1 My first day working at a publicly traded corporation. I had barely set my bag down when my female supervisor, Brenda, suddenly raised her hand and swept my full coffee mug off the desk. It shattered on the floor. "Chloe Carter? You're the new girl?" "You're pretty young to be playing such dirty games." The entire open-plan office instantly went dead silent. I forced my anger down: "Director Brenda, I don't understand what you mean. Have I done something to offend you?" "Playing dumb with me?" "You're a fresh college grad. No experience, no connections. Your name wasn't even on the campus recruitment list. How exactly did you parachute straight into the core Marketing Department?" "If it wasn't for your skills in bed seducing my husband, do you really think you could ever walk through the doors of Apex Enterprises?" I was completely dumbfounded. When my dad told me to start at the bottom of his company to gain experience before taking over the family business, he never mentioned the place was filled with people like this. Thinking back to my father's advice before I left home—telling me to hide my identity so I could truly learn and grow—I forcefully swallowed the burning rage in my chest. Just as I was about to speak, she suddenly let out a sharp laugh, pulled a stack of photos from her pocket, and threw them directly at my face. The photos scattered across the floor. The one on top was a picture of me in the same frame as Board Director Robert Evans. Last week, I had come to the building for my final interview. I was walking past the lobby bulletin board to read the announcements, and Director Evans happened to be talking to someone a short distance away. We were standing far apart, completely unrelated. But someone had maliciously cropped and photoshopped the image to make it look like we were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, intimately close. "You're practically pressed up against him, and you still have the nerve to play dumb?" Brenda stepped heavily onto a printed copy of my resume, grinding her designer stiletto heel into it. The whispers from my coworkers instantly exploded around me: "No wonder she was a nepotism hire. She slept her way in through Director Evans." "She is pretty, though. Makes sense why the Director made an exception." "That is so disgusting. Using her youth and looks to destroy someone else's marriage." "I heard these homewreckers are the best at playing innocent. They look so pure on the outside, but God knows how filthy they are behind closed doors." Their words pierced my ears like needles. I clenched my fists, my fingernails digging deep into my palms: "Director Brenda, that photo is photoshopped. I only saw Director Evans once during my final interview, and we didn't even speak a single word to each other. I was hired through the standard HR recruitment process. You can't just slander me like this." "I'm slandering you?" Brenda suddenly thrust her hand out, her manicured finger almost jabbing me in the nose: "When my husband came home last night, he had your resume saved on his personal phone! If you didn't send it to him begging to be his sugar baby, why would he specifically save it?!" "Chloe Carter, don't push your luck. You're a cheap homewrecker who slept her way to the top. Stop acting like some pure, innocent virgin in front of me!" I took a deep breath, desperately trying to explain standard corporate procedure: "Resumes are distributed automatically by HR. The profiles of all final-round candidates are synced to the department heads and the relevant board directors. That is standard operating procedure." She looked at me like I had just told the funniest joke in the world, her voice rising to a screech: "You have a worthless bachelor's degree! You probably don't even know how to put together a PowerPoint presentation! Do you honestly think you're qualified for the core Marketing Department? I bet you only got your college diploma because you slept with your professors!" Laughter erupted across the office. Someone pulled out their phone and started secretly recording me. Others muttered loudly: "Honestly, it's probably true. That kind of stuff happens all the time on college campuses now." "Look at her face. Total fox. She definitely knows how to work a man." I couldn't hold it back anymore. My voice dropped several degrees: "Director Brenda, defamation carries legal consequences. If you continue to make these baseless accusations, I will file a formal complaint with the Department of Labor!" Brenda let out a harsh scoff, suddenly grabbing a massive stack of folders from my desk and hurling them at my chest: "A cheap homewrecker like