The betrayal was total. Natalia intercepted the Owner’s letter promoting me to Director and shredded it before I could see it. She then sent an anonymous tip to HR claiming I was "selling confidential data." If I lose my corporate insurance today, my son’s infusion on Monday is cancelled. Natalia knows this—she’s using his life as an ultimatum to pressure me into signing a confession of "gross misconduct."
I just found the CRM logs proving Natalia logged in at 2:14 AM to manually change the "Lead Owner" from my name to hers. My colleagues, whose mortgages I saved, have turned into adversaries, agreeing to lie about my "erratic behavior" for a share of my taken bonus. Natalia just sent me a final DM: "Sign the confession by 5 PM, or I’ll file a take legal action."
I am standing outside the Owner’s office with a thumb drive containing the original server logs, but Natalia is blocking the door, phone in hand, ready to call the authorities. Do I push past her and risk detention, or do I sign away my future to buy my son one more month?
I’m sitting in my car in the office parking lot, hands shaking so hard I can’t even put the key in the ignition. My son’s meds cost $6,200 every single month. If I don’t get that $48,000 bonus, he doesn't get his infusion on Monday. It’s that simple. And Natalia, my "mentor," just spent the last hour in front of the whole company calling me a larcenist and a deceiver to make sure I never see a cent of it.
For six months, I was this company. While Natalia was on maternity leave, I lived on lukewarm coffee and four hours of sleep. I negotiated 14 rounds of revisions to close the $7.2M Atlas deal. I saved 32 jobs. The Owner personally called me his "savior" in a company-wide email and promised me the Director’s chair. I thought I’d finally made it. I thought for the first time in seven years, I could breathe without worrying about the bank taking our house.
Then Natalia came back on Monday. She didn't even say hello. She walked into my office—the one I was told would be mine—and tossed my "Director-Elect" nameplate into the trash can. "Placeholders shouldn't get comfortable, Rebecca," she said. "The grown-ups are back now."
By Tuesday, the trap was set. At the 10:00 AM All-Hands meeting, she pulled up a PowerPoint titled "Account Integrity Audit." She showed a slide of "scraped data logs" and told 40 of my colleagues—people whose mortgages I personally saved—that I had "appropriated her legacy leads" and falsified the Atlas reports.
I checked the CRM logs during the lunch break, hiding in a bathroom stall. My heart hit the floor. Natalia had logged in at 2:14 AM on Sunday morning. She manually changed the "Lead Source" from my name to hers on every high-value Atlas account. She deleted every email the Owner sent me about my promotion. She literally tried to delete my existence from the server while I was tucked in bed with my ailing kid.
When I confronted her in her office, she didn't even flinch. She just leaned back in her chair and smiled that terrifying, poisonous smile. "Sign the 'errors' confession, Rebecca. You go on a 90-day probation at half-pay, and I won't call the law for corporate intelligence-gathering. Think of your son. You need that insurance for his infusions, right? Don't be a hero when you're a mother first."
I went to my team. I thought Sarah or Mike would speak up. They saw me do the work. But they wouldn't even look me in the eye. "Natalia said if we sign her 'disciplinary complaint' against you, she’ll split your $48,000 bonus among us," Sarah whispered. "I’m sorry, Rebecca. My kids need braces and the inflation is killing us."
Natalia didn't stop there. She intercepted the Owner’s latest physical letter to me. She held it over a shredder in her office while I watched. "Sign the confession, or I call HR and tell them you’ve been selling private information to our competitors. You'll be fired for cause. No insurance. No COBRA. No severance. By 5:00 PM today, you’ll be a nobody with a failing kid and a house you can't pay for."
I didn't sign. But I didn't go to the Owner yet either. I spent the whole night in the IT closet, persuading the night tech. I recovered the metadata.
I found the hidden back-ups of the CRM before her 2 AM edits. I even found a recording of Natalia bragging to her husband about "fixing the books" to pay for her new Tesla. I have it all on a thumb drive. It’s nuclear.
But here is the reality: Natalia’s father is a major shareholder. If I walk into that boardroom and expose her, I might get my bonus, but I will be blacklisted from this industry for life.
Natalia has already told the Owner I’m "having a breakdown" and "hallucinating" due to the stress of being a single mother. If I fail to prove every single word, I go to confinement for defamation and taking.
If I sign her confession, my son gets his infusion on Monday. We keep the house for three more months. I keep my head down and survive as her "assistant."
If I clash, I might win the truth, but lose the insurance. If the Owner takes her side, my son is out of medication by Tuesday morning.
I’m standing in the hallway. Natalia is watching me from her office door, holding her phone, ready to call HR to finalize my termination. The Owner is in his office, 20 feet away.
What do I do? Do I sign the lie to buy my son's life for 90 days, or do I walk into that office and risk his future for a truth that might not even save us? What would you do?
