want to marry you anymore. This is the eighth time you and your childhood sweetheart have tested whether my feelings for you were real. "I'm exhausted. Aren't you?"

The entire company was racing to get the year off to a strong start on the first day after our holiday break. I was the only one openly staring out the window, doing nothing. No one bothered me because I helped the boss make an extra 200 million dollars last year. So, she'd personally given me one special rule. "You can do whatever you want." Unfortunately, the new operations director didn't know that. So, she smashed my computer and ordered me to pay a 20,000-dollar fine in front of the entire office to set an example for everyone else. I didn't say anything. Instead, I made a phone call, packed up my things, and left the company. Early the next morning, the boss personally drove to my house herself. She'd come to take me back to work because the number I'd called the day before was the private cell phone number of a rival company's CEO.

For three years, I used my family's mob ties and my own money to pave the way for Declan's crew. He was the boy I survived the streets with as a kid. But at this month's sit-down, his newly hired secretary, Roxy, tossed my casino ledgers and club records onto the table in front of all the guys. She accused me of skimming profits and slacking off. "These underground banks, these smuggling docks," she read the numbers out loud, her voice full of fake outrage. "Every time she bribes someone, she skims thousands of dollars! She's lining her own pockets." "I say the Boss strips her of her club manager title right now to save our cash flow." I glanced at Declan, the boss of the crew. He knew better than anyone what that missing money actually paid for. He knew how much dock security it covered. He knew how many nods of approval it bought from politicians and cops. He also knew what I was doing when I wasn't at the club. I was making deals with dangerous gun runners. I was drinking hard liquor to secure guns and ammo for his boys. But he just stared at me coldly. "Katerina, do you have anything to say about these ledgers and the proof Roxy just showed us?" I smiled. "I have nothing to explain." Very soon, all of them would find out exactly what happens when you pull a stunt like this on a Principessa's turf.

Our pack’s pups were born with weakened wolf spirits. I paid for their treatment out of my own pocket, only for their mothers to drag me online.They accused me of using the free wolf treatment I provided for their pups to test serums on children from the contaminated zone, making poor families' pups bear the risk for Alpha pups. What they didn't know was that the pack was badly contaminated. Without treatment, those pups would die. To save their wolves, I brought in the best healers and used the best medication and treatment protocols. Care cost more than eight thousand dollars per pup every month, all of it out of my own pocket. Now the entire internet was accusing me of experimenting on pups and doing the Alpha elite's dirty work. So I made up my mind and sent a pack-wide announcement: "In response to the mothers' request for autonomy over their children's treatment, Moonbridge will suspend the free wolf treatment program, effective immediately." "Starting today, eligible wolf moms will receive a monthly childcare subsidy of two hundred dollars." The moment the announcement went out, every one of them lost it. Now they were all crowded outside my office, begging me not to stop.

I was the most renowned pediatrician in the pack. On the day we administered the VRX-17 vaccine I'd introduced, the pups were infected en masse. A neurotropic virus swept through the pediatric ward, killing two pups. Several more developed encephalitis, pneumonia, and permanent paralysis. The Werewolf Court convicted me of deliberate harm. I pleaded desperately that the vaccine was contaminated. But when the drug was sent for testing, the batch number and properties all came back normal. How was that possible? I'd tested the vaccine myself, and my results clearly showed something was wrong. I couldn't accept it. I sought out expert after expert to verify my findings, but every single one told me the vaccine was fine. The judge and the officers wore grim expressions as they spoke. "Ma'am, you can't defraud the pack's medical system like this." "Think of the pups you killed. What had they ever done to deserve it?" In the end, I was sentenced to death for causing a catastrophic medical incident. My parents were accused of aiding my violations. They were stripped of their positions and died under a torrent of blame and injustice. I learned of their deaths before my execution. Even as the wolfsbane seeped into my veins, all I could feel was regret. When I opened my eyes again, a nurse was about to push VRX-17 into a pup's vein.

