“I pushed him away,” she said. “I told him if he ever did it again, I’d go straight to the board.”

“And he didn’t like that,” I said.

“He smiled,” Melanie said. “That cold, empty smile he has when he thinks he’s already won.”

She took a sip of her lukewarm coffee.

“The very next morning, my keycard didn’t work at the lobby elevator,” she said. “When I called HR, they told me I had been terminated for gross misconduct.”

“Just like that?” I asked.

“Just like that,” she said. “He had spent the night logging into the system using my credentials. He planted forged emails that made it look like I was selling client data to our competitors.”

I felt a sick wave of familiarity.

That was Lucas’s specialty—creating a digital paper trail that looked flawless to anyone who didn’t know how to look closer.

“They escorted me out of the building with my things in a cardboard box,” Melanie said. “I was too humiliated to fight it. I didn’t even realize what else he had done until the collection agencies started calling.”