Chapter 28
Arianna smiled. "Don't be nervous. Once this is done, what happened before gets wiped clean. You help me, I help you—that's how this relationship works."
Mr. Lewis took the tissue and wiped the back of his hand.
He stood up and tucked the envelope under his arm.
"Ms. Jackson, I should go."
"Go ahead."
Arianna watched him walk out the door.
After the door closed, the smile on Arianna's face didn't fade right away. She looked down at her teacup, her right index finger tracing the rim lightly.
Then she pulled out her phone, opened an encrypted messaging app, and sent a message.
[Is the post ready?]
The reply came quickly.
[Already formatted. Can be posted anytime.]
Arianna typed back: [Wait for me.]
She put her phone back in her bag and stood, walking toward the door. When she passed the full-length mirror, she paused and turned her head to glance at her reflection.
The woman in the mirror looked gentle, her eyes soft with a hint of a smile. The kind of woman who appeared completely harmless.
Arianna adjusted her collar and walked out.
Parker Group Tower, thirty-sixth floor.
Only Evelyn's desk lamp was still lit in the workspace.
Everyone else in the office had left by seven. A janitor pushed a cleaning cart down the hall, glanced at her, and turned back without saying anything.
The handover process for the Eastside project was more complicated than she'd expected. The client side had been straightforward—the day after they sent the termination notice to Ashford Group, they signed a new letter of intent with Parker Group. But Parker Group's internal approval chain was much longer than Ashford Group's.
Project budget approval required joint review from finance, legal, and strategy departments. Client files had to be completely re-entered into Parker Group's system. Evelyn's authority as project lead was still at probationary level—she couldn't directly mobilize cross-departmental resources.
She needed Luna's signature to get upgraded access.
But Luna was out of town on business. Wouldn't be back until the day after tomorrow.
Evelyn listed out every node in the approval process, noting the follow-up person and deadline next to each pending item. She'd revised the initial draft of the client liaison letter three times and run two rounds of cross-checking on the data.
She glanced at the time in the bottom right corner of her screen. 10:07 p.m.
She rubbed the back of her neck, her fingers brushing the spot on her upper arm where Sebastian had left a bruise. Even through her shirt, pressing on it hurt.
The reception desk phone suddenly rang.
Evelyn picked up.
"Ms. Kendall, someone's in the lobby looking for you. Says they're a former colleague."
Former colleague.
The first name that flashed through Evelyn's mind wasn't Lisa—it was Mr. Lewis.
"What do they look like?"
"A young woman. She seems really anxious."
Evelyn hung up, locked her computer, and took the elevator downstairs.
The lobby on the first floor was several times brighter than upstairs. Evelyn squinted as she stepped out of the elevator.
Lisa was standing by the reception desk.
Her face was pale as death, lips chapped, both hands gripping her phone, the skin over her knuckles stretched tight and shiny. She wore a cotton hoodie, her hair loose, like she'd bolted straight from home.
The moment she saw Evelyn, Lisa's chin trembled. Tears pooled in her eyes.
"Evelyn."
Evelyn walked up to her and took in her state.
"What happened?"
Lisa opened her mouth twice but couldn't get the words out.
She held her phone screen up to Evelyn's face.
The brightness was maxed out. A social media post was frozen on the screen. The title was in bold red text.
[Former Ashford Group Employee Evelyn Kendall Stole Trade Secrets to Jump Ship to Parker Group, Parker Group Executive Cedric Parker Suspected of Covering for Mistress]
Four images were attached below the post. Evelyn recognized what they were immediately.
Parker Group internal communication records.
Four pages. Parker Group logo at the top.
She'd never seen any of this content before.
Evelyn's gaze moved down. The comments section. The numbers were jumping in real time.
One thousand one hundred twenty-three comments.
The post had been published forty minutes ago.
A trending tag in the upper right corner flashed with an orange flame icon, the ranking number climbing.
Lisa's voice shook so hard in the lobby it almost broke.
"Evelyn, this post... it's already near the trending list."
Evelyn took Lisa's phone and scrolled down with her thumb, about two centimeters.
The newest comment in the section was posted thirty seconds ago.
[Parker Group's no better than anyone else. Execs opening backdoors for mistresses, ha.]
[Who the hell is this Evelyn? Parker Group's picking up someone Ashford Group didn't even want?]
[Saw the screenshots of the communication records. That's proof, right? Passing info to a competitor while still employed—isn't that corporate espionage?]
Evelyn's thumb stopped on the fourth screenshot.
She pinched the image to zoom in. Parker Group logo, document number, fonts, line spacing, footer format. All correct. Even the version number encoding in the footer matched Parker Group's standard template.
Whoever made this thing had access to Parker Group's actual document templates.
Evelyn exited the comments and returned to the post. The poster's ID was a random string of letters and numbers, registration time was this afternoon at six, personal page blank except for this single post.
She handed the phone back to Lisa.
"You should go home."
Lisa's tears finally spilled over.
"Evelyn, what are you going to do? This post—"
"I'll handle it."
Evelyn turned and walked into the elevator.
As the elevator doors closed, she pulled out her own phone from her pocket. Three unread messages.
The first was a screenshot from Sophie, the caption all caps.
[WHO THE FUCK DID THIS??? I'M GONNA KILL SOMEONE!!!]
The second was from Luna.
[I saw the post. You're attending the PR meeting tomorrow at eight a.m.]
The third was from Cedric's assistant, Mason.
[Ms. Kendall, Mr. Parker asked me to inform you that the company will handle this matter. You don't need to worry about it.]
Evelyn read through them one by one.
The elevator numbers jumped to the thirty-sixth floor. The doors opened.
Evelyn walked back to her desk, sat down, but didn't turn on her computer.
She pulled out her phone first and dialed a number.
Sophie picked up instantly.
"You saw it? Who posted that thing?"
"I don't know. But those communication records are fake."
"Of course they're fake! The problem is all those people online don't know that! The comments section is going insane—it's number twenty on trending right now and still climbing—"
"I need you to do something for me."
Evelyn cut Sophie off.
"What?"
"Open your computer."
Sounds of a chair scraping and a keyboard being flipped open came through Sophie's end.
"Okay, it's open."
"I'm sending you a cloud drive link. It has the original drafts of every project proposal I worked on during my two-plus years at Ashford Group. Every file's creation timestamp, revision history, cloud sync logs—all of it's preserved. I need you to make a timeline graphic for me. Starting from my first day at Ashford Group up until I submitted my resignation. Every project's launch date, proposal creation date, first client contact record—arranged chronologically."