Leave With Nothing? I Deleted the Core Data

"Sign it. You’ll leave with nothing." Thomas pushed the divorce papers across the table to me, his voice as detached as if he were closing a business deal. Beside him sat his lawyer, and next to the lawyer, his new partner, Sienna, her belly subtly rounded. Sienna looked at me with an air of condescension. "Ms. Emery, Thomas has been very generous. He's not even asking for the house or the car back. Just sign." I picked up the pen. Thomas's brow furrowed. "Aren't you going to read the terms?" "No need." I signed my name. Then I smiled. Thomas’s face changed. 1. Thomas uttered those words at three in the afternoon. The conference room was quiet, sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating the divorce agreement. I stared at my name, feeling utterly detached from it. Rachel Emery. Those two words had been mine for thirty-two years. With Thomas, for five. Five years ago, when we married, he wasn't "Thomas Davies, CEO." Back then, he was just a product manager who’d been let go by his company, with only three months’ severance pay in his pocket. I remember him telling me he wanted to start a business. I asked him what kind. He said enterprise SaaS systems. I told him that market was already saturated. He said it didn’t matter; he had the connections, the resources, he just needed someone who could code. At the time, I was a tech lead at a major corporation, earning over six hundred thousand a year. I told him, "I'll do it." He paused, then smiled. It was the most genuine smile I had ever seen from him. "Really? You'd quit your job and join me?" I said yes. That’s how we began. I resigned, he put up his severance pay, and we wrote the first line of code in our rented apartment. Back then, the company was just the two of us. Thomas was responsible for finding clients, negotiating partnerships, and securing investments. I handled all the technical development. All of it. I built the server architecture. I designed the database. I wrote the front-end and back-end. I optimized the core algorithms. The day the first version of the product launched, Thomas posted on social media. "Day 127 of our startup, and the product is finally live. Thanks to everyone who supported me." The photo was of his own back, sitting in front of a computer. I scrolled past that post while debugging an online glitch. It was two in the morning; I’d had three coffees and my eyes were barely open. I just smiled, saying nothing. That post was just the beginning. The day we signed our first client, Thomas took them out to dinner, without inviting me. The day the first investment came through, Thomas posted, "Thank you to our investors for their trust, and to my incredible team," with a photo of him and the investors. Team? Back then, the entire tech department was just me. I brought it up to Thomas once. "Could you mention me when you post?" Thomas was on the phone. He looked at me after I spoke. "You're my wife. Why would I mention you? Outsiders will think I'm mixing business with pleasure." "I'm the company’s Head of Technology." "You're my wife," he emphasized. "What you do is what our company does. What's the difference?" I said there was none. I truly believed there was no difference. The company grew from two people to twenty, then from twenty to eighty. Thomas hired sales, operations, finance, administration. But he didn’t hire tech. It wasn't that he hadn't tried. Three people were hired, and all three left. Because he couldn’t keep them. Because only I could understand the core code, and only I could maintain the core system. Newcomers couldn’t take over, or they couldn’t do it well. Thomas said, "Well, you just keep doing it then. You're used to it anyway." I said okay. I did it alone for five years. Five years. Over eighteen hundred days. Over fifty thousand hours. My recorded overtime alone exceeded eight thousand hours. An average of four and a half hours of overtime every day. Weekends were almost non-existent. The only time I ever took leave was when I was hospitalized for appendicitis. On the first day of my stay, Thomas came to see me. He brought a bag of fruit and talked for three minutes. Then he asked me, "What's the root password for the server?" I lay in the hospital bed, fresh from surgery, the anesthesia not yet fully worn off. I gave him the password. He said thank you, then left. He didn't come the next day. Or the day after. On the fourth day, he picked me up when I was discharged. In the car, I asked him, "What happened with the server?" He said, "Nothing major, just a small bug. Fixed it." I told him to let me see. He said, "No need, it's already resolved." I asked who resolved it. He said an external contractor. A thought flashed through my mind at that moment, but I couldn't grasp it. I should have. In the company’s third year, we secured Series A funding, with a valuation of thirty million. Thomas posted on social media again. "Thank you to the team, to our investors, and to everyone who believes in me. Three years, and we've finally reached this point." The photo was of him and the investors, with the sales team standing behind them. The comments section was full of congratulations. I typed three words in the comments: Congratulations. Thomas replied with an emoji. That night, when I got home, I asked him, "How are you planning to divide the equity?" He said it was already done. I asked, "How much?" He said, "You get 5%." I stopped chopping vegetables. 5%? I wrote the entire system. Front-end, back-end, architecture, algorithms, operations. I did it alone for three years. 5%? Thomas saw my displeasure and sighed. "I know you work hard, but equity isn't about how much work you do. The Sales Director also gets 5%, the Finance Director also gets 5%. You can't think of yourself as special." "I'm the only one who's been with you since day one." "You're my wife. What's yours is mine, and what's mine is yours. Why be so particular?" He used that line again. He always used that line. I said, "Alright." 