The sudden appearance of ApexTech seemingly out of nowhere, with a product strikingly similar to Veloria's wasn't just a business challenge. It felt personal.
As if on cue, Aruna's phone rang. A name flashed across the screen that froze them all: Giselle.
Aruna had always trusted her Giselle was more than just a mentor. She had been their guide when they were lost, a lifeline when things seemed hopeless. But the past few days had been clouded by the impossible odds stacked against them. Reza reached forward to silence the phone, but Aruna stopped him with a look.
"I'll take it," Aruna said, voice barely a whisper. They knew deep down that something wasn't right, that the quiet doubts they had been pushing away were about to surface with a vengeance.
Aruna answered the call. The voice on the other end was unmistakable. Confident. Calm. But underneath it, there was something chilling.
"Aruna," Giselle's voice came through clearly. "I think you should sit down. You're going to want to hear this."
Aruna's stomach twisted. "What is it, Giselle?"
"There's something you don't know," she continued, her words calculated, sharp. "ApexTech? That's my doing. I've been working with them for months. The product? It's yours, Aruna. Every idea, every vision that you shared with me… I've been feeding it to them. Every detail, every strategy."
The room felt like it was closing in. Aruna couldn't breathe, couldn't comprehend what was happening. They turned to Reza and Naya, but they were frozen, too, the shock written all over their faces.
"What… what do you mean?" Aruna managed to choke out.
"I mean, I took everything you gave me the pitches, the roadmaps, the innovations you trusted me with and I gave them to ApexTech. I knew they had the resources to back it, and you didn't. You were always too slow, too small. So, I made a choice."
Aruna's mind reeled as the words sunk in. It was as if the ground had been ripped from beneath them. Their most trusted ally, the person who had been a guiding force through their struggles, was the very one who had betrayed them. The ideas they had sacrificed so much for, the vision they had built from the ground up, had been stolen right out of their hands.
"You're… you're working with them?" Naya's voice trembled, disbelief creeping into her words.
"Yes," Giselle's voice was cold, almost dismissive now. "I didn't see any future in Veloria, not with the way you were dragging your feet. ApexTech is the future. I'm doing what's best for me."
Aruna's heart dropped into their stomach. Betrayal. It wasn't just a word it was a feeling now, seeping into their bones. They had trusted Giselle, shared their most intimate plans, their dreams for the company. And now, she had taken it all, handed it to a competitor that was now coming for their very existence.
"We thought you were our ally, Giselle," Reza's voice was tight, filled with rage. "You… you were supposed to help us, not destroy everything we worked for."
There was a pause on the other end of the line, as if Giselle was weighing her next words. Then she spoke, the indifference in her tone cutting deeper than any accusation could.
"Do you really think I cared about your little startup, Reza? You were always just a stepping stone for me. I needed to be where the real power was where the real success was. And now, I am."
The words hung in the air, heavy and suffocating. Aruna could feel the life draining out of them. It wasn't just the loss of the product, the betrayal of a partner was the realization that they had been blind to the manipulations happening right under their noses.
"So, what now?" Aruna asked, barely able to get the words out. "What do you want from us?"
"I don't want anything from you," Giselle replied. "You've already given me everything I needed. Just know this ApexTech will crush Veloria. And there's nothing you can do to stop it."
Aruna wanted to hang up the phone, wanted to throw it across the room, but something kept them tethered. "You were supposed to be our mentor," Aruna said quietly, the pain in their voice unmistakable. "We trusted you."
Giselle's laughter echoed through the line. "And that was your mistake. Trust is for the weak. I never made that mistake."
The call ended with a click. Silence filled the room, suffocating in its finality. Aruna, Reza, and Naya sat there, stunned. They had been betrayed not just by a competitor, but by someone they had considered a friend, a partner.
The weight of the moment crashed down on them. The victory they had once celebrated just days ago felt like a distant memory now. They had no idea how they were going to fight ApexTech, not when their own ideas had been stolen and turned against them. It was as though the ground had fallen out from under them, and now they were free-falling, with no hope of landing on solid ground.
Aruna stood, pacing the room, their mind racing. "We can't give up," they said through gritted teeth. "We can't let her win. Not like this."
Reza looked at Aruna, his expression one of quiet defeat. "But what do we do? She has everything our ideas, our strategy, our trust. It's like we've been played from the very beginning."
"We fight back," Aruna said, their voice filled with a renewed determination, even though every part of them wanted to crumble. "We rebuild, we adapt, and we show the world that Veloria is more than just a product. We're a force. And we're not done yet."
But deep down, Aruna knew the road ahead would be harder than anything they had faced before. They had lost more than just their competitive edge. They had lost something more precious trust. And it would take everything they had to rebuild from the ashes of betrayal.