On the day of the business dinner, my boyfriend, Sebastian Lambert, makes up an excuse to send me away. He then has Laura Jensen, the woman he's never gotten over, take over the fashion design proposal I'm about to finish. She goes to the dinner in my place. By the time I get back, Laura has already replaced me as the lead on the project. Everyone expects me to lose it. Instead, I just smile and decide to hand Laura my job too. "It's just one proposal. You can have it. In fact, you can have my job as head designer too!" What none of them realizes is that the company only got this far because of my family's investment. The moment I walk away, my family will pull its funding. The company will be headed straight for bankruptcy, and Sebastian will be left covering all the losses and paying a huge amount in damages.

The night before the Fourth of July holiday, my husband gathered the entire company for what I thought would finally be our long-awaited public announcement. Instead, his clueless assistant burst into the room wearing a wedding dress. "Cameron, I'm here to marry you." He didn't turn her down. If anything, his eyes softened with unmistakable affection as he promoted her to vice president on the spot. The entire company erupted in cheers for their love story. When my coworkers noticed me standing frozen off to the side, one of them couldn't resist reminding me. "Stephanie, you've been with Mr. Cox for nine years. You can't let a moment this special pass without saying something!" I smiled, walked onto the stage, slipped off my wedding ring, and tossed it to Poppy Campbell. "What kind of wedding doesn't come with a ring? Here, take it."

The day I got the callback for my second interview, my mother, Sara Bingley, came home with two bags. "You're about to start your job for real, and that means dressing professionally. I bought you girls a suit each, one for each of you, fair and square." Molly Pitcher happily took her bag. Inside was a fitted, deep navy suit, sharp and clearly not cheap. What landed in my hands was an ill-fitting black suit pulled from the clearance rack, so oversized the sleeves swallowed the backs of my hands. Mom smiled and touched my cheek. "Cathy, you'll still grow. I bought it big on purpose. Give it two years, and it'll fit just right. I went to I don't know how many malls just to track down that black suit." She did love me, in her way. She knew my job required a black suit, and she really had gone to several malls to find one. But she'd forgotten I was already twenty-three. No amount of growing was going to fill out a suit that oversized and that cheaply made. Both daughters were her own flesh and blood, but Molly was plainly the one she doted on. The love she gave me came measured out in careful portions. The love she gave Molly overflowed. If that was how it was going to be, then from today on, I was done being the extra one in this family.

A Code Blue in the emergency department means a patient's heart has stopped and every pair of hands in the building is wanted. The president cut his own report off mid-sentence and sent me down to the resuscitation. The charge nurse was already prepping my gown at a run, saving every second she could find. And a first-year resident, three months on the job, was standing in front of the procedure-room doors with a printout from the pharmacy in his hand. He put it to me in front of everyone. "Dr. Hale, sixty ampoules of anesthetic went out of your department in March. Did you take them out and sell them? "The head of cardiothoracic surgery, doing something that filthy? Sixteen years in this hospital. Tell all of us how much you've taken in kickbacks." He said it with real conviction. And the eyes coming at me from up and down the corridor were full of doubt. But I didn't have the time to fight with him. The window on a heart attack like that one is ninety minutes. Fifteen of them were already gone.

To end two years of long distance, I quit my job behind my boyfriend's back on Valentine's Day and moved to his city. The candlelit dinner he'd promised to welcome me turned into him leaving halfway through when his boss Diana called, asking him to entertain a client over drinks. I told myself it was just the way corporate life worked. We made plans to see an exhibition that weekend. We'd barely reached the entrance when another call pulled him away to fix an urgent proposal for Diana. I told myself he was just ambitious. We'd planned an island getaway to celebrate my birthday. The night before we were supposed to leave, he called. His voice was tinged with guilt. "Diana says this business trip is a test from upper management, and I really need to make a good impression. You understand, right?" Then he went to the neighboring city with Diana. I was silent for a few seconds, then said okay. I quietly canceled the hotel and sat alone in our rental apartment, eating instant noodles. The next day, the doorbell rang. It was a courier. "Hi, I have a delivery for Diana Lawson." "You've got the wrong address," I said. The courier looked certain. "That's impossible. I've been delivering here for a year. It's always this address." That's when it hit me. All his so-called overtime, business trips, and obligations he claimed he couldn't get out of were just excuses to keep his boss happy. He thought she was his ladder to climb. He had no idea that I was the one who could have taken him straight to the top.