He Tried to Hijack My $180 Million Shanghai Deal—So I Spoke One Sentence in Mandarin That Made the COO Stand Up
If we lose this deal, Connor whispered, you’ll be back translating restaurant menus.
Rebecca didn’t look at him, didn’t flinch, didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing anything land.
She kept her eyes locked on Mr. Leang across the lacquered conference table, Zu International’s COO, who was calmly stirring his tea as if the tiny whirlpool in the cup held the fate of the world.
In a way, it did.
The Shanghai office of Orbesttech was designed to impress people who had already seen everything.
Glass walls, silent air conditioning, art that looked like it had been chosen by committee, and a long table so glossy it reflected faces like a mirror that never forgot.
Twelve men in tailored charcoal suits sat along it with the stillness of practiced restraint.
Not one of them had blinked since Connor barged in fifteen minutes late, trailing Palo Alto arrogance and sandalwood cologne like a wake behind a speedboat.
The man thought charm was volume.
He believed negotiations could be bulldozed with a grin, a wink, and a metaphor about rockets.
He’d introduced himself with a joke about taking this merger to the moon, then leaned back in his chair like he’d just won the room.
Mr. Leang hadn’t even acknowledged him.
Rebecca had been the one holding the room’s balance since the first meeting eleven months ago.
She understood the difference between a conversation and a performance, and she knew Zu International wasn’t there for a show.
They were there to decide whether Orbesttech deserved to exist in their ecosystem.
That was what a $180 million, five-year logistics and AI integration deal really meant.
If it fell apart, it wouldn’t just be an “opportunity lost.”
Orbesttech’s entire Asian expansion strategy would collapse like a cheap card table in a windstorm.
Connor didn’t feel that weight.
He felt important.
Rebecca had lived with the weight in her bones for almost a year.
She’d taken calls at dawn, cross-checked clauses at midnight, memorized the rhythm of Zu’s internal politics and the way their attorneys asked questions without asking questions.
Zu trusted her because she listened.
Because she didn’t fill silence with noise the way Western executives do when they’re afraid the room might notice they don’t belong.
She knew in Mandarin, silence isn’t weakness.
It’s strategy.
So when she spoke, her Mandarin came out crisp and precise, each phrase set down carefully like a blade being unsheathed.
She wasn’t translating. She was negotiating.
“We understand the importance of maintaining local operational autonomy,” she said, voice steady, her tone respectful without being submissive.
“That clause will remain untouched.”
Mr. Leang nodded barely, the smallest movement, but Rebecca had learned to read micro-expressions like a second language.
A nod like that meant the conversation was still alive.
Across from him, two Zu executives exchanged whispers behind their hands.
Not panic. Not amusement. Calculation.
Then Connor leaned forward, unable to tolerate a moment where he wasn’t the center of the room.
“Let’s circle back on that autonomy point,” he blurted, switching to English like the change itself was a flex.
“I think we’re giving away too much here,” he continued, voice louder than necessary. “We’ve got leverage.”
A rustle of fabric.
One of the Zu attorneys adjusted his glasses slowly, and the movement carried the same warning energy as a door clicking shut.
Mr. Leang’s faint smile flickered and died.
It didn’t fall away dramatically—it simply vanished, like a light being turned off.
Rebecca kept her face calm.
She didn’t react visibly, because reacting was what Connor wanted, and because she couldn’t afford to show the Zu team the internal instability that Connor was putting on display.
“As we discussed previously,” she began gently, turning back to Mandarin to pull the room back into its proper lane.
“I wasn’t at the previous meeting,” Connor cut in immediately, still in English, as if her words were background noise.
“So let’s reframe it.”
Reframe it like this was a TED talk.
Reframe it like this was a playful brainstorming session and not a cultural minefield where one false syllable could cost the company a quarter of a billion dollars over the next decade.
Rebecca inhaled slowly through her nose.
The air smelled faintly of the polished table’s chemical cleaner and the burned edge of overpriced coffee from the hallway.
The conference room chairs were cheap plastic disguised as luxury, and the whole place suddenly felt like corporate performance art.
