Chapter 2
Charles had personally told me to go.
He said, "Go and network a bit. The brand only trusts you."
And now that was supposed to be my crime?
Then, Charles's voice came through the earpiece.
"Grace, don't get upset. Just finish tonight's exclusive stream, show your professionalism one last time. After this, we'll go our separate ways peacefully, and I'll write you a reference letter," he said.
Professionalism.
Go our separate ways peacefully.
A reference letter.
I'd been with Radiant Media for four years.
I started from scratch, built up the livestream team, and grew sales from just 10,000 dollars a day to about 67 million dollars a month.
Seventy percent of the company's brand deals came from my own connections.
Out of 365 days a year, I spent 300 in the livestream room, never made it to a single parent-teacher meeting for my daughter.
And now, they wanted me to "show professionalism," finish this last stream, and then get lost.
Why should I?
I remembered what happened a month ago.
Charles had just hired a new female streamer, Emma Lane.
Her resume claimed she had three years of livestream selling experience and over five million fans online.
She only did two streams, and her return rate hit 78%, with her highest viewership never even breaking 20,000.
But Emma had an edge no one else did, she was Edward Lane's niece.
Edward Lane, Radiant Media's vice president, was the real boss.
After Emma joined, I got excluded from product selection meetings, my brand pitch templates were suddenly required to be "shared" with her, and two people from my team were reassigned to assist her.
A week ago, I caught Emma copying my list of brand contacts and stopped her right then and there.
The next day, Charles pulled me aside and said I "lacked vision and didn't understand teamwork."
Now I got it.
They never planned to groom a new streamer.
They just wanted me out of the picture, so Emma could take everything: my resources, my spot, everything I'd built.
And tonight's Cosmique exclusive? That was the last drop they wanted to bleed from me.
Bleed me dry, then throw me away.
Charles was still talking in my earpiece. "Grace, you're smart. Don't do anything rash. Your non-compete agreement is still with the company. If you cause trouble tonight, "
I reached up and yanked the earpiece off.
Over five million people were watching me.
The chat was blowing up: [Why did Grace stop?] [What's going on?] [Is it a signal issue?]
I looked straight at the camera.
On camera, my face was bathed in soft lighting, my makeup perfect, and everything seemed normal on the surface.
But only I knew that behind this face, something inside me had completely shattered.
I picked up the mic again.
Not to pitch any more products.
"Hey, everyone, sorry, but I've got something to announce," I said.
"The company just notified me that I'm being laid off.
"So, that's the end of today's stream."
The moment the words left my mouth, everyone backstage totally lost it.
I even heard a chair topple over in the control room next door.
Someone was shouting into the director's walkie-talkie, "Cut! Cut the feed!"
But it was already too late.
The stream was live on the public platform, there was nothing the company could do to cut it off.
Every word I spoke went out in real time to more than five million viewers.
And that number was climbing fast.
Seven million. And counting.
Eight million.
Nine million.