I fainted during a meeting from low blood pressure. The moment I woke up, my supervisor, Victoria Vance, accused me of faking it. She slapped a $1,100 disciplinary deduction slip right onto my face. "Faking an illness to disrupt the meeting? That's a thousand-dollar fine! With a pathetic work ethic like yours, how did you even become our top sales rep?" For five years, I was the undisputed sales queen, bringing in ninety percent of the company's clients. My reward? Public humiliation and malicious wage deductions. "If you can't even handle a minor health issue, don't even think about managing Julian's account." I calmly took the penalty slip and signed my name in front of the entire office. A month later, I sent my resignation letter to the CEO. Then, I formatted the encrypted USB drive and tossed it onto Victoria's desk. "Here's what your thousand-dollar fine bought you." Her face drained of all color as she stared at me. I grabbed my bag and walked out of the building. Behind me, she shrieked like a maniac: "Sienna! You'll regret this!" She had no idea that an offer letter from our biggest rival, Zenith Group, was already sitting in my inbox.
The conference room lights were blindingly bright, and without warning, my vision went black. When I finally opened my eyes, Victoria Vance's bright red lipstick was the first thing I saw, her mouth moving rapidly. "Sienna, fainting in the middle of a pitch? Why didn't you just faint all the way to the morgue?" She held a printed sheet of paper and slapped it right onto my face. "Faking an illness to disrupt company order. That's a thousand-dollar penalty, deducted directly from your paycheck this month." I propped myself up against the table. The ringing in my ears from the low blood pressure hadn't completely faded yet. "Victoria, I have chronic low blood pressure. It wasn't an act." "If you're sick, go to a hospital. Don't throw a fit at work," Victoria sneered, looking around the room. "You call yourself our top sales rep with that pathetic body? You look more like a useless slacker looking for a free ride! Look at her, everyone. This was the most important review meeting of the year, and she wasted thirty minutes of our time. With a fragile body like yours, a thousand-dollar fine is a cheap lesson. Do it again, and you're fired!" The entire conference room was dead silent. Nobody dared to speak up for me. Beside me, Chloe Carter immediately stood up and eagerly handed Victoria a bottle of water. "You're absolutely right, Victoria. This company isn't a charity. Sienna, you really need to take care of yourself and stop causing trouble for everyone else." She pretended to care, but the gleeful smirk in her eyes was unmistakable. I ignored her. I just looked at Victoria calmly. "Fine. Do I need to sign the deduction slip?" Victoria didn't expect me to comply so easily. She blinked, surprised, before letting out a contemptuous snort. "At least you know your place." She thought I was backing down. I just didn't want to waste my breath. I had been at Apex Solutions for five years. I went from a clueless intern to the backbone of the sales department. Ninety percent of our clients were secured by me, one grueling negotiation at a time. Victoria was a nepo-baby hired six months ago. She knew absolutely nothing about sales, but she was a master of office politics. She hated me from day one, probably because I was blocking her from placing her own friends in my position. Over the past six months, she took credit for my project reports, sidelined my team members, and held up my expense reimbursements for three months without any reason. I endured all of it. My husband, Ethan, always told me to let it go. He said it was just a job, and keeping the peace was better for our family. He was climbing the corporate ladder himself, and he didn't want any drama from my end to affect our life. But today's thousand-dollar fine wasn't just a minor setback. It was a direct spit to my face, stepping on my dignity and grinding it into the dirt. I picked up the penalty slip. The name "Sienna" printed on it felt like an eyesore. Back at my desk, I opened my laptop. Instead of working, I messaged a recruiter I hadn't contacted in a long time. "Rachel, is that new opportunity you mentioned still open?" She replied instantly. "Sienna! Of course! Zenith Group has been waiting for you. I'll send you the job description right away." Zenith Group---Apex's biggest competitor. I closed the chat, clicked on an encrypted folder, and started organizing five years' worth of client profiles, supplier contracts, and final pricing bids. Every single file represented late nights, endless coffee, and ulcers from high-stakes dinners. Victoria, you used a thousand dollars to teach me a lesson. I'll use these files to teach you an eighty-million-dollar lesson.