Connor was the lead clown, and nobody in this room was laughing.
She turned back to the Zu team and spoke in Mandarin again, voice smooth.
“Allow me to briefly explain the context.”
A few of the executives relaxed visibly.
One even smiled, the polite kind that says, thank you for restoring sanity.
Good, Rebecca thought.
Let them see who’s fluent and who’s flailing.
But Connor wouldn’t stop.
He leaned toward her, voice lowered just enough to feel private, dripping with patronizing glee.
“Listen, Becca,” he murmured, “you’ve been doing great. As you know, the cultural liaison or whatever.”
Cultural liaison.
The phrase landed like a slap delivered with a smile.
Her pen cracked in her hand, and she realized only then how tightly she’d been gripping it.
Connor didn’t notice.
Or if he did, he didn’t care.
“But this is strategy,” he continued, eyes bright with the thrill of taking credit. “That’s my lane now.”
Rebecca had seen men like him her entire career.
Ivy League gloss. Seed-funded startups. Podcasts about “disrupting paradigms.” The belief that confidence is a substitute for competence.
They always underestimated her until they didn’t.
Until the contract was signed, the press release went out, and suddenly she was the quote they used, the face they wanted beside the logo, the proof they were “global.”
Then she became inconvenient again.
A tool that had done its job.
But today felt different. Off.
The room had a charge like a power line about to snap, the kind of tension you can feel even when nobody speaks.
Mr. Leang cleared his throat, and the sound pulled everyone’s attention back to center.
His voice was measured as he switched to slow, deliberate English.
“We were under the impression,” he said, eyes steady, “that Miss Chang was the lead on this engagement.”
She was, Connor cut in quickly, eager, overconfident.
“But as of this quarter, we’re making some changes.”
Rebecca didn’t blink.
She didn’t even look at Connor.
The words weren’t just rude. They were a signal.
A public announcement that she was being reduced, downgraded, made replaceable in front of the very team who had trusted her.
“Still have full access to our leadership team,” Connor added, smiling like he’d just offered them a gift.
Leadership team.
He meant himself.
He meant she was fungible, a tool to be swapped out once the trench work was done.
Rebecca stared at the stylized Orbesttech logo etched into the glass wall behind the Zu delegation.
It used to mean something to her.
Global innovation. Cultural fluency. Precision.
Now it looked like a tombstone.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the Shanghai morning was a thick yellow-gray haze.
Below, the city roared in its usual controlled chaos—horns, scooters, rapid-fire conversations, the hum of a machine that never stops.
Inside, the silence curdled.
Connor adjusted his jacket with a smug flick of his cufflink, as if everything was going perfectly.
“Shall we proceed?” he asked, turning toward Rebecca with the casual expectation of service.
Clearly expecting her to translate.
She didn’t.
Instead, she looked straight at Mr. Leang and spoke in perfect, unhurried Mandarin.
“It’s clear the leadership structure has changed,” she said, voice calm enough to make the words sharper. “We should take a short recess to recalibrate expectations.”
Mr. Leang gave the faintest nod.
“That would be wise,” he replied, equally composed.
As the Zu team rose, chairs moving softly, papers gathered with the neat discipline of people who don’t waste motion, Connor beamed like he’d just nailed a quarterly report.
He didn’t understand what had just happened.
Rebecca stood slowly, gathering her folder, jaw tight, posture controlled.
She didn’t rush, didn’t show anger, because anger is messy and she refused to be messy in front of men who would use it as proof she didn’t belong.
She hadn’t told anyone—not legal, not her assistant, not even her sister—but she’d already started drawing up exit plans three weeks ago.
A whisper from a contact at J. An exploratory call.
“Do you ever consider…?” they’d asked.
She hadn’t answered then.
She’d told herself she was loyal to the work, loyal to the team, loyal to the deal.
But now, after this farce, after being reduced to “cultural liaison” while an overconfident frat ghost hijacked her life’s work, she had her answer.
The moment it happened was so absurd,….
