Chapter 34
Nora's POV
Sarah faltered slightly at my unexpectedly calm response, some of her triumph fading.
"Whether he was sincere with me or not isn't for you to judge." My tone was eerily calm.
Sarah sneered. "Facts are facts. No matter how much you deny it, Kyle treated you like a prize to be won."
I tilted my head slightly. "And what about you? Obsessing over this 'scumbag' for all these years—what does that say about you?"
Sarah's face changed color, and she rushed to defend herself. "Who says I still like him! I stopped caring years ago!"
"Oh?" A mocking smile curved my lips. "Then why were you so eager to tell me all this just now? If you really didn't care, you should have pretended you knew nothing about it."
Sarah was left speechless.
I continued in a measured tone. "But you're right about one thing—Kyle is a scumbag." I paused, watching her expression shift. "If you don't mind picking up trash, feel free to take him back. After all, there's no competition now—as long as you don't mind how dirty he is."
I deliberately slowed my speech, enunciating each word, watching the clock hand move at the end of the hallway.
Sarah's face went from red to white, then from white to an ugly shade of pale green. She opened her mouth, trying to find a retort, but found herself completely unable to respond.
"Oh, and Sarah." I said as if suddenly remembering something, my tone shifting to false concern. "Did you have a crush on Kyle back in college too? I remember you were always finding excuses to be near him."
"I did not!" Sarah shrieked in denial, but her eyes had already betrayed the truth.
"No?" I tilted my head, pretending to think. "Then how do you know so much about this 'bet'? You wouldn't have been one of the people there when they made it, would you? Watching them bet, watching Kyle pursue me, and you said nothing..."
I paused again, glancing at the clock. 8:00 AM.
"You know what that tells me?" My voice suddenly turned cold. "It tells me you've been exactly like this since back then—lurking in the shadows, collecting other people's secrets and pain, waiting for the perfect moment to weaponize them."
"You—!" Sarah trembled with rage.
I glanced at the time clock at the end of the hallway, deliberately reminding her. "Oh, by the way, Sarah, you haven't clocked in yet, have you?"
I pointed at the clock on the wall.
Sarah finally realized, her expression changing dramatically. She spun around, nearly running toward the time clock, but when she pressed her fingerprint to the scanner, the screen already displayed: 8:01 AM - LATE: 1 MINUTE.
The bright red letters flashed on the screen, as if mocking her.
She trembled with fury, turning to glare at me with fire in her eyes. She finally understood—I had deliberately kept her talking, deliberately made her late.
"Nora Grey!" she practically shouted. "You asshole!"
I turned toward the conference room, my steps steady and composed.
Behind me came Sarah's furious muttered curses, but I didn't look back.
The conference room door clicked shut behind me. I slid into an empty seat in the back corner, set my bag on the floor, and mechanically pulled out my notebook. The room was already more than half full, voices blending into a low murmur of pre-meeting small talk.
I flipped the notebook open to a blank page, uncapped my pen, and stared at the empty white space.
Bet. Porsche.
Sarah's words from the hallway played on loop in my mind like a broken record, each repetition driving the knife a little deeper. I forced myself to take a deep breath, then let it out slowly.
I forced my gaze up to the projection screen, where the director was organizing files and smiling at someone. His voice filtered through the fog in my head.
"...this quarter's case processing increased by twelve percent compared to last year..."
"...coverage for vulnerable populations improved by eight percentage points..."
I should be taking notes. I should care about these numbers. But all I could think about was how stupid I'd been, how easily I'd fallen for it.
Jeremy's voice sharpened. "...which brings us to our federal audit progress."
The room's atmosphere shifted. People sat up straighter. The casual mood evaporated.
Julian rose from his seat at the head of the table.
Even through the chaos in my head, his presence cut through everything else. Those silver-gray eyes scanned the room with cold precision. I found myself sitting straighter too, some instinct overriding the mess of my thoughts.
"Over the past week," he began, his voice carrying that military authority I'd come to recognize, "coordination between branches on case processing and data organization has been commendable."
He paused. His gaze swept the room and landed on me for a fraction of a second.
I kept my face blank. Neutral. Professional.
His eyes moved on.
"But I need to emphasize this—data improvements cannot come at the cost of truth. Federal audits exist to uncover problems and solve them, not to paint over cracks in the foundation." He leaned forward, hands braced on the table. "Moving forward, we're focusing on abandoned infrastructure and unresolved pollution cases."
Around the table, deputies and supervisors exchanged nervous glances. The woman beside me shifted in her seat. I could feel the collective anxiety thickening the air.
Abandoned projects. Pollution. The kind of corruption that had calcified over years, protected by money and power.
Jeremy's smile went tight, but he recovered quickly. "Absolutely, Inspector General. Full cooperation. We're committed to complete transparency."
"Good." Julian straightened. "Detailed briefings on all outstanding cases by end of week."
The meeting dragged on—quarterly reports, policy updates, the usual bureaucratic drone—but I barely heard any of it. My pen moved across the paper in meaningless loops and half-words, my mind a thousand miles away.
When Wright finally adjourned the meeting, I stood with everyone else and reached for my bag, planning to escape to the bathroom.
"Ms. Grey."
I froze.
Jeremy stood a few feet away, his expression somewhere between nervous and ingratiating. "Could you stay for a moment?"
My stomach dropped. I glanced toward the head of the table where Julian stood reviewing his tablet, Ethan hovering nearby. "Of course."
The conference room emptied until only a few of us remained.
I sat back down and folded my hands on my closed notebook, trying to ignore how exposed I felt.
Julian looked up from his tablet. His gaze found mine immediately, and I felt that familiar jolt—like standing too close to a live wire.