you is trying to lecture me about the law?! Today, I'm going to teach you a lesson. At Apex Enterprises, my word is the law!" She turned and yelled at her assistant: "Bring her every single analysis report, sales spreadsheet, and client dossier from last year! All of it!" Ten minutes later, a pile of documents half as tall as I was sat on my desk. It was all loose, disorganized physical paper. Some of the pages were yellowing and missing information. Brenda crossed her arms, looking down at me like I was trash. "You have three hours to organize all of this raw data into Excel spreadsheets. Every project needs to be categorized and statistically analyzed, accurate to three decimal places. If you miss a single data point, you're fired!" 2 I stared at the mountain of paperwork, my brow furrowing: "Director Brenda, it would take at least three days to digitize and organize all of this. Three hours is physically impossible." Brenda raised an eyebrow, deliberately projecting her voice so the entire floor could hear: "Impossible? Just go find my husband!" "Sleep with him again! Forget three hours, he’ll find someone to do it for you in three minutes!" She leaned in close to my ear, her voice dripping with venom: "After all, that's what you're best at, isn't it? Just spread your legs and your problems disappear. Stop pretending you actually want to work hard." "Let me make this clear: don't play these fake games with me. Instead of wasting time here, you should be figuring out how to serve my husband better. Who knows, maybe he'll even give you a raise." The surrounding laughter and catcalls blended together, so grating it made my skin crawl. "Brenda's right! A homewrecker should stick to doing a homewrecker's job." "Stop acting so high and mighty. You slept your way here, don't try to build a monument to your virtue now." "Hurry up and go find Director Evans, otherwise you definitely won't finish in three hours!" I clenched my fists so hard my knuckles turned white. I ignored them. I turned around, booted up my computer, and buried my head in the data entry. The vicious gossip behind my back felt like knives carving into my skin. Every single second was pure agony. Three hours later, I printed out the spreadsheets I had managed to complete and handed them to Brenda. I truthfully stated that some of the data still needed to be cross-referenced, so it wasn't fully finished. Brenda merely glanced at the top page before ripping the entire stack of spreadsheets to shreds. The torn paper rained down over my head like snow. "You call this a spreadsheet? The data is a mess, the formatting is wrong. This is worse than garbage!" Without warning, she grabbed her iced coffee and threw it directly into my face. "I can tell you have absolutely zero focus for this job! Your head is entirely filled with how to seduce men!" "Since you can't finish the work, get your ass into the breakroom and wash the mugs!" "You will scrub every single coffee mug and the espresso machine until they are spotless! There cannot be a single stain! I will inspect them before we leave tonight. If they fail, you will stay here all night and scrub them again!" My coworkers watched me stand there, dripping with sticky coffee, but no one dared to step forward. Instead, a few muttered mocking insults: "Serves her right. That's what she gets for being a mistress." "This is the karma you get for destroying someone's marriage." I wiped the cold coffee from my eyes, swallowing my humiliation, and walked into the breakroom. I put on rubber gloves and started scrubbing the mugs one by one. Throughout the afternoon, coworkers constantly came in to get water. Every time they walked past, they would stop and stare. Some pretended not to see me, while others were deliberately passive-aggressive: "Oh my, what is Miss Carter doing washing mugs? Why don't you go ask Director Evans for help?" "Maybe the Director got bored of her, so she's got no one left to protect her." My hands paused over the sink. Tears welled up in my eyes. My first instinct was to pull out my phone and call my dad to save me. But just as my finger hovered over the dial button, I forced myself to calm down. My father went through a lot of trouble to hide my identity so I could truly learn how the company operated. If I blew my cover now, not only would all my effort be wasted, but my father would be deeply disappointed in my lack of resilience. I gritted my teeth, wiped my tears with the back of my arm, and went back to scrubbing. When I finally finished washing every single mug, I stepped out of the breakroom, only to find Brenda blocking my path. She glanced into the room and let out a cold