Continue in C0mment 👇👇
, so perfectly idiotic, Rebecca actually thought she’d misheard him. Connor stood up mid-sentence, his chair squealing back against the polished concrete floor like it was trying to escape the scene. We’re 15 minutes into the resumed meeting after the recess, just beginning to review the amended integration clause.
the one Rebecca had personally drafted after 6 weeks of backal talks with Zu’s legal team. And then he said it, “Rebecca won’t be continuing with Orbste.” He announced loud and clear as if reading a weather update. Effective immediately, we’re undergoing strategic restructuring and her position has been sunset.
Sunset not terminated, not laid off. Sunset like she was a damn PowerPoint slide being phased out for newer, shinier template. The room stilled. Mr. Leang froze midpour, the stainless steel teapot hovering over his cup like it was caught in some surrealist painting. One of his deputies blinked three times fast as if trying to decode what just came out of Connors mouth. Rebecca didn’t move.
Her ears rang, but her face stayed blank. Not because she was composed, though she was, because her brain had immediately gone cold. Not panic, something harder. He hadn’t even looked at her when he said it. Just stared across the table, talking through her like she was already erased. Connor, she said, her voice even, step outside with me. He gave a smug chuckle.
No need, Becca. This is company business, and I figured transparency was better. No secrets, right? She saw it then, the little twitch in his jaw. He’d planned this, waited until the highest stakes negotiation of the year was underway, with all eyes on the table to pull the stunt, publicly humiliate her, assert dominance, cement his control.
She was the chess piece he was sacrificing for spectacle. Her chair scraped back slowly as she rose. Not in a rush, not reacting. Her body moved on instinct, every gesture taught with the fury she refused to show. “I see,” she said, turning to the Zhu delegation. “Apologies for the disruption.” “This was unexpected.
” She slipped into Mandarin before Connor could interject. “Please forgive this sudden development. I understand this may be concerning to your company.” Leang didn’t reply, but he watched her, not with confusion, not with pity, with interest. Rebecca caught that flicker behind his eyes like he was watching not a car crash, but a metamorphosis.
Connor cleared his throat. “Let’s stay on track,” he said, clapping his hands together. “Got a proposal on the table. No one moved.” Leang raised one hand slowly like a conductor calling silence. Then he spoke to Rebecca, not to Connor. “May I ask?” he said in Mandarin, tone light, but laced with precision, “What your next role will be.
” The breath in the room shifted. Connors brow furrowed. He didn’t understand the words, but he understood he was no longer in control. Rebecca met Leangs gaze and felt a strange calm settle in her bones, kind you feel after the storm has already taken your roof, when you realize all that’s left is what you choose to rebuild.
She adjusted her blazer, tilted her chin just slightly. “I haven’t decided yet,” she said in Mandarin, her voice low and certain. But I’m open to new partnerships. The Zu team glanced among themselves. Connor, still clueless, tried to redirect. Listen, we can translate later. Let’s focus on the deal. But the room was no longer his.
Leang stood slow and deliberate and addressed his colleagues with a single word. Chinese letter. Chinese letter. Break. They rose in unison, leaving their folders untouched. Mr. Leang lingered just long enough to glance back at Rebecca and offer the barest nod. Respect, not sympathy. As they filed out, Connor turned to her, voice low and triumphant.
You should have seen this coming. You were overpaid and overhyped. Rebecca looked at him then, not angry, not broken, but clear. Just fired your only translator, cultural bridge, and the architect of this entire deal. She said, “All to prove you have a dick.” He snorted. Enjoy job hunting. She smiled faintly. I already got an offer, Connor, 3 weeks ago. I turned it down. He paused.
His smile flickered. She stepped forward, leaned in. I think I’m going to accept it now. The door had barely clicked shut behind the Zhu delegation before Connor started talking again. Fast, loud, trying to fill the space like a man scooping water from a sinking boat with his bare hands. Let’s get ahead of this.
I’ll have legal draft a statement, loop in PR, maybe frame it as a transition we’d been planning. Rebecca, I’ll even let you. You’re not in the room anymore, Connor. Rebecca didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to. Her words landed like a pin drop in a cathedral. He froze.
