The next morning, I arrived at the office earlier than usual, still feeling the lingering weight of my conversation with Thiago the night before. His reassurance had settled some of my nerves a bit, but not all. Charles Bermudez was still a problem, and I wasn’t about to let him keep disrupting my work.When I stepped into my office, however, I instantly felt something was off. My desk that was usually spotless and way too well put together was now messed up. My personal files were usually in a controlled state of chaos, but everything now looked disorganised and unsightly. That’s when I noticed him—Charles—sitting casually in the chair behind my desk, rifling through my paperwork as if he had every right to be there.That was when my blood boiled.“Excuse me,” I said, my voice sharp as I stormed into the room. “What the hell do you think you’re doing in my office?”Charles glanced up from the files with that same smug, arrogant smile he’d worn at the board meeting yesterday. “Ah, goo
Lucia walked further inside my office, closing the door behind her and pulling up a chair beside my desk. She began helping by arranging those files and documents that Charles had messed around earlier.Following that, she then looked at me with her usual supportive, yet curious, expression."Let me guess," she said, folding her arms. "Charles isn’t going away quietly, is he?"I let out a long sigh, rubbing my temples as I tried to calm the frustration bubbling inside. "No, he’s not. He was in here this morning, Lucia—like inisde my office, going through my files like he had every right to be here."
And as soon as Marcus left, I grabbed my phone and dialed Thiago’s viber. I needed to inform him about the things that his cousin was doing behind our back.The weight of everything—Charles’ meddling, the betrayal within the company, and the looming threat to Bermudez Group—hung over me like a dark cloud. I needed to seek help, and of course, the only person I think that could help me now was no one else but Thiago. I needed him now.It rang a few times before Thiago picked up, his voice calm and collected as usual. "Wifey, what’s going on?"I didn’t bother with pleasantries. "We need to talk. Please, Charles is snooping around in our financial files in secret, and he’s not doing it alone. Someone in the company is helping him, and I need to know if you’re involved."There was a pause on the other end of the line, and for a moment, my heart pounded in the silence. When Thiago finally spoke, his voice was firm but a little colder than usual. "Wifey, I’ve already told you—I have noth
I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to Charles’ sudden appearance than just some power play within the family. The way he slithered into meetings and casually acted as if he belonged at the head of the table made my skin crawl. Something was off, and I wasn’t going to wait around for him to make his next move.After my confrontation with Charles earlier that morning, I decided it was time to take action beyond just words. I needed to know what his true intentions were with Bermudez Group, and I wasn’t going to rely on Thiago to find out. This was my fight now.I had quietly reached out to a private investigator the day before—someone who specialized in corporate espionage and discreet investigations. I didn’t want anyone in the company to know about this yet, especially not Charles. The less he knew, the better.As I sat at my desk that afternoon, waiting for the investigator’s report, Lucia came into my office, looking anxious but determined. "Madame CEO, you need to s
As the days passed, the investigation into Charles’ activities only deepened. My private investigator had uncovered more connections between Charles and several of our competitors, particularly one shady conglomerate that had been sniffing around the edges of Bermudez Group for months.It became clear that Charles was playing a much bigger game than we originally thought.I sat in my office, pouring over the investigator’s latest findings, my mind racing. Every new revelation only made things murkier. Charles wasn’t just after my position—he was after the whole damn company.Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, and Lucia poked her head in, looking more concerned than usual."Madame CEO," she said softly, stepping into the room. "You’re going to want to see this.""What now?" I asked, barely hiding my frustration. I had enough on my plate as it was.Lucia handed me her tablet, her fingers shaking slightly. "I pulled another set of CCTV footage from last week. I know we’ve already s
The pressure weighed heavily on my shoulders, but if there’s one thing I knew, it’s that I couldn’t let Charles or anyone else see me crack. Not now, when the stakes were so high. Over the next few days, Lucia worked tirelessly to secure the files and move everything to an encrypted server. I’d also instructed her to set up a digital trap—something that would alert us the second Charles or anyone else tried to access any critical information without authorization. My private investigator, Mira, had stayed on the case as well, digging deeper into Charles’ background, tracking his financial movements, and confirming his ties with the Zorich Group. She was nothing if not thorough, and the deeper she went, the more unsettling details she uncovered.It was late in the evening when Mira called me. I was at home, unwinding with a glass of wine, trying to piece together my next move when the phone rang.“Ms. Bridgette,” Mira’s voice came through, urgent. “I found something. I have this stro
And so a day finally came when I have decided to finally chase Charles towards his trap. Despite knowing that the moment I decided to set Charles up, I knew it wouldn’t be easy. But for some reason, I still was confident that with the evidence Lucia had gathered and Mira's ongoing investigation, I could catch him in the act and end this nightmare once and for all.I called a private meeting with Lucia and Marcus the following morning in my office. They had been my most trusted allies, and I needed their expertise if we were going to pull this off."Here’s the plan," I began, leaning forward across the table, my voice low but determined. "We need to make Charles think he’s getting the upper hand. We’ll dangle something, like a project—a huge project, something that will seem like the perfect opportunity for him to steal. But it’ll be a decoy. We’ll set it as a trap, and after he bites, we’ll have all the proof we need to bury him."Lucia raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "You want to feed
I sat there, stunned, my hands cold and trembling under the table. The room’s oppressive silence felt like it was squeezing the air out of my lungs. Charles had pulled the rug out from under me, and the board was already convinced. What seemed to come to be even worse was that, Thiago, the man I thought I could count on, had hesitated to believe me. His silence was louder than the accusations being thrown my way.“I agree,” one of the board members, Mrs. Lavoie, said after what felt like an eternity. “It’s in the best interest of the Bermudez Group to suspend Bridgette while we investigate this fully.”The others nodded in agreement, their faces unreadable, though I could feel the judgment radiating from them.Suspension? My heart dropped even further. They were stripping me of my authority of being their CEO, right before my very eyes. Not officially firing me—not yet—but this was a public shaming. It was like being exiled from my own territory, a place I’d already bled so much for