Theater: NovelMaster | Language: English
Synopsis
In my past life, I spent three agonizing months mentoring Mia Vance. I pulled all-nighters polishing her project proposals and carried her performance metrics on my own back.
On the day of her full-time performance evaluation, she blindsided me. Backed by two other interns, she handed a joint complaint to HR in front of the entire company.
Their accusation? "Workplace abuse and intellectual property theft."
I froze. To make it easier for her to learn, I had always edited the files directly on her laptop without keeping local drafts on mine.
Now, my generosity became undeniable proof of my "theft."
Right there, Mia shared her screen: the edit logs, timestamps, and version histories all bore her username.
The other two interns chimed in without missing a beat:
"We saw it with our own eyes! Chloe barely changed a few words of Mia's deck before submitting it as her own. She even forced us to stay until dawn without logging our overtime!"
I was completely defenseless. I couldn't comprehend how the rookie I had nurtured with my own blood and sweat could bite me this viciously.
HR called me in and strongly advised me to hand in my resignation. Even the senior executive who had promoted me to manager was dragged down with me.
The moment I packed my things, Mia took over my desk.
Word spread fast. My professional reputation in the industry was utterly destroyed.
Crushed beneath relentless mortgage and car payments, I couldn't breathe.
Two weeks later, on a pitch-black night, I drove onto the highway, jerked the steering wheel, and ended it all.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back to three months ago, right before Mia joined the firm.
She stood before my desk, her eyes wide with manufactured innocence:
"Manager Bennett, I'm stuck on this project... Could you please teach me?"
I flipped through my documents without even looking up.
"You're in the wrong place. You're not on my team."
Mia’s eyes welled with tears in an instant.
She bit her bottom lip, her voice trembling on the edge of a sob.
"Manager Bennett, did I do something wrong?"
"I'm brand new here and know nothing. Please don't kick me out, okay?"
Her voice was deliberately loud, instantly pulling every pair of eyes in the open office right toward us.
Logan Brooks and Harper Cole, the other two interns, rushed over immediately.
These were the exact two people who had co-signed that malicious complaint with Mia in my past life, pinning baseless crimes onto my head.
Logan stepped directly in front of Mia like a valiant knight, his face burning with righteous fury.
"Manager Bennett, Mia just wants to learn from you! Why are you being so hostile?"
"We all started as rookies. Who gave you the right to throw your seniority around?"
Harper rolled her eyes and chimed in with venomous sarcasm.
"Seriously. Guiding new hires is a senior employee's basic duty."
"If you can’t even handle that, I honestly wonder how you ever made manager."
Murmurs broke out among the surrounding colleagues.
The glances directed at me grew heavy with judgment.
In my past life, I dreaded office gossip. To maintain team harmony, I swallowed every grievance with a smile.
And what did it get me?
These three ungrateful leeches drained every drop of my blood, then pushed me straight off a cliff.
I sneered and slammed my folder onto the desk.
BAM.
The entire floor dropped dead silent.
"Duty? The company pays me six figures to drive revenue, not to run an adult daycare."
"If you need someone to pamper and spoon-feed you, go home to your mommy!"
Logan’s face flushed crimson. He pointed an accusatory finger at me and yelled:
"This is toxic workplace bullying! I'm reporting you to HR right now!"
I picked up the desk phone, hit the speaker button, and dialed the Director of Human Resources directly.
The line clicked open.
I cut straight to the chase, my tone sharp as a razor.
"Sarah, did someone mess up the intern assignments?"
"Mia Vance, Logan Brooks, and Harper Cole. I refuse to take any of them."
Sarah Mitchell, our HR Director, was taken aback.
"Chloe? You're our top performer. What's the big deal about taking on a few rookies?"
"Come on, give the kids a chance."
I glared at the three interns, whose faces were already laced with smug triumph, and spoke icy words into the receiver:
"I manage producers, not toddlers who need royal treatment."
"Isn't Deputy Manager Evans always complaining about being short-staffed? Transfer all three of them to Richard."
Richard Evans was the most notorious parasite in our department.
First in line to claim credit, first out the door when blame hit the fan.
In my past life, these three enjoyed VIP white-glove treatment under my wing.
In this life, let's see how they survive Richard's brutal "guidance."
Sarah paused on the line for a couple of seconds.