That same twitch in his jaw came back. He hadn’t quite wrapped his skull around the idea that she wasn’t going to cry or beg or storm out in a blaze of HR emails. She just stood there, still in her seat, calm, hands folded neatly over the contract draft like it was Sunday tea. “I don’t think you get to decide that,” he said finally, stepping closer.
“Oh, but I do,” she replied, standing. because in exactly 60 seconds this room will not belong to Orbus Tech anymore. Then the door opened. Mr. Leang returned alone. No assistance, no translator. He looked at Rebecca, not Connor. Then in Mandarin, he said, “Would you be willing to continue the discussion independently?” Rebecca didn’t miss a beat.
Chinese letter, Chinese letter, Chinese letter, Chinese letter. I’d be delighted. There was a pause. Leang looked over her shoulder at Connor, whose mouth had just parted to protest. Leang raised one hand. I would appreciate it, he said, till in Mandarin, slow and formal, if Orbus Tech’s representatives could give us the room. It wasn’t a request.
It was a surgical strike in silk wrapping. Connor hesitated. I’m sorry, we’re still the Mr. Leangs eyebrow arched. The contractual relationship appears undefined at the moment, a beat, and then, like a man suddenly aware he’d stepped onto a frozen lake that was cracking beneath him, Connor stepped back. Fine, he snapped.
But this this isn’t over. You’re right. Becca replied without looking at him. It’s just beginning. Connor lingered at the door for a second too long, then vanished like a bad smell into the hallway. Silence returned. Leang sat down across from her. Rebecca didn’t speak right away. She let the air settle. Let the moment breathe.
Then, as if flipping a mental switch, she slipped back into Mandarin with ease and elegance. “The proposal still stands,” she said, turning the folder to face him. “With one change, my title.” opened the folder and pulled out a clean sheet of paper. No Orbit Tech logo, no watermark. I’m now operating as an independent consultant. All the terms remain intact.
My compensation would shift to a success-based model. 10% payable upon contract execution. She pushed the paper forward with a manicured finger. Leangs mouth twitched. Not a smile, something deeper. Recognition. You already had this ready? She allowed herself the softest smirk. Say, “I’ve been prepared.” He nodded once.
The man who’d said maybe 20 words the entire week of negotiations suddenly unfolded his arms and leaned in. For the next hour, they talked, really talked about supply chain integrations, hybrid AI licensing models, joint logistics planning, about the cultural philosophy behind Zu’s decentralized hierarchy, about the ways Orbus Tech had been fumbling the trust they’d once built, trying to treat China like an expansion instead of a collaboration.
Rebecca spoke the language, not just Mandarin, but their language, the unsaid language, the pauses, the subtext, the difference that came not from weakness, but from respect, and Lang noticed. They all had. By the time his deputies returned, Rebecca had redlined the contract, noted three adjustments Shu had quietly hoped for, but never dared request from Orbestech, suggested a phased rollout schedule that would give Zu more leverage with their regional partners.
Mr. Lyang stood and extended his hand. “This,” he said in Mandarin, “is how business is meant to be done.” Rebecca shook it, not with relief, not with pride, but with quiet power, because the moment she’d crossed that line, stood her ground, claimed her value, and shed the dying skin of Orbestech wasn’t an act of survival.
It was a declaration of war. Morning after the negotiation, Orbestech released a statement so generic it could have been copypasted from a toothpaste recall. We thank Rebecca Chang for her contributions and wish her success in future endeavors. As part of our global restructuring initiative, Orbus Tech remains committed to excellence in international partnerships.
Commitment, apparently, how came in the form of a slap together task force of underqualified yesmen and a hastily hired Mandarin interpreter who pronounced gui like it rhymed with nacho cheese. Rebecca read the press release on her phone while sipping oolong in the corner booth of a dim tea house in Zu Hui.
She scrolled past the LinkedIn vultures, already liking Connors post about leaning into disruption and navigating difficult transitions. She didn’t comment, she didn’t repost, just quietly filed the whole thing into a folder in her mind labeled fodder for later. What no one at Orbus Techch knew, not PR, not legal, not even Connor, was that Rebecca was already on her second meeting that day with Zu’s legal team.