5% it was. At that time, the company was valued at thirty million. 5% was 1.5 million. 1.5 million for three years of my effort. An average of five hundred thousand per year. I used to earn over six hundred thousand a year at the big corporation. By this calculation, I was actually losing money. But I didn’t say anything. He was my husband. We were family. Family doesn’t keep secrets. After Series A came Series B. After Series B came Series C. The company's valuation soared from thirty million to one hundred million, then from one hundred million to three hundred million. My share was still 5%. Thomas's share was 42%. I didn't ask him why mine hadn't increased. I was afraid he'd say "You're my wife" again. In the company's fourth year, at the annual gala, Thomas stood on stage, impeccably dressed, radiating confidence. Over a hundred employees sat below, the spotlight on his face. "This year, our company's revenue exceeded twenty million, and profits turned positive for the first time. All of this is thanks to everyone's hard work." Applause. "Thank you to the sales team, you are the company's vanguard." Applause. "Thank you to the operations team, you are the company's cornerstone." Applause. "Thank you to the finance team, you are the company's guardians." Applause. I sat in the audience, waiting for him to mention the tech team. He didn't. After the gala, a new sales employee asked me, "Ms. Emery, what's your role with Thomas?" I said, "I'm the Head of Technology." She looked surprised. "Oh? I thought you were Thomas's assistant." That night, when I got home, I asked Thomas, "Why didn't you mention me?" He was untying his tie. He paused after I spoke. "Why would I mention you? You're my wife, everyone knows that. If I mention you, people will say I'm mixing business with pleasure." "You don't have to mention me as your wife, just the tech team." "The tech team is just you. Mentioning them is the same as mentioning you, isn't it? Still going to be called mixing business with pleasure." I fell silent. Thomas walked over and patted my shoulder. "Honey, don't overthink it. I remember everything you've done. When the company gets bigger, I'll naturally increase your shares." I said, "Okay." I waited. The fifth year passed. No increase in shares. But there was a Sienna. 2. Sienna was the administrative assistant Thomas hired. I’d met her when she started; she was very pretty and spoke sweetly. I didn’t think much of it. The company had over a hundred employees, half of them women, and she wasn't the only pretty one. But I should have. After Sienna joined, Thomas became increasingly busy. He used to be home before ten, then it became eleven, then twelve. I asked him why he was so busy. He said the company was pushing for Series D funding, and there was a lot to do. I asked if he needed my help with anything. He said no, just keep an eye on the technical stuff. I believed him. Three months after Sienna started, the administrative department had a team-building event. Thomas went. I asked him, "Since when do you attend the admin department's team-building?" He said it wasn't team-building, but an employee care activity, and as the boss, he should show his face. I said okay. Six months after Sienna started, it was the company's annual gala. That year's gala was entirely organized by Thomas; I wasn't involved. There was a raffle, and Sienna won the grand prize. The latest iPhone model. Thomas personally handed her the phone and even posed for a photo with her. When he posted it on social media, Thomas wrote: "Grand Prize winner at the annual gala, such good luck!" The photo was of him and Sienna. Sienna was beaming. I sat in the audience, looking at that social media post, and a flicker of unease went through me. But I didn't say anything. I had too much I wanted to say, but I was afraid he'd just think I was being paranoid again. Eight months after Sienna started, I found out. That night, Thomas came home very late, and walked straight into the bathroom. He left his phone in the living room. I didn't mean to look. I really didn't. But the phone lit up, and a text message popped up. Sienna: Thinking of you. Just those three words. I stared at the message for three seconds. Then I put the phone back where it was. Thomas came out of the shower, picked up his phone, and glanced at it. I asked him, "Who's looking for you?" He said, "Company stuff." I said, "Oh." I couldn't sleep that night. The next morning, after Thomas left, I opened the company's time-tracking system. As the Head of Technology, I had backend access. I pulled up Thomas and Sienna's time cards for the past three months. Their attendance times overlapped almost perfectly. When Thomas worked late, Sienna worked late. When Thomas worked weekends, Sienna also worked weekends. Then I pulled up the company's access control records. The two of them often entered and exited the company together. Several records showed Sienna swiping her card to enter Thomas's office. At eleven o'clock at night. I put down my phone and took a deep breath. I told myself it might be work-related. I told myself not to be paranoid. I told myself Thomas wasn’t that kind of person. I told myself he was my husband. We were family. Family doesn’t keep secrets. I didn't say anything. A year after Sienna started, I found out the truth. That night, Thomas didn't come home again, saying he had a business dinner. I opened the dashcam app on his car. The GPS showed his car parked in a complex on the west side of the city. I had been to that complex once. Last year, for a company team-building event, Sienna invited everyone to her place for dinner. It was