The ring of Nathan's cell phone felt like a physical blow against the quiet intimacy we had built by the Chicago River.

The next morning, the atmosphere on the executive floor of Northstar Technologies felt like a funeral home.

I sat at my desk, my fingers hovering over my keyboard, but not a single line of data was entering my spreadsheet. The email Nathan had shown me by the river played on an endless loop in my mind. They weren’t just coming after Nathan; they were coming after me. To them, I wasn't a person with feelings, dreams, or vulnerabilities—I was a pawn, a leverage point, a weakness to be exploited to bend a billionaire to their will.

“Maya?”

I looked up. Harper was standing by my cubicle, her face pale, holding a stack of quarterly reports like a shield.

“You need to look at the internal company chat right now,” she whispered, glancing around to make sure our department manager wasn't watching.

My stomach plummeted. I quickly opened the internal messaging app. A company-wide thread had been pinned to the top of every employee's screen, posted anonymously from an external IP address.

At the center of the post was a screenshot of my personnel file, alongside an audio snippet.

I clicked play.

“I’m twenty-eight... and I’ve never been with anyone. Not once.”

My own voice echoed through my cheap office headphones, tinny and distorted, broadcasting my most deeply guarded secret to five thousand coworkers across three different time zones. Beneath the audio clip was a malicious caption: “Meet the reason Northstar’s stock is tanking. The CEO’s little cafeteria pet is trading spreadsheets for bedtime stories.”

The room around me seemed to tilt. Whispers broke out across the open-plan office. Heads turned. Snickers rippled from the corner where senior management’s sycophants usually sat.

Before I could burst into tears or smash my monitor, the main elevator dinged with a sharp, echoing chime.

The private elevator—the one that only opened for the C-suite—slid open.

Nathan Carter stepped out.

He wasn't wearing his usual composed, untouchable mask. His tie was slightly loosened, his sleeves rolled up to his forearms, and his expression was dark enough to shatter glass. Every person in the room froze. The typing stopped. The whispers died instantly.

Nathan didn't look at the trembling department heads. He walked straight across the carpeted floor, his heavy leather shoes making a sharp clack, clack, clack sound against the tile.

He stopped directly in front of my cubicle.

Without saying a word, he reached down, unplugged my computer monitors, scooped up my keyboard, and set them neatly into a cardboard box he had brought with him.

“Mr. Carter?” our manager stammered, stepping forward nervously. “Sir, what is—protocol dictates—”

Nathan turned his head slowly, fixing the manager with a glare so cold it made the man step back two paces.

“Protocol?” Nathan’s voice cut through the silent room like a razor blade. “Protocol is what happens when a company tolerates toxic corporate espionage and digital harassment. Effective immediately, every single IP address involved in leaking internal employee files to this channel has been traced, logged, and handed over to federal cybercrime investigators.”

He paused, letting the silence crush the room.

“Furthermore, anyone who repeats a single word of that audio clip will find themselves escorted out of this building by security before the hour is out. Am I understood?”

Not a single person breathed.