The contract they signed wasn’t with Rebecca Chang. It was with RC Global Partners Limited, a Singapore registered entity that had existed on paper for less than 72 hours. Shell Brand, no press, no traceable ties, just a P.O. box, a burner phone, and a sleek black and white logo designed by a freelancer in Prague.
The only web presence was a minimalist one-page site that read, “Precision in chaos, global in reach, quiet by design. It was a shell, yes, but it was hers. And behind that shell, the work had already begun.” Flashback. 6 months ago, Zhu had first floated the idea in a hallway during a tech summit in Changdu. Mr.
Leang, rare glass of beu in hand, had leaned in and said, “If you ever want to build something of your own, we’d invest.” She laughed, then told him she was loyal to Orbistech, that she liked the challenge of corporate politics. His reply, “A challenge is only noble if it’s winnable. She hadn’t realized how unwininnable it had become until Connor walted in with his startup stink and sunset strategy.
” Now RC Global wasn’t just a consulting firm. It was a scalpel. JW International was her first patient. They moved quickly. No formal announcement, no press release, just quiet red lines, revised strategies, back channel memos. Every email came from a burner account. Every invoice from a shadow payment platform. Meanwhile, Orbus Tech spiraled into spin mode.
Connor held emergency Zooms with their remaining APAC clients, mispronouncing names and overpromising deliverables. He tried to replace Rebecca’s years of trust building with a new PowerPoint deck and a three-day cultural sensitivity seminar. It didn’t go well. Clients didn’t say no. They just went quiet, missed meetings, delayed signatures.
One by one, they began drifting like marbles rolling away from a broken bowl. Rebecca didn’t poach. She didn’t need to. She whispered. She emailed one former client a link to a white paper she happened to write that solved a painoint Orbist had ignored for years. She sent another a polite note in Japanese, mentioning that a new firm specializing in adaptive market entry had recently become available.
She knew every pressure point, every weakness in Orbus Tech’s portfolio. She’d built the damn thing. And so she began unbuilding it, not loudly, not with lawsuits or headlines, but quietly, thought, like erosion. Each client she lured away became another stitch in the skin of RC Global. Zu funded her retainer and made introductions.
A German logistics firm asked her to audit Orbite’s AI framework. A Singapore startup offered her equity for help navigating China’s export law. Rebecca operated like a ghost. No social media, no office, just encrypted calls at midnight, signal chats with CEOs, long walks through parks where no one could overhear. Every time she passed an Orbus tech ad in the airport or heard Connor’s smug voice on a conference panel, she smiled.
Not because she missed it, but because she was turning their kingdom into her quarry, brick by brick, deal by deal, name by name. And no one, not Connor, not legal, not even her old assistant, had the slightest clue. Yet, the first sign of panic came in the form of calendar invite. Object: Urgent Jew account transition.
call mandatory attendance sent by Connors executive assistant at 3:14 a.m. East Coast time. It hid in boxes like a silent scream. At 9:00 a.m. sharp, seven Orbit tech execs logged into the call, bags under their eyes, ties crooked, sipping coffee like it was morphine. Connor joined last, sweaty and overdressed in an aggressively blue blazer, trying to mask desperation with corporate cheer.
All right, team said, flashing a grin like a chipped veneer. Let’s get ahead of this narrative. But there was no narrative to get ahead of because Ju International wasn’t returning their calls. Not to confirm a meeting, not to clarify timelines, not even to reject anything, just static. Connor had already assigned a replacement for Rebecca, someone from the London office named Laura Beasley, who spoke fluent French but could barely pronounce Nihao.
Introduced herself in an email change you didn’t acknowledge. She followed up twice, then three times, then stopped entirely. Connor called Leangs assistant directly. The call was sent to voicemail. He pinged Zu’s business development lead on WeChat, left on Reed. He emailed their in-house legal. The message bounced back. recipient has left the organization.
Connor didn’t know it yet, but J was gone. They had simply left the building without slamming the door, without a note, without a word. Meanwhile, Rebecca was in a rooftop bar in Singapore, redlinining an expansion agreement with Zu Southeast Asia partners while sipping a luchi cocktail and listening to a jazz cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit.