For the next month, I lived the dream life of a nine-to-five worker. The second the clock hit five, I clocked out and muted my phone. Victoria tagged me a hundred times in our WhatsApp work group, but I ignored every single notification. She targeted me during our morning team meeting: "Sienna, is your workload too light lately? Have you followed up with our clients?" "Are the supplier renewals signed? Don't think your seniority gives you the right to slack off!" In front of everyone, I handed her a thick folder. "Victoria, here is my complete daily log submitted yesterday before five. Every single task you mentioned has been completed. If you feel my workload is too light, feel free to assign me more projects. However, any overtime needs to be requested and approved in advance, otherwise it violates company policy." Her face turned the color of raw liver, completely speechless. Seeing this, Chloe immediately jumped in to smooth things over. "Oh, Sienna, Victoria is just looking out for you. She wants you to reach your full potential. Speaking of which, you've been working on Julian Miller's account for six months. Why don't I help you lighten the load?" Julian Miller was our biggest potential client. I had poured my heart into getting him to agree to the final pricing phase. Chloe had been drooling over this account for ages. I smiled and pushed a file toward her. "Sure. Since you're so eager, you can handle this one first." She took it, and her smile instantly vanished. It was a notoriously difficult supplier we had been arguing with for two months over contract details. "Sienna, this..." "Weren't you trying to lighten my load?" I looked at her calmly. "If you can't even handle a minor dispute like this, how do you expect to manage Julian's account?" Chloe's face flushed with embarrassment, but she had no choice but to take the file. Victoria watched from the side, silent and cold. She wanted nothing more than for Chloe to snatch my clients so she could kick me out for good. Then, she started sabotaging me. She rejected my client entertainment expenses, claiming it "didn't align with the company's frugal budget." She held up the approval for client gifts, refusing to sign off on them. It didn't matter. I paid out of my own pocket and bypassed her whenever I could. Every rejected request, every delayed email---I took screenshots of everything and saved them in my encrypted folder. These were my receipts. When I got home that night, Ethan saw my sour mood and started lecturing me again. "Isn't your manager just trying to assert some authority? Just swallow your pride, buy her a nice gift, and get over it. Why do you have to make things so tense?" I looked at him, suddenly feeling exhausted. "Ethan, I was the one who got fined a thousand dollars. I was the one humiliated in public, and I was the one whose hard work was stolen. All you ever do is tell me to swallow my pride and back down." "What else do you want to do? Sienna, are you really going to quit? How are we going to pay our $2,500 monthly mortgage? My career is finally taking off. Can't you just keep things stable for the sake of our home?" Always "for the sake of our home." I shut my mouth, refusing to argue. He didn't understand, or rather, he didn't care about my feelings at all. He only cared about his career, his mortgage, and his comfortable life. I opened my laptop and continued organizing my client database. Ethan leaned over to glance at my screen, frowning. "What are you doing with all that? Planning to jump ship? Let me warn you, don't do anything stupid. Your company has a non-compete agreement." I sneered inwardly. He didn't even remember that I only signed a standard employment contract. There was no non-compete clause. He only knew how to warn and restrict me. I calmly closed my laptop. "Don't worry. I know what I'm doing." What I was doing was making sure that before I left, I would take every single thing that belonged to me.
Victoria's patience had clearly run out. During Monday's meeting, she announced a sudden reorganization of client accounts. "To encourage healthy competition, we are reassigning all major accounts. Sienna, you will hand over Julian Miller's account and your other major clients to Chloe and the younger reps so they can get some real-world experience. As for you, you will focus on training the new hires and handling basic administrative tasks." This was basically demoting me from top sales executive to a secretary. Chloe's face flushed with excitement. She couldn't wait to stand up and show her loyalty. "Thank you so much, Victoria! I won't let you down. I promise to close Julian's deal!" I sat in my chair, completely silent. Victoria was highly satisfied with my "silence." She tapped her pen on the table, looking like a victorious queen. "Sienna, make sure all client files are organized and handed over to Chloe before you leave today. Remember, leave nothing out." "Fine." I said only one word. In the afternoon, Chloe strutted over to my desk in her high heels, looking incredibly smug. "Sienna, you can hand over the files now. I need everything---your chat logs with the clients, their custom pricing limits, even their family members' birthdays. The more detailed, the better." She thought I was an idiot. She wanted to steal the entire network of relationships I had built over five years in one go. I nodded, took an encrypted USB drive out of my drawer, and handed it to her. "Everything is in here." She snatched it eagerly and plugged it into her laptop. She opened it and saw the files, but every single one had a lock icon on it. It was encrypted by the company's internal system, requiring my personal authorization key to open. The suspicion on her face turned into greedy excitement, then quickly into confusion. "Sienna, why can't I open these?" "I'll send you the password later," I said calmly. She pulled out the USB drive like a trophy, thinking she'd get the password sooner or later. "Great. These clients have nothing to do with you now. Go enjoy your new hires." After she left, I looked at my empty desktop. I logged into the company's central file server. Every client profile, project template, and sales strategy guide I had created myself was now locked under my exclusive encrypted permission. Then, I sent Julian Miller a text message on Snapchat. "Hi Julian. Just wanted to let you know that due to some internal restructuring, I will be leaving Apex Solutions soon. My colleague will be taking over your account. Thank you so much for your trust and support over the past six months." Julian's phone call came through on FaceTime immediately. "Sienna, what's going on? You're leaving? What is your company playing at, changing reps right at the finish line? I don't even want to meet this new person! If you aren't managing this project, I'm not signing!" I calmed him down, telling him it was just a regular career transition and that I would handle things properly. After hanging up, I sent similar messages to my other core clients. Without exception, every single one of them said they only trusted me. By the time I finished, the sky was dark. I shut down my computer, packed my bags, and went home. That night, Ethan came home beaming, eager to tell me he had basically secured the director position at his company. "Babe, thanks for staying quiet and not causing any trouble lately. Once I get this promotion and raise, we can upgrade to a bigger house." As he spoke, he casually tossed his dirty laundry onto the couch as if it were my job to clean it. I looked at him, feeling a strange sense of peace. "Ethan, we need to talk." "About what? I'm sharing great news with you!" "I want a divorce," I said softly. The smile on his face instantly froze.
