Chapter 31 Sloane
Sloane
Istand in the wreckage of my apartment, surveying the battlefield like a general calculating casualties.
But I'm not mourning the destruction anymore. The white-hot fury that burned through me during our fight has crystallized into something colder, sharper.
Garrett's footsteps faded down the hallway long ago, but his absence doesn't bring relief. It brings clarity. Pure, brilliant clarity about what needs to happen next.
I step over a scattered stack of quarterly reports and grab my phone from the counter. My fingers don't shake as I scroll through my contacts. The first call is strategy. The second is ammunition.
"Brynn." My voice cuts through her phone's first ring, sharp and commanding. "Get over here. Now. We have work to do."
"Sloane? Jesus, I've been worried sick. I heard about the meeting and—"
"I don't need sympathy. I need your investigative skills and whatever evidence you can gather on Vivian." I pause, letting the weight of purpose settle into my voice. "Bring everything."
There's a beat of silence, then I hear her shift into professional mode. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."
The second call is harder, but necessary.
"Easton." His name tastes bitter, but I force it out anyway.
"Sloane, thank God. I've been trying to reach you for hours. After what happened in the boardroom, I—"
"Save it." I cut through his guilt like a blade. "Apologies don't rebuild careers. Evidence does. Are you going to help me fight this, or are you going to keep trying to protect me from my own decisions?"
The silence stretches between us, weighted with everything we haven't said since his ultimatum at the gala. When he speaks again, his voice carries the steel of someone choosing sides.
"What do you need?"
"Your moral support and your complete silence about anything I'm planning until I tell you otherwise." I move through my living room, already visualizing the transformation from crime scene to war room. "Get here. Fast."
By the time Brynn's key turns in my lock, I've cleared the coffee table and created a workspace from the wreckage.
The papers are stacked by priority—evidence, timelines, financial records.
The broken ceramic is swept into a neat pile, waiting for disposal.
The chaos of emotion has been organized into something useful.
"Holy shit," Brynn breathes, taking in the apartment. But it's not the destruction that stops her—it's me. Standing in the center of it all, still wearing the navy dress from my corporate execution, but with my shoulders squared and my eyes blazing with purpose instead of tears.
"You look..." She searches for words. "Dangerous."
"Good." I gesture to the cleared table. "Sit. Show me what you have."
Easton arrives five minutes later, moving through the doorway with the cautious energy of someone approaching a wounded predator. He takes in my transformation—from broken woman to battle-ready strategist—and something shifts in his posture. Relief, maybe. Or recognition.
"Sloane—"
"We're not doing emotional processing right now," I cut him off, pointing to the table where Brynn is already spreading documents. "We're doing strategic planning. Feelings are a luxury I can't afford."
Brynn slides a thick manila folder across the coffee table, her expression grim with satisfaction. "I've been building this case for weeks. Ever since that blind item dropped about you, I felt like something was off."
"It's not just a pattern; it's a receipt.
The Sin Bin Scoop blind item was sent from a public WiFi hotspot.
But look at this..." She points to a line item on a printout.
"Vivian's corporate card. A coffee charge from that exact hotspot, nine minutes before the tip was sent.
She wasn't just enjoying the fire, Sloane. She lit the match."
"Do I want to know how you got all of this?" I don't wait for Brynn to answer.
I flip open the folder, and my analytical mind—dormant since the boardroom disaster—roars back to life. Email threads with highlighted timestamps. Financial records showing suspicious budget reallocations. A timeline correlating the anonymous tip with Vivian's calendar entries.
"This isn't just about me," I murmur, scanning the documents with laser focus. "She's done this before."
"Three times that I can prove," Brynn confirms. "Always successful women. Always manufactured scandals. Always plausible deniability."
Easton leans over my shoulder, his massive frame casting a shadow across the pages. "Jesus. It's a playbook."
I spread the documents across the table like tarot cards revealing a terrible future.
The pattern emerges with crystalline clarity—not just sabotage, but systematic elimination.
A corporate serial killer who specialized in making careers disappear.
Brynn's research confirms Anna's story. Confirms that she's done this before.