"Alright. If you insist, I'll reassign them to Richard."
I hung up, pointed across the hallway, and smiled coldly.
"Did you catch that? Your manager is now Richard Evans."
"Now, grab your junk and get out of my sight. Right now."
Mia bit her lip so hard it nearly bled, glaring at me with raw malice hidden behind her teary mask.
"Manager Bennett, you're going to regret this!"
I stared right through her.
"I don't regret it. I'm just disgusted."Mia and her two sidekicks moved their desks to Richard’s corner.
Richard was thrilled to score three free workhorses.
He immediately dumped all his abandoned, chaotic messes onto their plates.
Within three days, the trio looked like walking corpses.
They were trapped in the office until 10:00 PM every night, without so much as an Uber reimbursement code.
Later that week, as I was packing my bag to head home on time, Mia suddenly materialized beside my desk.
She held a cup of artisan iced coffee, sporting a sickeningly sweet smile.
"Manager Bennett, I brought you a latte!"
"After working under Richard these past few days, I finally realize how incredible you really are."
"Could you... maybe let me borrow your past project decks as a reference?"
I looked down at the paper cup and didn't even touch it.
In my past life, she had used this exact trick—cozying up under the guise of "learning."
I was fooled by her doe-eyed act, shared every master blueprint, and worked directly on her laptop, leaving all raw source files in her hands.
In the end, those files became her ammunition to frame me.
And she thought she could run the exact same play twice?
I instantly locked my screen, pulled out my encrypted flash drive, and dropped it into my designer tote.
"No."
Mia’s smile froze solid.
"Manager Bennett, we're all colleagues here. What's wrong with sharing a few templates?"
"I just want to look at the layout! I swear I won't copy your actual content!"
Logan and Harper strutted over right on cue.
Logan sneered with utter contempt.
"Don't beg her, Mia! What's the big deal? They're just a bunch of lousy PowerPoint decks!"
"Selfish gatekeepers like her are doomed to stay middle managers for the rest of their pathetic lives!"
Harper sneered in agreement.
"Seriously. Guarding them like we're thieves."
"Does she really think this company will stop spinning without her?"
I rose slowly, towering over them with cold detachment.
"You're damn right. I am guarding against thieves."
"Because every single slide I create is born from midnight sweat. Why the hell should I hand them to you for free?"
"Want references? Go pull the company archives yourself. Stop begging at my desk."
Tears instantly flooded Mia's eyes.
"Manager Bennett, how can you humiliate me like this?"
"I just want to learn! Why are you calling me a thief?!"
Right on cue, Richard waddled over, clutching his travel mug with an oily, patronizing grin plastered across his face.
"Now, now, Chloe, don't be so petty."
"Rookies need room to grow. As a senior leader, it's your job to lift them up."
"Why don't you send your initial drafts of last year's 'Project Starlight' to Mia so she can study them?"
Hearing the words "Project Starlight," my heart turned to ice.
That was the exact mega-account that ruined my life in the past.
It was the firm's largest annual procurement tender—insanely lucrative, but notoriously brutal.
Richard wanted the glory without the sweat, scheming to hand my blood-stained blueprints to his new lackey.
I held Richard's gaze, refusing to budge an inch.
"Deputy Manager Evans, corporate compliance clearly states that core tier-one drafts are classified materials."
"None of these interns have security clearance."
"If you're eager to play mentor, use your own decks. Don't play the generous saint with my property."
Richard's smile vanished, replaced by an ugly scowl.
"Chloe Bennett, don't push your luck!"
"We all work for the same firm. What's with this petty tribalism?"
I grabbed my purse and walked straight past him.
"If you think it's tribalism, take it up with Mr. Sterling."
"Let's see if the CEO listens to a deadweight manager, or to the top producer who pulls in tens of millions in revenue every single year."
As I stepped toward the elevator bank, I heard Mia hiss behind me, her voice trembling with hatred:
"Don't be mad, Richard! We'll write our own pitch!"
"We are going to crush her in the Project Starlight bidding war!"
I pressed the elevator button and let a mocking smirk play across my lips.
Crush me?
With three empty-headed hacks? Good luck.Over the next two weeks, the entire office descended into the battleground of Project Starlight.
The prospective client was Julian Sinclair—a billionaire mogul notorious for being the most ruthless perfectionist in the entire industry.
