Chapter 2

Ethan sat in the quiet of his home office, the phone lying face down and silent on the desk. The frantic buzzing had stopped hours ago. He felt a strange sense of calm, a clarity that had been missing for months. He wasn't angry anymore, just hollowed out.

He spent the next morning methodically detangling his life from Chloe's. He started with the company. He was still technically a consultant, a title Chloe had given him after the company grew beyond the two of them. It was a role with no real power, mostly just fixing the messes others made.

His new, work-issued phone, a device he rarely used, suddenly lit up with a call. It was Mark, one of the lead engineers at Innovatech.

"Ethan, thank God you picked up," Mark said, his voice strained with panic. "It's the Genesis build. It's a complete disaster."

Ethan leaned back in his chair. "What happened?"

"The final integration failed. There's a critical bug in the core module, the one Liam was supposed to have rewritten. It's corrupting the entire database. We're losing client data, Ethan. We've been trying to roll it back for hours, but it' s not working. Chloe is losing her mind."

Ethan felt a grim, hollow satisfaction. He had warned her. Weeks ago, he had looked at Liam' s initial code and told Chloe it was sloppy and unstable. He' d told her that Liam was great at talking a big game, but his fundamentals were weak.

Chloe had brushed him off. "You're just jealous of his talent, Ethan. Liam is a rockstar. You need to be more of a team player."

"I'm not on the Genesis project, Mark," Ethan said, his voice flat. "Liam is the project lead. It's his problem."

"He can't fix it," Mark hissed. "He's been staring at the screen for three hours, just sweating. He has no idea what he's doing. Chloe sent him to get you. She said you have to come in."

"She sent him to get me?" Ethan almost laughed. "Tell Chloe that my consulting contract stipulates a 24-hour notice period for non-emergency on-site work. This is an emergency created by her handpicked 'rockstar.' It's not my responsibility."

"Ethan, please," Mark begged. "The whole project could collapse. The launch is in two days."

"Then Liam better learn to code fast," Ethan said. "I'm not coming in, Mark. Send me an official email request if you want, and I'll review it per my contract."

He hung up.

He knew what Chloe was doing. She was trying to use him, to summon him like a genie to clean up her mess so she could take the credit for the save. She' d done it before. She'd praise him in private, tell him he was her hero, and then stand in front of her board and talk about how she led her team through a crisis.

Not this time.

He sat there, staring at the blank monitor, a storm of memories brewing. He remembered the long nights fueled by cheap coffee, coding the foundation of her company in this very room while she drafted business plans. He remembered selling the stocks his grandfather had left him to provide the seed money she needed, a fact she conveniently forgot to mention in interviews about her "self-made" success. He remembered putting his own game-dev dreams on hold because he believed in her dream.

He had been a fool. A supportive, loving fool.

The doorbell rang, a sharp, insistent chime that cut through the silence.

He ignored it. It rang again, then a third time, followed by a loud banging on the door.

He walked to the front door and looked through the peephole. It wasn't Liam. It was Chloe's personal assistant, a young woman named Amy who always looked terrified.

He opened the door a crack.

"Ethan," Amy said, looking flustered. "Chloe sent me. She needs you at the office right away."

"I'm not an employee, Amy. I'm a consultant," he said calmly. "And I'm not on call. Tell Chloe to read my contract."

"She said it's an emergency. She said… she said to tell you not to be difficult."

Ethan looked past Amy, at the black town car waiting at the curb. Chloe wasn' t just sending for him, she was trying to command him.

The last thread of hope that she might feel some remorse, some small flicker of guilt, snapped.

"Tell Chloe," Ethan said, his voice dropping to a cold, quiet tone, "that my answer is no."

He closed the door in her face, the click of the lock sounding final and absolute.