snort: "Finished already? Let me guess, you just half-assed it?" She walked into the breakroom and inspected the counters. Suddenly, she pointed to a back corner of the industrial espresso machine: "There's still a stain here! Did you do this on purpose?! Scrub it again! Keep scrubbing until I am satisfied!" I looked at the faint mark she was pointing at. I forced down my boiling anger: "Director Brenda, I have scrubbed it as thoroughly as possible. That mark is a permanent scorch mark from the machine aging. It cannot be wiped off." She suddenly raised her hand and slapped me hard across the face. The sharp, cracking sound instantly silenced the entire office floor. My cheek burned like fire. My ear was ringing loudly. Brenda grabbed me by the collar of my blouse and dragged me out into the center of the main office: "You're a filthy little homewrecker, and you dare talk back to me?!" "Today, I'm going to show everyone exactly what kind of shameless, disgusting trash you really are!" 3 She pulled out her phone and, right in front of everyone, drafted a massive post on the company’s internal forum and LinkedIn. The headline was blindingly toxic: [Apex Enterprises Intern Chloe Carter Caught Sleeping with Board Director! Confronted by Wife and Forced to Scrub Toilets! Justice Served!] In less than half an hour, the post went completely viral. My full name, my university, and even my private Instagram accounts were doxxed by the internet mob. My DMs and comments were utterly obliterated by a tidal wave of abuse. "Disgusting green tea bitch! Get out of the corporate world! You make me sick. Can't survive without a man paying your way?" "Looks so innocent, but spends all her time figuring out how to steal other women's husbands. So cheap!" "Absolute trash. Destroys a family and plays the victim. I hope she dies!" "Apex needs to fire this parasite immediately! Don't let her ruin the company's reputation!" "Look at her face, I bet she was sleeping her way through college too. What a disgrace!" Every single comment felt like a knife twisting in my chest. My hands shook uncontrollably as I held my phone. My entire body felt like ice. My coworkers crowded around me. Some held up their phones, recording my reaction. Some read the vicious comments out loud, cheering and laughing. Others sneered sarcastically: "Chloe, look at you! You're famous! The whole internet knows you're a homewrecker now." Brenda shoved her phone screen directly into my face. Watching the abuse roll in, she smiled with absolute, victorious arrogance: "Well? Chloe Carter, doesn't feel too good, does it? This is exactly what happens when you try to seduce my husband!" "I already told you, I didn't—" Before I could finish. She suddenly grabbed a handful of my hair and shoved me hard toward the floor. "Now get the hell out of my building! Submit your resignation, publicly confess that you're a homewrecker, and apologize to me! If you do that, I'll delete the posts!" Pain shot through my scalp, my body trembling, but I clenched my jaw and refused to bow my head: "I did nothing wrong! I will not resign, and I will absolutely not apologize!" Brenda’s eyes widened with fury. She drew back her designer heel and kicked me hard in the stomach: "You arrogant little bitch! Let me tell you something, the cyberbullying is just getting started!" She leaned down close to my ear, her voice purely malicious: "You can play tough all you want, but I wonder if your mommy and daddy have the same psychological endurance? What are your relatives going to say when they see this?" "I'm going to make sure everyone they have ever met knows they raised a cheap, filthy whore who sleeps with married men to get a job!" "I'm going to make sure people spit on them when they walk down the street. They won't be able to show their faces at work! Let's see how they like being cursed at and treated like garbage! I want to see if your precious parents can survive that kind of humiliation!" Those words pierced straight through my heart like a serrated blade. I snapped my head up, glaring at Brenda, my eyes burning with absolute, unfiltered rage: "Don't you dare!" "What wouldn't I dare do?" Brenda’s laugh grew even more maniacal: "As long as it gets you to pack your bags and get the hell out of here, I'll do whatever it takes!" "If you're a good little girl, resign, and apologize right now, I might just let your parents off the hook. Otherwise, we burn together!" 