Chapter 6 - The Unraveling
The atmosphere at Vanguard Media had curdled from corporate ambition to a suffocating, paranoia-drenched silence. Jared was no longer the confident CEO; he was a man living in the crosshairs of an invisible sniper. He fired his CFO for "disloyalty," unaware that the forged emails I had planted were the only reason he’d done it.
Courtney was cracking even faster. She had stopped performing the role of the devoted, glowing mother-to-be. Without the steady influx of laundered cash, her lifestyle brand began to falter. She was desperate, and desperation is a catalyst for betrayal.
One evening, I stayed late, ensuring I was the only one left on the executive floor. I hacked the office intercom system—a simple, elegant touch. As Jared sat in his darkened office, nursing a glass of scotch, I played a looped, distorted audio file through the speaker hidden in his ceiling.
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“Write whatever diagnosis you need... She can never get pregnant again.”
Jared lunged out of his chair, screaming at the walls, his voice cracking with a terrifying mixture of rage and terror. He tore apart his desk, looking for cameras, for microphones, for a ghost. He was losing his mind. I stood in my office, watching him on the security feed I had rerouted to my laptop, a cold, hard satisfaction blooming in my chest.
