The Company Demanded Everything From Me, So I Let It Burn Chapter 09

The Company Demanded Everything From Me, So I Let It Burn Chapter 09

Vanessa begged over and over, her voice stripped of every trace of pride. All I felt was disgust.

I looked down at her.

“You should be thanking me. Be honest with yourself. Everything you have now started with the Sterling contract I won for you three years ago. That’s what put you in the CEO’s chair.”

“All I’m doing is taking back what I gave you.”

Vanessa kept calling after me, but I never looked back.

Not long after I got home, my phone started buzzing nonstop with messages in the company group

chat. That was how I found out what happened after I left.

“Holy crap. When they got back, you could feel the tension from across the office. I’ve never seen

Ms. Grant look that bad.”

“Of course she looked bad. That was a massive screwup, and she personally led the team. I heard

Mr. Hayes went off and said people are going to answer for it.

After I left, the Vantage team apparently sat there staring at one another, completely unable to

settle on a final price.

Even without me, they could have estimated a reasonable bid from their own prep work and

financial models.

But they’d relied on my luck for too long. Year after year, they took the result for granted and skipped the work behind it. This time, they hadn’t prepared properly or even built a serious budget.

With the moderator pushing for an answer, Vanessa finally had no choice but to submit a number

herself.

Her price wasn’t even close to the actual winning bid.

It was so wildly off that word spread through the industry almost immediately. Vantage became a punch line overnight.

I could only shake my head. They had brought every bit of it on themselves.

I didn’t give it much more thought. Early the next morning, I went back to Vantage.

When I tried to file my separation paperwork, however, the process was put on hold.

I protested, but the person across from me only said,

“I’m sorry. We’ve received a joint formal misconduct complaint. You’ll need to cooperate with the

investigation.”

I stared at them. Someone had accused me of leaking confidential business information and

causing major losses to Vantage.

Cashing out my vested shares was now off the table. Until I cooperated with the investigation and

cleared my name, Vantage refused to finalize my separation or release the equity transaction.

There was nothing to do but wait for the compliance investigator.

Thinking back to the Sterling bid, I already had a good idea who had filed the complaint.

Sure enough, when the investigator arrived, he got straight to the point.

“Mr. Reed, a formal complaint alleges that while representing Vantage at the Sterling Group bid, you disclosed confidential company information to a competing bidder and replaced your team’s bid documents, directly causing Vantage to lose the contract. Is that true?”

My stomach tightened. I knew the board would come down hard on them after the Sterling disaster, but I hadn’t expected them to frame me just to save themselves.

“No. It’s completely false. Someone is retaliating against me.”