Every time her phone vibrated, it was a new whisper. A Shanghai AI startup that used to be tight with Orbus Tech wanted an exploratory call. A Tokyo client emailed to say they missed her voice. German VP she hadn’t spoken to in months asked if she was still freelance. She responded to each one the same way, a quiet hello, a reminder that discretion was guaranteed.
And a file named proposal RC Global V1 PDF. Back in the glass box that passed for Orbit Tech HQ, Connor was unraveling. He stormed into HR like a Wall Street cliche in a B movie tie loose. Pupils dilated. We need to shut her down. Now your HR analyst, fresh from grad school, still believing in systems, asked what grounds they had. She’s breaching contract. Connor barked.
She’s working with former clients. That’s IP theft or something. But the analyst scrolled through her screen, confused. Her termination paperwork’s not here. What? There’s no final separation filed. She was removed from payroll. Yes, but no formal exit documents, no signed NDA, no non-compete initialized, nothing uploaded to the compliance tracker.
It’s all marked pending. Connor’s face drained of color. You’re telling me, he said slowly that we fired her, but never finished firing her. I I think the assumption was that you were handling it personally since it was a strategic leadership decision. Connor spun away before she could finish, muttering profanities under his breath. By 6:00 p.m.
, Legal was looped in. by 8:00 p.m. confirmed the worst. Rebecca had no enforceable non-compete, no confidentiality clause tied to her exit, nothing preventing her from contacting clients, advising, even reusing her own materials. And the best part, she knew it because in her final days at Orbus Tech, long before Connor decided to nuke her in a boardroom power play, she had requested a contract audit from HR, citing title change confusion.
She had the emails, the metadata, the proof that they knew, and now she was weaponizing it quietly, elegantly, like silk pulled through skin. By Friday, three more clients had gone dark. By the following week, whispers inside Orbus Tech turned into murmurss, murmurss into panic. Project managers were left holding half-transated contracts.
Product leads were ghosted mid-eployment. Junior account exec started crying in the bathroom after her Korean client demanded to speak to Miss Chang or no one at all. Connor tried to spin it in the Monday leadership sink. Look, there’s a vacuum right now. These clients are just confused. They’ll come back, but no one believed it because Rebecca wasn’t just winning.
She was erasing them. The email came through encrypted proton mail at 2:47 a.m. tagged re urgent in all caps. a burner address that only existed for the hour it took her to open and read it. Subject: They’re coming after you. I thought you should know.” Rebecca tapped the screen slowly, eyes scanning the message in the blue glow of her Singapore apartment’s bedroom.
The Marina Bay skyline glimmered through the window behind her, but her attention was locked on one line from the anonymous tipster. Legals drafting a retroactive non-compete. Connors pushing for backdated enforcement. wants to frame your client contact as corporate sabotage. She stared at the words for a long time. Then she smiled.
It wasn’t joy. It wasn’t surprise. It was the smile of a chess player who realizes their opponent is about to walk directly into a checkmate because they forgot they moved first. Rebecca closed the email, stood up, and padded barefoot to the home office across the hall. She powered up the sleek customrigged tower she used for sensitive work.
No cloud, no logs, just raw local firepower and a mirrored backup drive locked in a hidden drawer. From a labeled folder titled orbit/contractual/term/revisions, she opened a PDF dated 6 weeks before her termination. It was an internal compliance request. Two, HR at Orbtec Corp from Rebecca Chang at Orbest Corp. Subject confirmation of contract update following title adjustment.
The message was polite, meticulous. had asked for documentation regarding her contract obligations after her VP title was restructured under Connor’s strategic vision. HR had promised to follow up. They never had. A week later, she followed up again and again. Three emails, one official Slack ping, all saved, all timestamped, no NDA, no non-compete, no addendum filed.
And then came the nuclear core, a CCed message from Connor himself. 2 days before the negotiation implosion, saying, “I’ll take care of Rebecca’s exit. We don’t need to waste Legal’s time. Just cut her access. It was overreach.” Corporate vanity dressed in efficiency. And it was fatal. She zipped everything into an encrypted archive and attached it to an email.
