Wait... it's the day my coworker gets credit for my idea in the meeting. I know exactly what happens next

If the room had been cold before, it was now sub-zero.

Arthur Sterling slowly turned his head away from the presentation screen. His eyes, fixed upon Liam Vance, were no longer just angry; they were dead. It was the terrifying, pitiless gaze of an old wolf looking down at a mangy cur that had tried to steal meat from the alpha’s kill.

"Meridian Global?" Arthur’s voice dropped into a register so low, so quiet, it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. "You offered our proprietary neural routing code... to Meridian Global?"

Liam looked like he was about to vomit. His chest heaved beneath his tailored shirt, his breath coming in shallow, hyperventilating gasps. He pressed his back flat against the wall behind the presentation console, his hands clawing at the acoustic oak paneling as if searching for a secret door that didn't exist.

"It's a lie!" Liam shrieked, his voice breaking into a high-pitched, hysterical squeal that echoed off the glass windows. "He hacked my computer! Ethan is a programmer—he forged the email headers! He planted that file on my drive to frame me because he was jealous of my promotion!"

"I didn't forge anything, Liam," I said, stepping closer, my voice smooth as ice. "You sent that email from your corporate-issued iPhone while connected to our guest Wi-Fi network in the lobby at 11:48 PM. You didn't realize that under the company's enterprise security policy, all outbound traffic routing through the guest network during non-business hours is automatically mirrored to the IT compliance quarantine pool."

I looked across the table at Victoria Cross.

"Victoria, you can pull the master firewall packet logs right now from your laptop. Protocol HTTPS, destination IP 104.22.14.88, matching the DKIM cryptographic signature on that printout."

Victoria didn't hesitate. Her manicured fingers flew across her mechanical keyboard in a furious, rhythmic clatter.

For forty-five seconds, the only sound in Boardroom A was the relentless clicking of keys and Liam’s ragged, weeping breaths.

Victoria stopped typing.

She looked up from her screen, her face completely drained of color, her eyes meeting Arthur Sterling’s with grim, clinical finality.

"The log is authentic, Arthur," Victoria said, her voice trembling slightly with professional fury. "The email was dispatched at 11:48 PM. Attached to the message was an encrypted archive containing thirty-two proprietary source files from our core database. It was sent to David Vance—Liam's second cousin, who happens to be the Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy at Meridian Global."

A collective, furious roar broke out among the twelve division heads.

"You treasonous little bastard!" Marcus Cole shouted, slamming his fist onto the marble so hard his water glass tipped over. "We spent three years building that database! You were selling our firm to the highest bidder while taking a promotion from our payroll!"

"Arthur, please!" Liam fell to his knees on the carpet, clutching the hem of the table, weeping openly like a child who had just realized the furnace door was locking behind him. "I didn't send the full code! I only sent the preview schemas! I was trying to leverage a counter-offer to help our firm negotiate better enterprise partnerships! I swear to God, Arthur, I did it for the company!"

Arthur Sterling slowly stood up from his leather executive chair.

He didn't shout. He didn't slam the table.

He reached into his waistcoat, pulled out his gold pocket watch, checked the time, and snapped the cover shut with a sharp, definitive click.

"Victoria," Arthur murmured, his voice cold as an iron grave. "Call the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois. Inform Assistant U.S. Attorney Reynolds that Sterling & Cross Media is formally filing criminal charges for corporate espionage, theft of trade secrets under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, and interstate wire fraud."

Liam let out a strangled, breathless wail, dropping his forehead against the floorboards.

"And call building security," Arthur added, turning his back on the weeping associate. "Tell them to bring four armed guards and two sets of handcuffs. If this piece of garbage attempts to delete a single file from his personal phone, authorize the guards to use physical force."

Two minutes later, the heavy mahogany doors of Boardroom A swung open.

Four uniformed security officers stepped into the room, their boots clicking heavily against the parquet border. They didn't ask questions. They grabbed Liam Vance by his armpits, hauling him up from the floor, wrenching his arms behind his back, and snapping heavy steel handcuffs around his wrists with a loud, metallic CLACK.

Liam didn't fight back. The arrogance, the charm, the expensive tailored swagger—all of it had completely liquefied into a pathetic, shivering puddle of tears and snot.

As they dragged him toward the double doors, his feet dragging uselessly across the plush carpet, Liam lifted his head.

His bloodshot, ruined eyes locked onto mine.

In that look, there was no mocking smirk left. No smug superiority. There was only the bottomless, terrifying realization that the quiet, unassuming engineer he had tried to step on had instead constructed the gallows upon which his entire future was now hanging.

I looked back at him.

I didn't smile. I didn't sneer.