Chapter 2

Chloe wasn't in the office that morning.

Jake must've lost a few more games.

He strolled out of the glass room, face stormy as a thundercloud.

He roamed the office, obviously looking for someone to pick on.

He eventually wandered into design, stopping behind a designer and glaring at her screen.

"What the hell is this crap? That color scheme's hideous—looks like dog barf."

The designer, a young woman named Maya, turned bright red, eyes welling up. She bit her lip, too scared to talk back.

Then he headed to operations, snatching a freshly printed event proposal off a desk.

He flipped through a couple pages, scoffed, and smirked.

"Who wrote this crap? A kindergartner? I could run a better guild war in my game."

With that, he flicked the papers back onto the desk, scattering them all over the floor.

The operations manager, Ms. Reed, scurried to grab them, hands shaking.

Jake kept strolling, making his way to the server room door.

He must've felt hot, so he grabbed the thermostat on the wall and started mashing buttons.

"This AC sucks—it's not cooling worth a damn."

He hit some random button, and the panel started blaring an alarm.

David, the tech lead, bolted out of his office, face turning white when he saw what was going on.

"Don't touch that! That's the server room's climate control!"

But it was already too late.

With a click, the whole office's AC cut out.

A few seconds later, a shrill overheat alarm started blaring from the server room.

David ignored Jake and sprinted into the server room.

The office temp shot up fast, making everyone swelter.

Jake stood in front of the AC panel, scratching his head.

"What a piece of crap—breaks just from pressing a button. Why's all your equipment so cheap?"

The guts on this guy—to blame everyone else—was unreal.

Mr. Jenkins, the office manager, hurried over too.

He glanced at the blaring server alarm, then at Jake.

He immediately put on a kiss-up smile.

"Didn't scare you too bad, did it sir? This panel's always been glitchy—should've had it fixed sooner."

"Ain't your fault—swear! I'll call someone to fix this right away!"

"Why don't you head back to your room and relax? We'll handle this."

Jake grunted, still looking put-out, but stomped back to his glass room.

Only then did Mr. Jenkins wipe the sweat off his brow and start directing the tech team's emergency repairs.

As he walked by, I called out.

"Mr. Jenkins—does this happen often?"

Mr. Jenkins glanced at me, recognized the corporate badge, and his face twisted bitterly.

He tugged me into the fire escape stairwell and lowered his voice.

"You're the auditor, right? I shouldn't say this… but today's incident? It's nothing."

He sighed heavily.

"Truth is—he's Chloe's husband. We can't do a damn thing."

"Chloe's out at a meeting today—so no one's here to rein him in."

"On good days, she keeps him locked in that room…"

His face crumbled with helplessness.

"Last month, he lost a game and trashed his keyboard. Pieces flew everywhere—took out three monitors."

"We tried to replace them, but Chloe said we were negligent—didn't protect company property. Tanked our whole department's quarterly review."

"Said it was a 'learning experience.'"

My stomach dropped.

This was Chloe's management style.

Letting a deadbeat run wild while making hardworking employees clean up his mess.

Chloe… unbelievable.

Just then, the glass room door flew open.

Jake stuck his head out yelling.

"It's freaking hot! AC fixed yet? My computer's gonna overheat! And I need more game credits—who's gonna buy me cards?"

No one answered.

The office went dead silent—only the server alarm cutting through the air.