Two, Alina Basha, attorney corporate defense, subject, potential escalation. Please review attached the second email took longer to draft. Natalie Hong at business week until calm subject. Orbte’s quiet collapse for your eyes. Only Natalie Hang had reached out months ago, back when Rebecca was still at Orbestech.
She’d been sniffing around layoffs, missed targets, questionable back channel deals. Rebecca had politely declined to speak then. Now was different. Now she wasn’t protecting anything. She was clearing the runway. The email was surgical, not bitter, not dramatic, just a breadcrumb trail of receipts, dates, threads, actions taken, red flags ignored.
She mentioned that an internal audit had been quietly requested by several shareholders regarding strategic miscommunication in a pack. She included one line at the bottom, “If you’d like to see what a weaponized oversight looks like, call me.” Then she closed the laptop, walked into the kitchen, and poured herself a glass of still water with a twist of lime. She didn’t toast.
He didn’t post anything cryptic on social media. This wasn’t a victory lap. This was positioning. Later that morning, Alina called. Her voice was sharp, dry, surgical. They’re bluffing, she said. Connor’s legal threat would evaporate in discovery. We have documented intent, failure to execute, and demonstrable harm if they try to retroactively pin this on you.
Good, Rebecca said. But I don’t want them to back off. Silence. Then what do you want? I want them exposed. I want this mess named. I want every investor who backed Connors so-called vision to see what it bought them. There was a pause. Then Alena’s voice shifted into the cold hum of compliance machinery. Understood.
By the end of the day, Natalie Hang responded. I’ve heard rumors, but this this is smoke with a bonfire underneath. I’d like to meet off the record for now. Rebecca leaned back in her chair, crossed one leg over the other, and stared out at the late afternoon skyline, its glow bleeding into the horizon like a match held to paper. Let them come.
Let them draft their desperate legal memos, their boardroom lies, their late night PR spin. She’d already prepared the blade, and now they were walking toward it. The press didn’t scream. It whispered. started with a five-line blurb buried in the international business section of the Straits Times. Zu International has entered into a strategic partnership with a boutique consultancy based in Singapore.
Sources close to the matter say the firm will oversee Zu’s Asia-Pacific integration strategies moving forward. No name, no logo, no direct mention of Orbistech. But insiders knew knew when RC Global’s IP address pinged on three different data rooms that used to belong to Orbestech. They knew when Ju’s procurement team issued a blanket cancellation of all pending license renewals.
They knew when the legal department at Orbestech received a seven-word reply from Ju COO. We are moving in a different direction. By noon, the whispers reached New York. By 400 p.m. Orbit tech stock had dipped 6%. Low volume but sharp twitch in the bloodstream enough to catch the eye of traders trained to smell blood under the perfume of quarterly optimism.
On Slack, Orbis text channels were ghost towns. No client updates, no wins. One post simply read, “Does anyone know where Laura Beasley is?” No one replied. At 6:18 p.m. Business Week published an article. Title: Orbit Tech in transition. What’s behind the Zu disengagement? It was soft.
careful kind of story that doesn’t burn the house just flicks a lit match at the curtain. But halfway down, buried in the context paragraph was the first crack of thunder. Sources familiar with the deal suggest Ju’s new advisory partner includes former Orbit tech executive Rebecca Chang. Rebecca was in Jakarta when it dropped, waiting in a quiet tea salon, tucked behind a rooftop co-working space.
Her assistant showed her the article on an iPad. She didn’t flinch and smile. She simply sipped her jasmine tea and asked, “Have they issued a response?” “Not yet,” the assistant said. Rebecca nodded once. “They will.” Across the ocean, panic bloomed inside Orbus Tech like a gas leak. Connor paced outside the glass walls of the executive suite, barking into a phone, sweating through a monogrammed dress shirt.
“We need a statement, a denial, something, anything. But legal stalled, PR ghosted, and investors started calling. The dip had turned into a slide, 9% by morning. Not catastrophic, but sharp enough to rattle the board. Shareholder chats lit up with phrases like negligence and structural incompetence.
