Arianna backed away from the bed. She turned and slipped into the master bathroom, pulling the heavy frosted glass door shut behind her with a soft click.
She didn't turn on the main overhead light. She only flicked on the dim sconce above the marble sink. The light was weak and yellow, barely illuminating the room.
She leaned her back against the cold tile wall and let out a long, shaky breath. Her silk pajamas were sticking to her skin, soaked in cold sweat. The tile was freezing through the thin fabric.
She unlocked her phone and opened her photo gallery.
She zoomed in on the high-resolution pictures she had just taken. She read through the texts again, processing the information with the cold, detached logic she usually reserved for debugging broken code.
She noticed a text from Cristy three days ago.
Miss you, G-Bear.
Arianna shuddered. A wave of physical revulsion washed over her. Gregory despised nicknames. He had snapped at her once, years ago, for calling him 'Greg' in front of a client. His jaw had tightened, and later that night he'd told her coldly that it sounded unprofessional. But he let this twenty-two-year-old call him G-Bear.
She swiped to the next photo.
It was a link to a Sephora page for a limited-edition floral perfume.
I want this so bad, Cristy wrote.
Be a good girl at work this week, and I'll take you to Fifth Avenue to buy it. I grabbed a sample for you today to hold you over, Gregory replied.
The puzzle pieces snapped together. The lie in the living room was completely exposed. The perfume sample in his jacket—it wasn't for her. It was never for her.
Arianna swiped again. Her eyes narrowed. The tone of the texts changed.
I hate sneaking around the office, Cristy complained. I want a real title. I don't want to be an intern anymore.
Gregory's reply made the blood freeze in Arianna's veins.
It wasn't a text. It was a fifteen-second audio message. Arianna's pulse hammered in her throat. She pressed the volume button down until it was barely a whisper, then held the phone's speaker directly to her ear. She tapped play.
Gregory's voice, low and conspiratorial, filtered through the tiny speaker. "Just be patient, baby. Wait until Arianna finishes building the backend architecture for the Olympus project. Once her code is locked and the investors are happy, I'm calling a board vote to push her out. The Art Director chair is yours."
Arianna stopped breathing. The bathroom walls seemed to close in on her.
He wasn't just cheating on her. He was actively plotting to steal the core technology she had built from scratch. He was going to strip her of her equity and hand a senior executive role to his mistress.
A low, dark laugh echoed in the quiet bathroom. It sounded completely foreign to her own ears, harsh and humorless.
She opened the encrypted cloud storage app on her phone.
She selected all the photos. She created a new folder, locked it behind a two-factor authentication firewall, and hit upload. This was her first piece of leverage. The progress bar crept across the screen.
Once it hit 100%, she deleted the photos from her local camera roll and wiped the 'Recently Deleted' folder. Every trace, gone.
She walked over to the sink. She turned on the cold water. It splashed loudly in the silence.
She pumped a massive amount of soap into her hands and scrubbed them violently under the freezing water. She scrubbed until her skin was raw and red, trying to wash away the feeling of his phone against her skin.
She looked up at the mirror. Her face was pale, her hair escaping its loose ponytail, dark circles bruising the skin under her eyes. But her eyes were hard. The devastation was gone. Only pure, calculated rage remained.
She dried her hands on a plush white towel and walked out of the bathroom.
She stood at the edge of the bed. Gregory had rolled over, stealing most of the duvet, leaving her side bare. He looked peaceful, his face relaxed in sleep, completely unaware.
She didn't pull the covers back. She walked into the closet, grabbed a heavy cashmere blanket from the shelf, and walked out to the living room.
She curled up on the sofa in the dark. The city lights cast long rectangles of light across the floor. She stared at them, mapping out the corporate structure of the company in her head, preparing for war. But she knew digital evidence wouldn't be enough. She needed physical proof of his infidelity and his corporate sabotage. She pulled out her phone, opened a secure, encrypted browser, and typed in 'New York elite corporate espionage investigators'. After ten minutes of vetting credentials, she found a name: Vance. She drafted a brief, untraceable email, setting up a retainer. It was time to use professional methods.
