Chapter 3 · My Ex-Fiancée Made Me An Admin, I Made Her Company Worthless

My stomach burned again, not from anger, but from a gut-deep, sickening hollowness.

I got up, grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet, and took a big swig straight from the bottle, no ice.

The fiery liquid scorched my throat, but unexpectedly calmed the storm in my chest.

My phone rang again, this time from an unknown number.

I picked up without a word.

"Richard, it's me, Mandy." Her voice wasn't the icy tone from the meeting room anymore. Now it was laced with barely contained anger. "What do you mean by blocking me? Do you think this is funny?"

"Is there something you need?" I replied, my voice flat.

"Get your ass back here right now. Withdraw your resignation. I can pretend none of this ever happened," she ordered, her tone dripping with condescension.

I let out a cold laugh. "Ms. Lynch, have you forgotten? I'm not your employee anymore."

"You will live to regret this, Richard. Without the Grand Apex name behind you, that worthless system of yours is not worth a dime. Mark my words, in three months you'll be back on your knees begging me."

"Is that so?" I swirled the bottle, watching the amber liquid slosh around. "Let's see who ends up begging whom."

With that, I hung up and blocked this number, too.

Regret? I had never done anything in my life that I would regret. The ones who should be regretting were them.

I pulled out my phone and dialed another number.

The call was picked up after one ring, and a cool, crisp female voice came through. "Mr. Ludwig, have you made your decision?"

"I have, Ms. Pierce." I gazed out at the bustling city below. "The Polaris system goes live tonight at midnight, on the dot."

The woman on the other end let out a soft laugh. "Excellent. Mr. Ludwig, welcome to the new world. I promise, you'll love it here."

*****

Things were quiet the next day.

Grand Apex Group's stock even ticked up by 0.5%.

Kevin was all smug. He posted a photo from inside the director's office in the group chat. The pothos I used to keep there had been replaced with a massive money tree.

He also dropped a pointed message in the chat: [New chapter, new journey. Grateful for the company's trust. Ready to lead Marketing to even greater heights.]

Everyone rushed to like and comment, throwing out crap like "Congrats, Mr. Smith" and "Mr. Smith, you're the best."

Henry sent me a message. Nothing but an angry emoji.

I texted back: [Take it easy.]

Mandy didn't contact me again. She was probably confident she'd already won, waiting for me to come crawling back.

I was happy to enjoy the peace, sleeping through the day at home.

On the morning of the third day, my phone started buzzing. It was from Henry.

He sounded like he was about to cry. "Richard, something's happened. The Polaris system crashed."

"What happened?" I asked, pretending to be surprised.

"I have no idea. This morning, our biggest client, Global Trade Group, was using the system for a global live marketing event, and the backend suddenly froze.

"All the data turned into gibberish. Now the client is demanding compensation of 30 million dollars."

30 million dollars. That was exactly the annual profit from the Global Trade Group contract.

I felt nothing. If anything, I almost wanted to laugh. "What about Kevin? Didn't he do anything?"

"Him? He doesn't know shit." Henry's voice dripped with contempt. "He spent the whole morning with the tech team, rebooting the servers again and again, and now the whole system's blue-screened. He's totally lost it, smashing stuff in the office."

"What about Mandy?"

"Ms. Lynch and the Chairman are on a video call with the client right now. I walked past the conference room and heard shouting inside. Sounds like the Chairman tore her apart."

As expected. The Polaris system went down exactly 72 hours after my departure. Right on schedule. Perfectly timed to sabotage Global Trade Group's live event.

This was the second present I handed them.

Chapter 3

My stomach burned again, not from anger, but from a gut-deep, sickening hollowness.

I got up, grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet, and took a big swig straight from the bottle, no ice.

The fiery liquid scorched my throat, but unexpectedly calmed the storm in my chest.

My phone rang again, this time from an unknown number.

I picked up without a word.

"Richard, it's me, Mandy." Her voice wasn't the icy tone from the meeting room anymore. Now it was laced with barely contained anger. "What do you mean by blocking me? Do you think this is funny?"

"Is there something you need?" I replied, my voice flat.

"Get your ass back here right now. Withdraw your resignation. I can pretend none of this ever happened," she ordered, her tone dripping with condescension.

I let out a cold laugh. "Ms. Lynch, have you forgotten? I'm not your employee anymore."

"Is that so?" I swirled the bottle, watching the amber liquid slosh around. "Let's see who ends up begging whom."

With that, I hung up and blocked this number, too.

Regret? I had never done anything in my life that I would regret. The ones who should be regretting were them.

I pulled out my phone and dialed another number.

The call was picked up after one ring, and a cool, crisp female voice came through. "Mr. Ludwig, have you made your decision?"

"I have, Ms. Pierce." I gazed out at the bustling city below. "The Polaris system goes live tonight at midnight, on the dot."

The woman on the other end let out a soft laugh. "Excellent. Mr. Ludwig, welcome to the new world. I promise, you'll love it here."

*****

Things were quiet the next day.

Grand Apex Group's stock even ticked up by 0.5%.

Kevin was all smug. He posted a photo from inside the director's office in the group chat. The pothos I used to keep there had been replaced with a massive money tree.

He also dropped a pointed message in the chat: [New chapter, new journey. Grateful for the company's trust. Ready to lead Marketing to even greater heights.]

Everyone rushed to like and comment, throwing out crap like "Congrats, Mr. Smith" and "Mr. Smith, you're the best."

Henry sent me a message. Nothing but an angry emoji.

I texted back: [Take it easy.]

Mandy didn't contact me again. She was probably confident she'd already won, waiting for me to come crawling back.

I was happy to enjoy the peace, sleeping through the day at home.

On the morning of the third day, my phone started buzzing. It was from Henry.

He sounded like he was about to cry. "Richard, something's happened. The Polaris system crashed."

"What happened?" I asked, pretending to be surprised.

"I have no idea. This morning, our biggest client, Global Trade Group, was using the system for a global live marketing event, and the backend suddenly froze.

"All the data turned into gibberish. Now the client is demanding compensation of 30 million dollars."

30 million dollars. That was exactly the annual profit from the Global Trade Group contract.

I felt nothing. If anything, I almost wanted to laugh. "What about Kevin? Didn't he do anything?"

"What about Mandy?"

"Ms. Lynch and the Chairman are on a video call with the client right now. I walked past the conference room and heard shouting inside. Sounds like the Chairman tore her apart."

As expected. The Polaris system went down exactly 72 hours after my departure. Right on schedule. Perfectly timed to sabotage Global Trade Group's live event.

This was the second present I handed them.