His quality standards were impossible, and his budget was tighter than a vice.
In my previous life, I pulled thirty straight days of all-nighters, crafting eighteen complete iterations before finally securing his signature.
Now, Richard and his three intern minions practically lived in the primary conference room, talking a massive game.
Meanwhile, I didn't work a single minute of overtime. I packed up and walked out at 5:00 PM sharp every single day.
Rumors quickly ran rampant across the department, claiming Chloe Bennett had run out of ideas and completely surrendered.
During lunch one afternoon, I stopped by the breakroom for some water.
Inside, Mia and Logan were whispering excitedly.
"Mia, that creative hook you pitched yesterday was absolute genius!" Logan raved.
"We're definitely taking first place in the internal pitch. We're going to humiliate Chloe on the main stage!"
Mia put on her signature sweet voice.
"Oh, stop it, Logan. It was just a lucky thought."
"It's all thanks to Richard's incredible coaching."
I pushed the door open and calmly poured myself a glass of iced water.
They snapped their mouths shut, glaring at me like cornered rats.
Mia squared her shoulders, her chin tilted up with arrogant defiance.
"Manager Bennett, the internal tender is the day after tomorrow."
"Have you even finished your slides? It'd be so embarrassing if you get chewed out by Mr. Sterling for showing up empty-handed."
I took a sip of water, my face utterly devoid of emotion.
"Don't lose sleep over my schedule."
"I heard your team has prepared a game-changer. Don't disappoint me."
Logan let out a harsh laugh.
"Enjoy your arrogance while you can, Chloe!"
"This time, we will prove that hungry new talent runs circles around washed-up veterans like you!"
"You'd better start packing your desk!"
I didn't waste my breath on barking dogs. I turned around and headed back to my desk.
In reality, my master pitch had been finished days ago.
Safely locked behind two-factor encryption in my private cloud storage.
However, I hadn't just prepared a master pitch. I had crafted a "Trojan Draft."
On the surface, this bait proposal looked breathtakingly brilliant, packed with dazzling metrics and sophisticated models.
Under the hood, however, I had deliberately sabotaged the core profit-margin formula.
If executed according to this poisoned draft, the firm wouldn't make a dime—it would plunge into a catastrophic thirty-million-dollar loss.
I intentionally printed out this Trojan Draft and slipped it into an unlabelled folder right on top of my desk.
Every evening, I left it sitting there in plain sight.
Sure enough, the fish couldn't resist the bait.
The night before the internal tender:
I pretended I had forgotten my car keys and walked back into the office around 11:30 PM.
The floor was dark, save for a tiny beam of light shining over my desk.
I walked over with silent footsteps.
There was Mia, holding her iPhone, frantically photographing every single page of my Trojan Draft.
Her movements were practiced, her eyes blazing with greedy excitement.
After snapping the final page, she quickly reviewed the photos and hurried toward the emergency exit.
Standing in the shadows, I nearly burst out laughing.
What an absolute textbook thief.
She didn't even bother to read the numbers before stealing the whole damn thing.
Mia, since you love taking shortcuts so much...
I'll make sure this one takes you straight into an abyss.
Tomorrow was the internal pitch.
Mr. Sterling would preside in person, and Julian Sinclair himself would join remotely as a VIP guest.
I couldn't wait to see how she planned to justify a thirty-million-dollar disaster in front of the entire boardroom.The following morning at 10:00 AM, Boardroom A.
Every department head sat along the mahogany table.
Mr. Sterling occupied the head seat, while the colossal wall screen displayed Julian Sinclair's live video feed.
Richard, flanked by his three interns, sat proudly in the front row, glowing with smug satisfaction.
I caught Mia's reflection across the table.
She wore full-glam makeup and a brand-new designer power suit, radiating unearned confidence.
The session began.
Richard was the first to take the stage.
His oily smile practically dripped onto the floor.
"Mr. Sterling, Mr. Sinclair, our team's proposal today was spearheaded by our brilliant rookie, Mia Vance."
"Young minds bring revolutionary perspectives. Let's welcome Mia to walk us through the vision."
Mia walked up to the podium and mirrored her screen with fluid confidence.
The massive display flared to life.
And there it was: the exact architectural framework, concepts, and phrasing from my poisoned draft.