4 The surrounding coworkers eagerly chimed in: "Chloe, just quit. Don't drag your parents down with you." "Brenda gave you an out. Acting tough now is just stupid." "Hurry up and apologize. Don't humiliate your family any further." I lay on the floor, every bone in my body aching as if I'd been beaten. My ears were filled with nothing but their insults and jeers. A heavy, suffocating mix of despair and pure fury surged in my chest. I didn't understand. All I wanted to do was prove myself through my own hard work. Why was this happening to me? Are normal people not allowed to be exceptional? Does being exceptional mean you must have used disgusting, underhanded tactics to get there? Why?! I slowly pushed myself up from the floor, my eyes locked onto Brenda in a death stare: "I am warning you. Do not cross that line." "Cross the line? I haven't even started yet!" Brenda was completely unhinged now. She spun around, stormed into the breakroom, and came running out holding a heavy, stainless steel Yeti thermos filled to the brim with boiling water. "Today, I'm going to destroy that pretty little face of yours! Let's see how you seduce men after this! Let's see if your parents ever have the courage to show their faces in public again!" She raised the heavy thermos, aiming the boiling water directly at my face. I instinctively squeezed my eyes shut. Right at that exact second, a panicked, desperate voice roared through the office: "Stop! Brenda, are you out of your fucking mind?!" Director Robert Evans came sprinting across the floor, gasping for air. He lunged forward and grabbed Brenda's wrist with a vice grip. The boiling water in the thermos sloshed violently, splashing out. A few searing drops hit my forearm. It burned like fire. Brenda thrashed against him, screaming like a banshee: "Robert! You're actually protecting this little whore?! She seduced you, she ruined our marriage, and you're defending her?! I am going to rip her face off today!" "You're wrong! She isn't my mistress!" Director Evans' face was as pale as a sheet of paper. His voice was physically shaking. Brenda grew even more furious, violently shoving him away: "I think you've been completely brainwashed by this little fox! Do you think I'm a complete idiot?!" Screaming, she raised the thermos to throw it again. I didn't have time to dodge. I could only watch helplessly as a wave of scalding, boiling water rushed toward me. "Don't touch her!" Director Evans threw himself forward like a madman, using his own body as a human shield to cover me. The majority of the boiling water splashed directly onto his back. He cried out in agony, his face contorting in pain. Brenda froze for a split second before her rage exploded to new heights: "Robert Evans! You actually took boiling water for her?! I am going to kill you both!" She reached out, her claw-like nails aiming straight for my hair. Director Evans desperately held her back, screaming at the top of his lungs: "Do you have any idea who she is?! You have destroyed us!" "Who is she?! She's a cheap homewrecker!" "She is the Chairman's only daughter! She is the sole heir to Apex Enterprises! The Chairman sent her here undercover to learn the business! I only found out her true identity yesterday, and I didn't have time to warn you... You have completely ruined us!" That sentence dropped like a nuclear bomb, instantly annihilating all sound in the room. Brenda's hand froze in mid-air. The psychotic rage on her face instantly dissolved into sheer, unadulterated terror. Her mouth opened and closed like a dying fish. It took her a long time to stammer out a single sentence: "You... what did you say? She's... Chairman Carter's daughter?" The coworkers surrounding us were completely paralyzed. The phones they were using to record me hovered frozen in the air. The mockery and contempt on their faces instantly morphed into raw, unconcealed panic. The people who had just been aggressively jeering and insulting me quickly lowered their heads, absolutely terrified of making eye contact. I slowly stood up from the floor. Enduring the stinging pain in my arm and the dull ache in my stomach, I smoothed out the wrinkles in my ruined blouse. Brenda's legs gave out completely. She collapsed into a pathetic heap on the floor, muttering incoherently: "Impossible... this is impossible..." I walked step by step until I was standing directly over her, looking down at her pathetic form. My voice was perfectly calm, but it carried a bone-chilling frost: "Director Brenda. I told you from the very beginning. I didn't do any of those things. But you refused to listen, and you pushed me to the absolute brink." "Every word you just said, everything you did to me today, and all those posts on the internet... I am going to calculate the cost of every single one of them, and you will pay for it." Director Evans clutched his scalded