"A divorce? Sienna, have you lost your mind?" Ethan's voice went up an octave. He stared at me in disbelief, as if looking at a stranger. "Just because you're having a hard time at work, you're using divorce to threaten me? Can you grow up for once?" I pulled out the pre-drafted divorce papers from the drawer and pushed them toward him. "I'm not threatening you. I'm serious. We split the assets equally. You keep the house, just buy out my half of the equity. I don't want any alimony." Ethan stared at the papers, shaking with anger. "I don't agree! I'm about to become a director, Sienna! Don't ruin my life right at this moment! I am not signing this!" "Then I'll file for a contested divorce," I looked at him calmly. "For the past five years, did you ever actually treat me like your wife? Or was I just a tool to help pay your mortgage and satisfy your vanity?" He opened his mouth, but not a single word came out. He knew I was speaking the truth. Our argument ended on a bitter note. Ethan slammed the door and didn't come back all night. Sitting alone in the quiet living room, I felt lighter than I had in years. The next day at the office, the atmosphere was incredibly tense. Chloe spent the entire day trying to call Julian Miller using the files I gave her, but she couldn't even get past his assistant. She tried pitching a proposal to another major client, only to get yelled at and told she had no idea what she was doing. She crawled back to Victoria's office with her tail between her legs, and Victoria tore into her. In the afternoon, Victoria called me into her office, a rare, fake smile plastered on her face. "Sienna, look, Chloe is still young and doesn't know how to handle these big accounts yet. How about this? You take back Julian's project. Think of it as a chance to redeem yourself. And about that thousand-dollar fine, I'll talk to accounting and have them refund it to you." She was trying to play good cop now. Too bad I didn't care anymore. "Victoria, I'm no longer the lead on that project. We can't just bend company policy whenever we want, can we?" Victoria's fake smile vanished instantly, replaced by pure rage. "Sienna, don't push your luck! I'm giving you a way out, you better take it! Otherwise, I have plenty of ways to make your life here a living hell!" Shocked by my refusal, she began assigning me impossible tasks in front of the entire office. "I need a complete analysis report of this quarter's sales data before you leave today. Also, follow up on that dead project on the west side. I want a breakthrough by Friday. And copy these three hundred pages of documents for me. Double-sided, full color." Everyone looked at me with pity, while Chloe didn't even bother to hide her smug satisfaction. I said nothing and just did the work. On Friday at exactly 5:59 PM, I completed every single task she threw at me and sent them to her email in a neat package. Then, I sent my resignation letter to both HR and the CEO. "Effective immediately, I am resigning due to personal reasons." The moment the email sent, I permanently wiped every personal file from my work computer. Chloe had spent two days trying to crack the USB drive I gave her, but she eventually had to return it to me, defeated. I took the empty USB drive, walked over to Chloe's desk. She was currently whining to Victoria about how difficult the clients were. Right in front of them, I plugged the USB drive into my laptop. "Sienna, what are you doing?" Chloe asked warily. I ignored her, right-clicked the drive, and selected "Format." A confirmation window popped up. Under Victoria and Chloe's horrified stares, I clicked "Confirm." The progress bar completed in a second. I pulled out the empty thumb drive, placed it gently on Victoria's desk, and gave it a soft push. "Victoria, here is what your thousand-dollar fine bought you," I said, my voice echoing clearly through the quiet office. "My clients are leaving with me. You can keep this empty drive and play with it yourself." With that, I grabbed my purse and walked out, leaving the office in a stunned, deathly silence. Tomorrow, Zenith Group would announce my hiring. As for Victoria, she was about to receive termination notices from our biggest clients. The real show was about to begin.
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