She hadn't even bothered to rewrite the slide titles!
Logan shot me a smug, sideways glance from the front row, whispering under his breath:
"Stunned, aren't you, Chloe? That's the difference between true genius and a dinosaur."
I said nothing, leaning back into my leather chair with calm anticipation.
Mia’s melodic voice drifted across the room:
"Our proposal centers on ultra-bespoke execution with an optimized cost structure."
"Not only does it fully satisfy Mr. Sinclair's exacting standards, but it also locks in a projected forty percent net margin for our firm."
Mr. Sterling nodded repeatedly, his eyes gleaming with clear approval.
"Impressive. Such bold energy from fresh talent."
"This is an ambitious angle. Richard, your team clearly put in the work."
Richard beamed like a proud peacock.
"It's all thanks to your leadership, sir! These kids truly busted their backs."
Finishing her final slide, Mia offered a picture-perfect, ninety-degree bow.
The room erupted into enthusiastic applause.
Mr. Sterling turned to the video feed.
"Mr. Sinclair, what are your thoughts on this strategy?"
On screen, Julian Sinclair leaned in, his sharp gaze cutting straight through the data on the shared display.
His jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing into cold slits.
The energy in the room shifted instantly.
Julian’s voice dropped like liquid nitrogen through the speakers:
"Is this the garbage your firm considers a professional pitch?"
Mr. Sterling froze.
"Mr. Sinclair... is there an issue with the parameters?"
Julian Sinclair slammed his leather portfolio onto his desk.
BAM.
"Are you people insane?!"
"Did anyone in that room actually audit the core cost-modeling formulas on slide three?!"
"Under your catastrophic equation, the per-unit production cost is multiplied by three hundred percent!"
"Not only do you fail to deliver my pricing target, but this entire contract would instantly bleed a thirty-million-dollar net loss!"
Thirty million dollars.
The boardroom gasped in collective horror.
Mr. Sterling’s face turned violently pale, then flushed a dangerous purple.
He locked his eyes onto the projected slide, and the glaring, elementary mathematical flaw slapped him right in the face.
"Richard Evans! What the hell is this?!"
Richard turned white as a sheet, cold sweat instantly soaking his collar.
"M-Mr. Sterling! That's impossible!"
He whipped around and roared at Mia:
"Mia Vance! You built this financial model! Explain it right now!"
Mia was paralyzed.
Staring at the glaring errors on the screen, her mind went completely blank. Her lips trembled, unable to utter a single coherent syllable.
Because she had no idea how high-level margin matrices worked!
All she knew how to do was copy and paste!
"I... I don't know..."
Mia broke down instantly, tears streaming down her contoured cheeks.
Mr. Sterling violently snapped his fountain pen in half.
"You don't know?! You dragged a thirty-million-dollar corporate death sentence into my boardroom, and you tell me you don't know?!"
"Is this your brilliant proposal?!"
Logan and Harper shrank back into their chairs, shaking with terror.
The room plummeted into suffocating silence.
Julian Sinclair let out a dark, mocking chuckle over the feed:
"Your firm's 'expertise' has truly been an eye-opener."
"I see no reason to continue wasting my time with clowns."
Desperation washed over Mr. Sterling as he frantically apologized to the screen:
"Mr. Sinclair, please, stay with us! This was an unverified draft—we have an alternate team ready!"
He snapped his head toward me, his eyes pleading like a drowning man grasping for a lifeline.
"Chloe! Where is your team's proposal?! Present it right now!"
I stood up at a measured pace.
I smoothed the creases of my tailored blazer.
In my hand rested the encrypted flash drive containing my real master deck.
I glanced at the trembling Mia on stage, then at the ghostly Richard Evans.
"Mr. Sterling, my presentation has been ready for days."
"However, I cannot present it in this room."
Mr. Sterling frowned.
"Why not?!"
I walked to the center of the boardroom, my voice ringing out clear, steady, and lethal:
"Because the deck Mia Vance just pitched—including that catastrophic formula error—was stolen directly off my desk last night."
"With a corporate thief standing in this room, I refuse to expose my intellectual property."
Every single head whipped around to lock onto Mia.
Mia’s pupils dilated in sheer, unadulterated terror.
Chapters (4)
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Watch & Promotions
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