back, struggling to his feet. He roared at the paralyzed coworkers: "What are you idiots standing around for?! Call 911!" "And delete every single post and comment on the internet! Right now! If anyone breathes a single word of this, you are fired immediately!" The coworkers snapped out of their trance, frantically pulling out their phones to delete their posts. Someone scrambled away to call an ambulance. Brenda, still sprawled on the floor, suddenly flipped over and began aggressively kowtowing to me: "Miss Carter... I'm so sorry... I was blind, I completely misunderstood you... Please, be the bigger person and show me mercy. Please spare me..." I completely ignored her. I pulled out my phone and dialed my father's private number. The moment the call connected, the tears I had been desperately holding back finally broke through. My voice trembled slightly: "Dad. Someone is bullying me at the company." My father's furious, booming voice echoed through the speaker: "What happened?!" "Who dares to touch my daughter?!" "Chloe, stay right there. I am coming down right now!" Less than three minutes after I hung up, the sound of heavy, thunderous footsteps echoed from the main entrance of the office floor. My father, dressed in a sharp black bespoke suit, strode in. His expression was terrifyingly dark. Behind him trailed the Head of Corporate Security and the Chief HR Officer. The sheer, overwhelming pressure of his presence made the entire floor hold its breath. "Chloe!" My dad's eyes instantly locked onto the angry red burn on my arm and the glaring handprint on my cheek. His eyes turned bloodshot in an instant. He crossed the room in three massive strides and gently grasped my wrist: "Who did this?" The collective gasp from the coworkers was audible. Everyone's eyes were wide with sheer terror. "Holy shit, Chloe Carter really is the Chairman's daughter!" "And what we just did to her... we're dead. We are all completely dead!" "I've worked here for ten years and I've only ever seen the Chairman at the annual gala! I heard he had her late in life and spoils her like a princess. We are going to get slaughtered for this!" Brenda was still paralyzed on the floor. Seeing my father, her soul practically left her body. She scrambled forward on her hands and knees, her knees hitting the hardwood floor with a heavy thud: "Chairman Carter! I was wrong! I was so wrong! I didn't target Miss Chloe on purpose!" My father viciously kicked an office chair out of his way. It slammed into the wall and shattered into pieces. None of the employees had ever seen the Chairman lose control like this. They were all frozen in absolute terror. "On my way down here, I had my team investigate the situation!" "You called my daughter a whore, threw coffee on her, slapped her across the face, and tried to permanently disfigure her with boiling water. You call that not on purpose?!" "If your 'purpose' had actually succeeded, would my daughter even be alive right now?!" "It was a misunderstanding!" Brenda wailed hysterically, pointing a shaking finger directly at Director Evans: "Chairman Carter, please, you have to listen to me! It was him! It was Robert!" "I've suspected Robert was having an affair for months! He’s been coming home late every night, he put a new password on his phone. When I finally managed to snoop through it, the only suspicious thing I found was Miss Chloe's resume!" "I thought Miss Chloe was seducing him to get a job here! I was so blinded by anger that I did all of those things!" Director Evans clutched his burned back, his face chalk-white as he lunged forward: "What kind of delusional garbage are you spewing?! When did you go through my phone?!" "I only found out Chloe was the Chairman's daughter yesterday! I was literally just about to tell you when you started this massive psychotic meltdown!" "Bullshit!" Brenda suddenly jumped up, pointing her finger right in Director Evans' face, screaming: "If you had told me she was the Chairman's daughter, do you really think I would have dared to touch a single hair on her head?! You kept it a secret from me on purpose!" "You wanted her to take my Director position so you and your little mistress could run off into the sunset together, didn't you?!" "You are completely insane!" Director Evans was shaking with rage: "I have worked at Apex for ten years! Why would I ever risk my career over something so stupid?!" "You are the one who is pathologically paranoid! You beat people up and humiliate them without a shred of evidence, and now you're trying to pin the blame on me?!" "I'm pinning the blame?!" Brenda let out a cold, sharp laugh, her voice rising to a screech: "Robert