His Intern Kissed Him, So I Destroyed His Company Chapter 06

His Intern Kissed Him, So I Destroyed His Company Chapter 06

“I won’t pursue five years of unpaid licensing fees.”

“I’m only taking back the original eighty thousand dollars I invested.”

“Sign it, and I’ll leave immediately.”

“After that, whether this company thrives or goes bankrupt has nothing to do with me.”

Ethan stared at the document, clearly unable to accept that I was truly leaving.

He had always assumed I would keep working for him, keep solving every crisis for him, and eventually be the one to apologize.

He thought everything I had done today was merely an attempt to force an apology out of him.

“Erin, what are you trying to pull now?”

He gave a cold laugh, his eyes still filled with arrogance.

“Do you think threatening to pull out of the company will make me beg you to stay?”

“After five years, can you really walk away?”

I looked at him, completely unmoved.

“Are you signing it or not?”

“If you refuse, my attorney will file a patent infringement suit this afternoon.”

“Then the database won’t be the only company asset frozen by the court.”

My refusal to back down made Ethan lose what little patience he had left.

He saw it as a challenge to his authority.

“Fine. This is your choice.”

He snatched the pen from the table, signed the agreement, and threw the document in front of me.

“Accounting will transfer the eighty thousand dollars to you this afternoon.”

“Erin, once you walk out that door, I won’t let you back into this company even if you come crawling back and beg me.”

I picked up the document, confirmed that the signature was valid, and turned to leave the conference room.

“Don’t worry. I won’t be coming back.”

“Good luck to you and Acting CTO Bennett. Try not to run the company into the ground too quickly.”

Behind me, I heard Sophia immediately trying to placate Ethan.

“Ethan, ignore her.”

“I figured out her code ages ago.”

“Give me one week. I promise I’ll build a better system than hers.”

Her confidence had no basis in reality, and I saw no reason to respond.

After leaving the office building, I took out my phone and called a number.

“Alexander, is there still room on that independent R&D team you mentioned?”

A quiet laugh came from the other end of the line.

“Finally ready to leave that badly managed startup?”

Alexander Reed had been two years ahead of me in college and was now the CEO of Nova Technologies, one of the industry’s leading tech companies.

Over the years, he had repeatedly invited me to join Nova, but I had always turned him down because I wanted to help Ethan build his company.

“Of course there is.”

“I’ve kept the technical partner position open for you this entire time.”

“Come straight to headquarters tomorrow. You’ll get a top-of-market salary and equity package.”

“All right. See you tomorrow.”

I ended the call, blocked Ethan and Sophia on every platform, and left every project channel at my former company.

The eighty-thousand-dollar exit payment arrived in my bank account that afternoon, exactly as promised.

As I looked at the balance, the weight that had pressed down on me for years finally lifted.

Over the next month, I devoted all my energy to Nova Technologies’ new project.

Alexander gave me full decision-making authority and assembled his best team for me.

Here, there were no endless office power struggles, and people with no technical knowledge were not allowed to interfere with R&D.

The new architecture I designed moved forward exactly on schedule.

Meanwhile, Ethan and his company quickly fell into an even deeper crisis.

Friends in the industry occasionally mentioned his situation at social gatherings.

After the venture capital firm withdrew its investment, the company’s cash flow dried up almost immediately.

It did not take long for everyone to stop believing Sophia’s promise that she could build a new system within a week.

She hired several dirt-cheap outsourcing teams and had them stitch together piles of untested open-source code.

The system crashed under heavy traffic on its first day online.

Several major clients suffered severe data loss as a result.

One after another, those clients sent demand letters seeking massive damages.

Desperate to fill the growing financial hole, Ethan spent every day fending off lawyers, clients, and creditors.