that complex. I didn't go to him. I drove to the complex entrance and sat for an hour. At one in the morning, Thomas's car drove out. Sienna was in the passenger seat. They were talking about something in the car, and Sienna was laughing. I watched from a distance, without getting out. The next morning, Thomas came home. He said he’d had too much to drink at the dinner and feared drunk driving, so he slept at the office. I said, "Oh." He asked me why I looked pale, if I hadn’t slept well. I said, "A little." He said, "When things settle down at the company in a couple of days, let's go on a trip. You're too tired." I said, "Okay." After he left, I didn't cry. I sat on the sofa for a long time. Then I opened my laptop and started working. Code wouldn't betray me. Code wouldn't lie to me. The code was mine; it belonged to me. For the next two months, I didn't bring up the subject. Thomas continued his routine: work, business dinners, not coming home. I continued to write code, debug, and optimize systems. The company was pushing for Series D, and there truly was a lot to do. My system needed a complete overhaul. Before the new version launched, I worked overtime for over thirty consecutive days, sleeping only four or five hours a night. Thomas never once asked if I was tired. One night, at two in the morning, the server crashed, and user data was at risk of being lost. I single-handedly rushed to fix it until five in the morning, finally restoring it. That morning, Thomas came to the office and saw me asleep at my desk. He nudged me. "Server fixed?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Good, I have an investor meeting soon. Can you prepare a report on the technical metrics for me?" I said, "Okay." He left. He didn't ask if I was tired. He didn't ask if I’d had breakfast. It was as if I were a machine. Used, then used again. The Series D funding negotiations lasted three months and were finally finalized. A valuation of three hundred million, eighty million in funding. Thomas was so happy he practically danced three circles in his office. That night, uncharacteristically, he came home early and even brought a bouquet of flowers. I thought he was coming to thank me. He sat down, his expression very serious. "Honey, I have something to tell you." I thought, Is he finally going to increase my shares? He said, "Sienna is pregnant." I paused for three seconds. Then I smiled. "Congratulations." Thomas hadn't expected my reaction; he looked surprised. "Aren't you angry?" "Should I be angry?" "I thought you would…" "Would what? Cry? Make a scene?" I stood up. "Thomas, you overestimate yourself." He froze there. I walked into the bedroom and locked the door. That night, I slept very well. The next morning, I went to work as usual. Thomas wasn’t there; apparently, he had taken Sienna for her prenatal checkup. I sat at my desk, opened my laptop, and began to organize files. All the code I had written over these five years. All the technical documentation. All the system architecture diagrams. All the algorithm models. I looked through each one, confirming them one by one. Then I opened the National Copyright Office website. Computer software copyright registration. The applicant could be an individual or a company. I had never paid attention to this before. But now I had to. I found the date I wrote the very first line of code five years ago. March 12, 2018. The company hadn't even been registered yet. All the code I wrote was completed before the company was incorporated. Including the core architecture, core algorithms, and core modules. Legally speaking, who owned the copyright to this code? Me. Because I completed them in my individual capacity, before I was employed. Thomas had only verbally said, "You come and help me write," and no contract had ever been signed. At that time, I was his wife, not his employee. Writing code for him was helping, not working. The copyright for this code was always mine. I sat in the office all day. In the evening, Thomas returned. He walked into the office, saw me still at my desk, and looked a bit surprised. "You haven't left yet?" "No, just organizing things." "What things?" "Five years of work." He didn't ask further. He walked into his own office and closed the door. An hour later, he called me in. In the office, besides him, were the company's legal counsel and Sienna. Thomas pushed a document towards me. "Rachel Emery, let's get a divorce. Here are the papers, take a look." I picked up the agreement. It was thick, seven or eight pages. I flipped through it, page by page. The gist was: irreconcilable differences, voluntary divorce. The house goes to the husband, the car to the husband, company equity to the husband, bank accounts to the husband. Debts are separate. The wife voluntarily relinquishes all claims to property division. Leave with nothing. Four clear words. Sienna watched me from beside Thomas, her eyes filled with condescension and triumph. "Ms. Emery, Thomas has been very generous. He's not even asking for the house or the car back. Just sign." I glanced at her. Her belly was showing, probably four months along. I looked back at Thomas. He sat in his executive chair, his expression distant. Five years. From having nothing to a valuation of three hundred million. I had been by his side through it all. Now he wanted me to leave with nothing. I smiled. "Alright, I'll sign." I picked up the pen and signed my name. Thomas looked surprised. "Aren't you going to read the terms?" "No need." I pushed the agreement back to him. "When are we filing for divorce?" "Tomorrow." "Good." I stood up, grabbed my bag, and walked out of the office. Sienna called out from behind me, "Ms. Emery, you still have things at your desk!" I didn't turn around. "I don't need them."

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