Evans, do you dare stand there and say your hands are clean at work? That massive project last year—didn't you embezzle company funds to pay for your mother's medical bills?!" "And last month! You took a fifty-thousand-dollar kickback from a supplier so they could use cheap, substandard materials! Did you honestly think I didn't know about that?!" The entire floor erupted. The coworkers were absolutely stunned, whispering frantically to each other: "Is that true?! Director Evans actually embezzled company money?!" "And he took kickbacks?! That's a massive federal crime!" "Oh my god, this is insane. Even if I get fired today, witnessing this drama was worth it!" Director Evans' face turned a sickly shade of green. He reached out, desperately trying to cover Brenda's mouth: "You crazy bitch! Shut the hell up!" "I'm crazy?!" Brenda violently shoved him away, reaching into her blazer pocket and throwing a thick stack of photos onto the floor. It was a collection of photos showing Director Evans dining with shady suppliers and accepting thick envelopes of cash. "I've had these photos saved for months! I was trying to save your reputation, but since you forced my hand, I am going to expose every single piece of your filthy, disgusting laundry!" "Don't you dare!" Director Evans' eyes went red with desperation. He shoved Brenda hard: "If you didn't throw psychotic tantrums at home every day and control every single cent in my bank account, do you think I would have resorted to this?!" "Besides screaming and throwing things, what else are you even good for? Compared to her, you aren't even worthy of shining her shoes!" "Her?!" Brenda froze for a second, then lunged at him like a rabid animal: "Aha! You finally admit it! You really do have a filthy little mistress on the side!" "Who is it?! Is it that slutty little assistant of yours, Mia?! I always saw you two making eyes at each other!" Director Evans, scratched and cornered, completely lost his mind and roared recklessly: "So what if it is?!" "Mia is a hundred times sweeter than you! A thousand times more caring! She would never act like a completely unreasonable, psychotic banshee like you! You are a shrill, miserable shrew! I have been sick of you for years!" Those words struck like a lightning bolt, silencing the entire room. Even I was stunned. So Brenda's initial suspicion was correct—it was Assistant Mia. But because the only "evidence" she found was my resume, she dumped all her psychotic rage onto me? I had actually taken the fall for Mia! The office erupted again, the whispers now too loud to contain: "Oh my god! It was actually Assistant Mia?!" "No wonder Mia was backing Brenda up and helping her insult Chloe earlier! She was trying to divert the heat away from herself!" "That is sickening! The two of them teamed up to torture Chloe, but the real rot was inside their own marriage!" Brenda stood rooted to the spot, her face ashen. She stared unblinkingly at Director Evans, then suddenly let out a piercing, hysterical laugh: "Good... very good! Robert Evans! You really were sleeping with that cheap little slut!" "I slaved away at home for you! I protected you and took the heat for you at this company! And this is how you repay me?!" Director Evans had completely given up caring. He pointed his finger right back at her: "You have the nerve to say that?! Last time you accepted luxury handbags from a client and got reported to compliance, who buried it for you?! And when you leaked our client database to a competitor, who took the fall for that?! Do you think I'm blind?! The illegal, shady shit you've pulled at this company is ten times worse than mine!" "Bullshit! I never did that!" Brenda shrieked, launching herself at Director Evans, scratching and biting him like a wild animal: "I'm going to kill you, you cheating bastard! I'll take you down with me!" Director Evans saw red. He raised his hand and delivered a brutal slap across Brenda's face. The two of them devolved into a vicious brawl. Hair was pulled, clothes were ripped to shreds. Loose documents, shattered phone screens, and spilled coffee mixed together on the floor. It was absolute, utter chaos. Brenda screamed as she threw punches: "You ungrateful, treacherous piece of trash! I must have been blind to ever marry you!" Director Evans fought back, roaring: "I'm the one who was blind! Marrying a psychotic bitch like you ruined my career and destroyed my life!" My father's face was dark with fury. He barked at the security team: "Pull them apart! Call the police immediately! Have them investigated for every single one of these charges!"
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