The rain fell in a cold drizzle that morning, slicking the glass windows of Veloria's office with a gray sheen. For once, the buzz of the city below felt distant muffled, like the calm before a storm.
Inside Aruna's office, the air was anything but calm.
She stood over her desk, palms flat on the surface, eyes locked on the digital board behind her. A tangled web of threads and names lit up the screen timestamps, file logs, server accesses. Each line a whisper from the past few weeks. And at the center of it all, one name kept surfacing like an oil stain.
Vincent.
Not as a definitive perpetrator.
But as a shadow.
Always near.
Never caught.
"It's time," she whispered to herself.
She pulled out her phone and typed a single encrypted message to Reza.
Operation Bait is green.
Proceed silently.
Later that afternoon, Aruna walked into the main floor with the calm poise of a CEO who still believed the storm could be weathered.
To most eyes, she seemed unshaken. Focused. But inside, every step felt like a wire crossing a minefield.
She made her way to the product team bullpen, where Vincent was stationed with a few junior engineers. He looked up the moment she arrived too fast, too alert.
"Vincent," she said smoothly, "a moment?"
He stood up without protest and followed her into one of the private glass-walled meeting rooms.
As the door closed, Aruna didn't sit. She let silence stretch.
Vincent broke it first.
"Rough week," he said, giving a small, strained chuckle. "I've been combing through code logs with the guys. Still trying to piece together "
Aruna cut him off gently.
"You've been working late, I noticed."
Vincent blinked.
"Yes… well, I just want to help."
She nodded slowly, then slid a folder across the table.
He opened it and froze.
Inside were several screenshots: admin panel logs, file access records, edits to firewall exceptions all tied to actions that had taken place over a secured VPN, masked under Nadia's credentials.
"Reza compiled these. He also found a few command-line scripts buried deep in the dev environment. Very sophisticated."
Vincent swallowed.
"Who… who planted them?"
"I was hoping you could help me figure that out," Aruna said, voice smooth as glass.
Then she smiled not warm, but calculated.
"I'm also wondering why those scripts mirror a structure you once used at Altera Systems. You know, the little tool you built for automated server patches."
A pause.
Vincent's composure cracked for half a second.
Then he leaned back and forced a laugh.
"Aruna, you think I'm involved in this?"
She didn't answer.
Instead, she tapped on her phone. A projector in the room flickered on and displayed a real-time terminal feed.
"Reza is live-monitoring all endpoints. Including yours. If you'd like to clear your name, now's a good time."
Vincent stared at the screen.
He knew.
The game was changing.
So he made his move.
"I think I deserve some context here," he said, sitting forward. "If you're going to accuse me of what, sabotage? Treason? I think I should be allowed to explain myself."
Aruna raised an eyebrow.
"Go on."
"I never meant to hurt Veloria," he began. "But I was approached months ago offered a chance to work on something… bigger. And yes, it was Giselle. She didn't force me. She didn't need to. She showed me what was wrong with this company."
Aruna's stomach twisted. But she kept her face still.
"You saw it too, didn't you? The favoritism, the blind faith in your vision, the way you ignored ideas that didn't come from your 'inner circle.' Giselle just gave me the tools. The truth is, Veloria was already rotting. I just accelerated the decay."
He leaned back.
"And you know what? I'd do it again. Because I was sick of pretending you were the future when you had no clue how to build one."
The words hung in the air.
Venom. Sharp and deliberate.
But Aruna didn't flinch.
Instead, she nodded. Slowly. Almost like approval.
"Thank you."
Vincent frowned. "For what?"
"For confessing."
She tapped her phone again.
In the next room, Reza emerged, holding a wireless transmitter. Behind him, two legal officers and an external auditor stepped forward.
"Vincent Tay, you are hereby suspended pending formal investigation," Reza said, voice cold and official. "We have retained cybersecurity forensics and all your access has been revoked as of five minutes ago."
"You set me up," Vincent hissed.
"No," Aruna replied. "You walked into it."
He stood abruptly, knocking over the chair.
"This won't fix it. Giselle already broke you. You think outing me changes the tide? You're bleeding out, Aruna. You're already a cautionary tale."
Aruna walked to the door and opened it.
"Maybe," she said. "But at least now, we're bleeding with our eyes open."
The fallout from Vincent's removal was swift.
Veloria's team was stunned. Some were devastated. Others relieved.
But more importantly for the first time in weeks the company had a clear villain. A traitor. Not just a faceless hacker or a scapegoat like Nadia.
This time, it was one of their own.
And that changed everything.
That evening, Aruna sat by the rooftop garden alone, overlooking the bruised horizon.
She pulled out her phone and opened a message draft.
She stared at the blinking cursor.
Then typed:
I know it was you.
You didn't win yet.
She hit send.
To Giselle.
And somewhere, far away, Giselle smiled.
The game was back on.