Chapter 4

9:00 AM struck. The final review for Crescent Bay officially began.

Richard stood confidently at the head of the long table. The bright projector beam lit up his back. He used his smooth, elite voice to command the room.

"Gentlemen, look at the curved glass wall on the west side," he instructed. "It captures the sunset perfectly. It gives the grand lobby a golden glow."

I listened quietly through my screen. For twelve years, I was always the hidden voice in his ear. I fed him all the complex technical answers. I covered up his fatal design mistakes.

Today, my microphone stayed completely muted. He only had dead silence in his earpiece.

Richard kept talking and pointing. Sienna smiled proudly next to him. She soaked up the attention of the rich executives.

But the chief engineering consultant was not smiling at all. His deep frown quickly turned into a cold sneer.

"Mr. Hale, the aesthetic curve is indeed beautiful," the consultant interrupted. He pushed up his glasses. "But I read your structural parameters. At 3 PM every day, this specific wall becomes a giant focus point for the sun."

Richard's confident mask instantly cracked.

The consultant slammed the heavy blueprints onto the table. He was absolutely furious.

"Where does all that intense heat go? You did not design a luxury hotel. You designed a giant solar oven! Do you want to roast the guests alive at 3 PM?"

Richard turned completely pale. He knew absolutely nothing about the solar heat issue. He only cared about drawing pretty shapes. He started mumbling weakly about a smart cooling system.

Sienna panicked. She desperately wanted to prove her worth to the room.

"Don't worry! We have an optimized backup plan!" she yelled out.

She eagerly opened the file she stole yesterday. She pressed enter.

But a beautiful 3D hotel design did not appear. Instead, the architectural software automatically switched to the 'Stress Analysis View'.

The entire 3D building model flashed in a violent, high-risk red. A giant system warning popped up in the center of the screen:

CRITICAL STRUCTURAL FAILURE - RAW DRAFT UNVERIFIED.

The clients stared at the alarming red screen in total confusion. Richard's hands began to shake violently.

I unmuted my microphone.

"You don't need to check the software, Richard," I said clearly through the speakers.

"For twelve years, I always cleaned your final blueprints," I explained to the shocked room. "I fixed your terrible math. I made your crazy ideas structurally safe. I protected your reputation."

I paused, letting the heavy silence hang.

"But seven years ago, I put a safety lock on my raw drafts. If someone steals the raw file without my final calculation key, the system runs a stress test and exposes the fatal structural paradoxes. Sienna stole the raw file yesterday. She didn't know she needed my safety key."

Dead silence filled the large room.

"Every single time you took the credit," I said coldly, "I was the one keeping your buildings from collapsing into dust." "You don't even know how your own designs actually work."

Richard looked exactly like a ghost.

The panicked clients whispered urgently to each other. One top executive angrily closed his folder. They openly talked about dropping Hale Design immediately.

Richard looked completely defeated. But suddenly, his lips twisted into a dark smile.

"Evelyn," he said, looking straight at the web camera. "Thank you."

He walked slowly back to the computer podium.

"Thank you for publicly admitting you hacked our private company servers," he said.

He pressed a button on the keyboard. The screen instantly changed. An official HR document appeared for everyone to see.

It read in bold letters: EVELYN HALE - PERSONAL CREATIVE ASSISTANT.

Richard put his familiar, smooth smile back on his face. "My wife did indeed help me," he lied to the executives. "She organized my files. She checked for minor typos. She handled the boring administrative details."

He looked straight into my camera lens.

"But helping an architect doesn't magically make you one," he stated.

A cold weight dropped in my chest. He was breathtakingly evil. He used a single piece of paper to erase my twelve years of blood and sweat. He seamlessly turned me into a crazy, jealous, and vengeful ex-wife.

The lead client looked at the HR screen. Then he looked at my video feed.

"Mrs. Hale, you say the design is truly yours," the client said carefully. "Can you prove it?"

Richard stepped back from the podium. He generously gave me the floor. He arrogantly thought I had absolutely no proof. I had no rich clients of my own.

I lifted my chin. I stared right back into his arrogant eyes through the screen.

"Yes," I said with absolute certainty. "Of course I can."