"Young Mr. Butler, you need to calm down. You're the one who hit a coworker first. We're just doing our jobs—"
"The rules? I am the rules! Listen to me. If that little bitch isn't fired today, and on her knees apologizing to me, this is not over!"
Just then Piers walked out of the building.
He spotted me at once and came straight over, taking my hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Waiting long?"
"No, just got here."
I smiled up at him, and John Butler caught the whole thing.
One look at how close we were, and something clicked behind his eyes.
"You—I knew it was you pulling the strings! Firing my sister wasn't enough, you had to get me fired too?"
He wrenched free of the guards and came at me with his fist raised.
Piers's face went hard. He pushed me behind him and drove a foot straight into John's stomach.
"Get him out of here."
The two guards moved in and hauled John off.
"You bitch—you think you can go after my family? My father will never let this slide. You just wait!"
John's shouting faded down the street, and Piers turned to me, worry plain on his face.
"Ernest Butler's been one of this city's top entrepreneurs for years. What happened? Why are you doing this?"
I shook my head. I didn't want to explain.
That night, I got a call from an unknown number, but the voice was unmistakable.
Ernest Butler.
Twenty years.
Hearing that voice again, my heart still clenched before I could stop it.
"So you're the CEO of Bedrock Tech?"
There was a faint, condescending edge to him on the line.
"I am."
"Who gave you the nerve to come after my children?"
I let out a thin laugh and gave it back to him without mercy.
"Mr. Butler, are you sure you've got this right? Butler Group next to Bedrock—the market left you behind a long time ago. Why would I waste my time going after a failure?"
"You—"
That tipped him over the edge. I doubt anyone half his age had ever spoken to him like that in his life.
I could hear him breathing hard on the other end.
"Fine. Very good! Young and reckless, no idea who you're dealing with!"
"You think Bedrock is so impressive? Let's see how many days you last."
"I'll be waiting."
I said it calmly and hung up.
Ernest moved fast.
First thing the next morning, my assistant rushed in clutching her phone, her face grim.
"Ms. Butler, you need to see this!"
Number three on the trending list, in bold: 【Bedrock Tech CEO's Messy Private Life】.
I scrolled down.
A handful of gossip accounts had posted long write-ups claiming a woman barely past twenty in the CEO's chair had to have a sugar daddy bankrolling her.
Then came post after post, all hinting that our core technology didn't hold up and we were scamming the market with pure hype.
"Ms. Butler, several of our partners have already called asking about it," my assistant said, her voice shaking. "If we don't handle this soon, they may pull their investment."
Before I could say a word, there was a knock at the office door.
An assistant from PR hurried in with a laptop.
"It's bad, Ms. Butler. Lisa Butler's posted a video too!"
I took the laptop and looked.
In the video, Lisa Butler sat before the camera in flawless makeup, walking through the project reports she'd done during her internship, one by one.
"These are all the projects I completed during my internship at Bedrock Tech. Every one of them is my own hard work. My numbers were the best of anyone in my class, and yet Ms. Butler fired me in front of everyone, without giving a single reason."
She paused, her eyes going faintly red at the rims.
“Later I found out that two of the male interns had private contact with Ms. Butler. I don't want to assume the worst about anyone, but the facts are right there in front of us.”
The video ended on a side-by-side image of her and one of those male interns.
The caption read： Where did I fall short?
My assistant slapped the desk, furious.
“This is garbage. That intern handled back-end work. He never touched a single project metric!”
The head of PR wrung his hands, frantic.
“Ms. Butler, public opinion is completely one-sided right now. Everyone's calling us a workplace-bullying company. Why don't you put out a statement and clear things up?”
I nodded.
“A statement is exactly what's needed.”
But what I filed wasn't a clarification. I sued Lisa Butler directly for spreading lies and damaging the company's reputation.
The move sent the Butlers into a rage all over again.
Within days, Ernest Butler reached out to the TV station and arranged a fully televised, live confrontation, asking whether I had the nerve to show up.
I was about to accept when Piers rushed over to stop me.
“Eunie, don't go! Ernest has lined up a dozen outlets. The host and the panelists are all bought and paid for, and they've scripted the whole thing. The second you walk in, the hit pieces start flying!”
I heard him out, then asked him one thing.
“Can you get me control of the live broadcast feed?”
He nodded before he could think about it.
“That, yes. But——”
“Then that's enough.”
I sent Ernest Butler a message right then.
“I'll be there.”
I set down my phone, turned, and walked into the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror.
The woman in the glass wore a dark gray suit, standing perfectly straight.
Twenty years. From the day my mother died to this one, I had been waiting for this broadcast.
I spoke softly to my reflection.
“Mom, this day finally came.”
