The city looked different from the top floor of the penthouse. Not brighter. Not darker. Just different. Giselle stood motionless before the wide glass window, arms crossed, her breath misting faintly against the cool surface. Down below, the buzz of Veloria's name still echoed headlines, interviews, celebrations. The world thought she had lost. But they never really understood her war.
She closed her eyes. Silence. And in that silence, the memories returned. Reza's handshake at the first pitch. Aruna's promise to never leave her side. Naya's laughter in late-night brainstorming sessions. All lies. All burnt bridges.
Her phone vibrated, but she didn't check. She already knew who it was.
A soft knock broke the silence.
She turned. The door was already open unlocked, because she had nothing left to protect.
A man stepped in. Silver hair, slicked back. Tailored navy suit, no tie. Eyes like knives.
"Still playing the martyr, Giselle?" he asked, voice smooth like an old violin.
She didn't smile. "You came."
"You summoned," he corrected. "You never stopped being part of the board. Just because they forgot doesn't mean I did."
Giselle walked to the bar, poured herself a glass of cold water. "I lost."
He chuckled. "No, you served your role. Exactly as we discussed three years ago."
She stiffened slightly. "I didn't burn Veloria to serve you. I did it for me."
"Of course," he said, approaching the window. "But a fire, once lit, spreads beyond the arsonist's control."
There was a long silence.
Then he added, "Have you told her about the contract?"
Giselle's jaw clenched. "No."
"Good." He turned. "Then the final act can proceed. We'll file the intellectual property claim this week under your original signature."
She blinked. "You kept the shell company?"
He gave her a faint smile. "You thought I wouldn't?"
Giselle downed the water and set the glass down with a soft thud. "I'm not going back."
"I don't need you to." His eyes gleamed. "You've already poisoned the roots. Now watch the tree collapse."
Across the city, at Veloria HQ, Aruna leaned back in her chair, exhausted but victorious.
The week had been filled with meetings, apologies, and re-stabilization. Reza and Naya were rebuilding momentum around the edutech division. Investors, once hesitant, had returned. Giselle's sabotage was contained. Or so they thought.
Nadia, the new hire in operations, had spent the morning organizing damage reports. Despite being wrongly accused before, she was remarkably composed.
"I've sorted the breach reports by severity," she said, handing Aruna a tablet.
"Thank you," Aruna replied. "And… sorry again. About before."
Nadia offered a faint smile. "I understand. Pressure does strange things."
Just as Nadia turned to leave, a ping echoed through Aruna's laptop. New email. Legal department. Subject: URGENT – Potential IP Conflict.
She frowned, opened it, and scanned the content.
Her fingers froze.
At the top of the scanned document was Giselle's name. Not recent the signature dated back three years ago. The document detailed an ownership claim over several early architectural designs of Veloria's education platform code structures, UI/UX templates, algorithm flows. All filed under a third-party entity: Erevos Holdings.
A company she had never heard of.
But someone had.
"Reza," she called through the door. "Come here. Now."
Reza entered, confused. "What's wrong?"
She handed him the laptop wordlessly.
His brow furrowed deeper with every line. "This… this can't be real. Giselle never filed this under Veloria."
"She didn't," Aruna said, her voice low. "She filed it under a shell."
Reza sat down, stunned. "If this holds… this could override our current copyrights. We'd have to prove she acted on behalf of Veloria at the time."
Aruna's mind raced. "No. We have to prove she didn't act independently. If this shell company existed before she left, and we didn't dissolve it—"
"—Then technically," Reza finished grimly, "the shell owns part of Veloria's foundation."
Aruna stood, her stomach sinking. The fire was supposed to be over. They had faced Giselle. She had lost.
But now, as she stared at the timestamp on the document, she realized something horrifying.
"She planned this," she whispered. "Even before the fallout. She knew we'd push her out. She laid a trap years ago… and we walked right into it."
Reza looked at her, defeated. "We celebrated too soon."
Back in the penthouse, Giselle sat on the couch, alone again. The man was gone. The city still buzzed beneath her.
She lit a cigarette. Not out of habit just ritual. The smoke curled upward, like the remnants of a bridge burnt long ago.
Her phone vibrated once more.
This time, she picked it up.
A message from the Erevos Holdings legal team:
"Submission confirmed. Lawsuit begins Monday."
She didn't smile. She didn't cry. She simply watched the smoke rise and thought:
"They tried to erase me. But now, even my absence will haunt them."
And far away, beneath the neon glow of Veloria's empire, the ashes began to whisper back.