"She didn't get lucky with Garrett's outburst," I say, my voice steady and cold. "She orchestrated it. Manipulated him into giving her exactly what she needed to destroy me."
"The question is," Brynn says, pulling out her laptop, "what do we do with this information?"
I study the evidence, my strategic mind already three moves ahead. The data is damning, the pattern undeniable. Any reasonable person looking at this documentation would see the truth immediately. Any ethical organization would act swiftly to correct such a massive injustice.
"We go through proper channels first," I decide, my voice carrying the confidence of someone who's solved the puzzle.
"We present this to Frank Miller in a formal meeting. Give the organization a chance to do the right thing. I’m suspended right now pending the HR investigation, but this should give them everything they need to wrap it up and reinstate me. "
Brynn frowns. "Sloane, are you sure? This could leak. We could lose control of the narrative—"
"No." I lean back, certainty flowing through me like steel in my veins. "Frank's a company man. He cares about liability, about protecting the organization from lawsuits. When he sees this evidence, when he understands the scope of Vivian's sabotage campaign, he'll have no choice but to act."
I start pacing, energy crackling through me as the plan takes shape.
"We schedule a formal meeting. We present the evidence systematically—financial irregularities, pattern of behavior, documentation of gender-based discrimination.
We make it clear that this isn't just about reinstating me.
This is about protecting the organization from a massive lawsuit. "
"And if he refuses to meet with you?" Easton asks.
"Then we go nuclear," I say simply. "But we give him the chance to be the hero first. To clean house internally before it becomes a public relations nightmare."
Brynn nods slowly, her journalist instincts engaging with the strategy. "It's elegant. Professional. Shows good faith on our part."
"Exactly." I stop pacing and turn to face them both, feeling more like myself than I have in hours. "We're not some disgruntled employees making wild accusations. We're concerned parties presenting irrefutable evidence of corporate misconduct."
The three of us spend the next hour refining the approach, building talking points, anticipating counterarguments. The energy in the room shifts from desperation to determination as we transform grief into tactics.
"When?" Brynn asks as we finalize the strategy.
"Tomorrow morning," I decide. "First thing. Before Vivian has time to spin whatever story she's planning."
Easton checks his phone. "I can get us a meeting. Frank respects me, trusts my judgment. If I tell him it's urgent, he'll make time."
"Do it."
As Easton steps into the hallway to make the call, Brynn studies my face with the intensity of someone reading between lines.
"You're different," she observes. "Harder."
"Good," I reply without hesitation. "Soft got me destroyed. Hard gets me justice."
She nods approvingly. "Just... be careful not to lose yourself in the process."
But I'm not worried about losing myself. For the first time in hours, I know exactly who I am: the woman who doesn't accept defeat. Who turns crisis into opportunity. Who fights back with intelligence, evidence, and absolute ruthless precision.
Easton returns, phone call complete. "Nine a.m. tomorrow. Frank's office."
"Perfect." I close the folder of evidence, my hands steady with purpose. "Vivian Lamore thinks she broke me. She thinks she can destroy careers and move on to her next target."
I look at my allies—my brother who chose loyalty over team politics, my best friend who spent weeks building an unshakeable case—and feel the final pieces of my plan click into place.
"She has no idea what's coming." I smile, and it's cold enough to freeze flames. "Frank Miller is a practical man. He cares about protecting his organization from liability. When he sees this evidence, when he understands what she's been doing..."
I pause, savoring the moment of absolute certainty.
"He won't know what hit him."
The marble beneath my heels rings with each deliberate step, the sound echoing sharp and final through the executive wing. Fifteen floors above the rink where my brother guards the net, we move through this corporate stratosphere with the grim determination of a legal team heading into trial.
My briefcase feels heavy in my grip—not with weight, but with power.
Inside lies months of evidence, meticulously documented patterns of sabotage, irregularities that paint a picture so clear even a corporate lawyer couldn't deny it.
This isn't speculation or emotion. This is data.
Facts. The language Frank Miller speaks fluently.
"Remember," I murmur to my flanking allies, "we lead with the timeline, follow with the financial trail, close with legal exposure. Clean. Professional. Irrefutable."