Chapter 6
When I pushed open the conference room doors, the room was already packed.
Four board members were present, alongside representatives from legal, PR, and compliance—not a single department was missing.
Victoria was there too, seated at the far right, looking as though she had come specifically to watch an execution.
Julia sat next to Andrew, a stack of public sentiment reports laid out before her.
As I walked in, every head turned to look at me.
No one offered me a seat, and no one poured me water. It felt as though I had stepped into a courtroom for my own sentencing.
Andrew looked up, his eyes resting on me for a brief second. "Sit."
I took a seat.
He slid an internal report across the table toward me.
The title was a single concise line: [Internal Report Regarding the Mindwell Project Permission Management Dispute.]
At the bottom of the page, a signature line had been reserved for my name.
I scanned the contents.
It was beautifully phrased: [Due to historical ambiguities in permission allocation, external misunderstandings have arisen. The project team deeply regrets the situation. Corresponding access rights will hereafter be managed under Julia's team.]
Not a single word explicitly accused me of leaking the data, yet every sentence made it clear to the public that I was taking the fall.
I looked up at Andrew. "What is the meaning of this?"
The room fell so quiet you could hear the rustle of paper.
"We need to quell the backlash first," Andrew said, his tone perfectly steady. "The media will follow up this afternoon, and the board needs to see a firm stance. You were the original project lead.
"If you step forward, it will be much easier to contain."
I stared at him. "So, you want me to confess?"
He frowned slightly. "It's not about confessing to a crime. It's about representing the project to issue an apology.
"You've always held the permissions, so the public naturally assumes it's tied to you anyway. Now isn't the time to assign blame—it's time for damage control."
Damage control. Always the bigger picture. Always sweeping it under the rug first.
It seemed that every single time someone needed to take a step back, that person was expected to be me.
"Have you checked the system logs?" I asked.
"It's being investigated," he said.
"Do you know who leaked the interview?"
"We're looking into that as well."
"Do you know someone tampered with the patient tags?"
This time, he didn't answer immediately.
He merely glanced up at Julia—a look so brief an outsider would have missed it completely.
But I caught it.
It wasn't that he didn't know something was wrong.
He had simply weighed his options.
Julia had just returned to the country, bringing her overseas network with her. The board was watching, and so was the media.
Rather than investigating who had played dirty behind the scenes, he needed someone to step up and put out the fire immediately.
And I was the most convenient choice.
Victoria spoke up first. "Dr. Lane, you need to see the bigger picture.
"The company has supported you for three years; you shouldn't be making trouble at such a critical moment. With rumors flying like this outside, a single statement from you will put the whole matter to rest."
A board member beside her chimed in with a slight smile. "Ms. Grant was dragged into this storm right after returning, which really isn't ideal.
"Dr. Lane is company family, after all—taking the hit here is best for everyone."
Best for everyone.
Except me.
Julia didn't utter a single harsh word.
She simply slid a new media response draft toward me. "Dr. Lane, I've already polished the wording for you.