The office was suffocating.
Papers scattered everywhere. Half-empty coffee cups littered the desks. Whiteboards filled with messy diagrams and half-erased numbers stared back at them like silent witnesses to their slow unraveling.
Aruna leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes for a moment, trying to breathe.
It felt like every conversation these days ended in arguments. Every decision turned into a battlefield.
And Giselle, Giselle was the eye of the storm.
"You're not moving fast enough," Giselle snapped, pacing across the room. "At this rate, you'll lose whatever tiny advantage Helios saw in you."
"We're already working until three in the morning every day!" Naya burst out, her voice cracking. "What more do you want from us?"
"More," Giselle said coldly. "If you want to survive, you give more. That's how this world works."
Reza slammed his laptop shut, the sound sharp like a gunshot. "We're not machines, Giselle!"
Aruna stayed silent, fists clenched on her lap. A storm raged inside her, words fighting to break free.
Giselle stopped pacing, fixing her gaze directly on Aruna. "Say something, Aruna. You're the leader, aren't you?"
The word leader stung like acid.
Was she? She didn't even feel like she recognized herself anymore.
Finally, slowly, she stood up.
"You think pushing people until they break is leadership?" Aruna said, her voice low and trembling. "You think treating us like chess pieces is how you build something meaningful?"
Giselle didn't flinch. "I think survival is more important than your feelings."
They stared at each other, the tension thick enough to make them choke.
"You're wrong," Aruna said, her voice steady now. "If we have to lose ourselves just to win then maybe it's not worth it."
Reza and Naya both looked at her, wide-eyed. It felt like the air had shifted, like something irreversible had just happened.
Giselle smiled a tight, almost pitying smile. "Idealism is cute. But it won't keep your company alive."
Aruna stepped closer. "Maybe not. But trust will."
There was a long, painful silence.
Finally, Giselle exhaled slowly. "Do what you want. But don't come crying to me when it all falls apart."
She turned on her heel and left, the door slamming behind her.
The silence that followed was crushing.
For a long time, none of them spoke.
Finally, Reza broke it, voice hoarse. "Did we just... lose her?"
Aruna sat down heavily. "Maybe."
"Can we even survive without her?" Naya whispered.
Aruna didn't know.
Giselle had opened doors for them. Made calls they couldn't have made themselves.
Without her connections, without her brutal structure, Veloria might collapse.
But... with her, Veloria might destroy itself from the inside out.
"No matter what," Aruna said quietly, "we survive together. That's the only rule."
Reza and Naya nodded, almost automatically. Exhausted, scared but still here. Still together.
It wasn't much. But it was enough.
For now.
The next few days were a blur of exhaustion and uncertainty.
No word from Giselle. No updates from Helios.
They kept working rebuilding their decks, tightening their product, reaching out to smaller investors, tweaking their platform based on early user feedback.
It was grueling. It was lonely.
But something strange started happening.
Without Giselle breathing down their necks, something in the team shifted.
They started laughing again small, tired laughs, but real.
They started brainstorming not because they had to, but because they wanted to.
They started remembering why they had built Veloria in the first place.
And then one afternoon, just as Aruna was about to call it a day an email landed.
It wasn't from Giselle.
It wasn't even from Helios.
It was from another VC Ignite Capital, someone they had reached out to weeks ago without much hope.
We reviewed your revised pitch deck and would like to schedule a meeting. Are you available this week?
Aruna stared at the screen, heart hammering.
She turned to Reza and Naya, her voice shaking. "Guys... you need to see this."
They crowded around her desk, and when they read the email, they whooped like kids.
It wasn't a guarantee. It wasn't a miracle.
But it was a second chance.
A beginning, not an ending.
Aruna looked at her team messy, exhausted, imperfect, and smiled.
"We're not done yet," she said.
Not even close.
And maybe, just maybe, this time... they'd do it their way.