Semua Bab So Done With 3 Years of Free Labor: Bab 1 - Bab 9

I hadn't expected Tiffany to call me in a panic at two in the morning."Warren! Manager Dawson gave the order—you need to upload every source file for that project to the shared drive tonight!"Those files are company property! You signed an NDA! If you don't upload them, that's a breach of contract. Two hundred thousand in damages would be letting you off easy!"I lay in bed, spinning my lighter between my fingers. "Source files?""Yes! Every image, every slide, every layout from the client project!"I laughed and threw the question right back at her. "Tiffany, do you even know what this project is called?"There was a pause on the other end of the line, her confidence draining fast."It's... the client visuals thing, isn't it? What else would it be?"That made me laugh even harder. Not one person had ever bothered to actually look into this project—not my so-called peers, not the department heads above them. For three years, they'd all gotten comfortable dumping every task on

Marcus froze. "Isn't it just... making promo slides and posters for clients?"Tiffany chimed in. "Right! It's a visual design package!"I laughed again and said, "Let me educate you all, then. The project behind this hundred-thousand-dollar bonus has a full name: the Smart Investment Visuals Layout System. It's an automated design tool that generates client brochures, posters, and pitch decks. For three months, I didn't go home once. I slept in this conference room. Did any of you ever ask me a single question about it? All you saw was an extra hundred thousand dollars in my bank account."I turned to Vice President Cohen. "Mr. Cohen, you've known I was working on this from the day it was greenlit. You signed off on my weekly progress reports every single week. Since we're all here, let me show you the finished product."Cohen nodded, setting his pen down on the table. "Go ahead."I pulled out the silver flash drive, took a black one out of my bag, and plugged it into the computer

The room descended into chaos.Manager Dawson lunged for the tower, fingers reaching for the power button. I stepped in front of it, blocking him."What's the rush?" I said. "Every inbox in the company already has it. You can't delete this."Marcus's grip on my wrist suddenly went slack. He backed into a corner, pulled out his phone, and swiped frantically. His face turned gray."Manager Dawson... the forum..."Someone posted the recording… from yesterday, us locking his computer, forcing him to upload the source files!"The post title is 'Anyone Else Dealing with This? My Department Is Extorting Bonuses and Locking People's Computers!'"Tiffany's hair was a mess, her makeup smeared. She screamed and lunged for Marcus's phone. "Delete it! Delete it now!"Marcus shoved her off. "Delete it? It's already got a hundred thousand views!"Tiffany rounded on him. "It was you! You're the one who suggested locking his computer yesterday!"Marcus's eyes went bloodshot as he glared back

Cohen leaned in for a closer look, his knees buckling so badly he had to grab the table to keep from collapsing."This..."The Chairman stared at the screen, and a smile crept across his face. "Good. Ruthless. I like it."He turned to the woman from the audit team in the black suit. "How far has the investigation gone?"She adjusted her glasses and pulled a sealed evidence bag out of her briefcase. "Economic crimes investigators are already waiting downstairs. That BMW Gerald bought last year was registered under his brother-in-law's name, but the payments traced back to the account he used to collect his kickbacks. This is the seizure order."At those words, Gerald collapsed to the floor.Marcus suddenly threw himself forward and grabbed my leg. "Warren! I'll pay you back—the four hundred and eighty thousand, all of it! I'll pay you five hundred! No—six hundred thousand!"I looked down at him."Too late. That fabricated report about my 'mistakes'—Project X already recovered ev