That afternoon, Rebecca’s phone rang. Private number, old ringtone, she answered. Rebecca, it’s Martin. Martin leaving early investor, founding board member and tore from her early days in San Francisco when she was still doing 15-hour strategy decks and drinking gas station coffee for dinner. Didn’t expect to hear from you, she said.
You always knew when to keep your powder dry. He said, I respected that. There was a pause, wind noise on his end. Then, with the gravity of a man who’d seen too many balance sheets bled out by ego, “Can we meet?” She didn’t ask why. She simply said, “Singapore or Hong Kong?” Hong Kong, quiet place. No reporters tomorrow. I’ll send the plane.
They hung up without goodbye. Later that night, Rebecca walked the length of Clark Key alone, the city humming soft and humid around her. She passed glowing billboards pushing Orbus Tech’s latest AI rollout. Seamless futures powered by us. But the image felt brittle now, like a mask melting in the heat. She wasn’t dancing yet.
She hadn’t unccorked champagne or written her final line, cuz the climax wasn’t a headline. Not yet. It was a meeting, a hand extended in private, and a chance to aim higher than she ever could from within the gilded cage of Orbus. Connors hands shook as he flipped through the printed NDA packet, dozens of pages, legally dense, all bearing the same curious line buried deep in the boilerplate.
RC Global Partners Limited, may be consulted independently for strategic oversight, subject to mutual confidentiality. It was there in black and white in contracts signed two 3 months ago, dated after Rebecca’s firing, filed by former Orbus Tech clients, now officially exclients. And worse, most of the documents had been sent to Orbest Tech’s own compliance team as a courtesy.
Connor slammed the folder shut and barked at his executive assistant. Get me a call with Legal right now. But Legal was already on with Martin leaving. Connor stormed into the shareholder, meeting two days later like a man expecting a mutiny but still hoping he could bluff through it. Before we begin, he said trying to smile.
I want to address some noise that’s been circulating. There have been unsubstantiated claims about client relationships, specifically involving a former employee. Let me be clear. You mean Rebecca Chang? Someone interrupted flatly from the back. Connor froze. Eyes scanned the room. Investors, board members, senior stakeholders.
Not a single ally in sight. She’s working with our largest former accounts, he said, voice tightening. She’s violated the spirit, if not the letter, of her exit agreement. Martin cleared his throat. Connor turned, his posture shifting like a kicked dog. Martin, I was just about to. No, you weren’t. Martin stood slowly. You were about to spin it.
He pulled out a leather folder, unbuttoned it, handed a stack of documents to the general counsel, seated at the head of the table. emails, Martin said, from you confirming you’d handle her exit personally, no HR involvement, no contract finalization, no legal oversight. You fired her mid-contract without process, and now you’re blaming her for walking out of a door you left wide open. Connor’s mouth parted.
No words coming out, just that soft, static silence that falls when a man realizes his spotlight is no longer a stage. It’s a heat lamp. Another board member flipped through the documents. She was never bound by a non-compete, he said. Martin nodded. And her firm is doing precisely what we used to hire her for, only better and for more clients.
Connor tried to recover. So what? We just let her dismantle us from the outside. No, Martin said. We ask how she did it. Why we let you run things straight into the ground while she quietly ate your lunch? Silence. Then softly. She’s agreed to testify at the ethics review next week, Martin added voluntarily.
A ripple moved through the room. Connors face cracked, panic creeping in under the lacquered smuggness. You talked to her, he asked. You reached out to her personally. Martin didn’t answer him. He looked to the others. She’s calm, focused, uninterested in revenge, fully prepared to clarify what she experienced here. What we all missed while chasing quarterly illusions and inflated leadership resumes.
Connor looked like he’d been exiled from his own body. Later that evening, a junior board liaison reached out to Rebecca with a quiet offer, a high six-f figureure settlement if she would agree to sign an NDA and walk away from the ethics review. She declined in two sentences. I’m not looking for money. I’m looking for truth. See you Tuesday.
She didn’t CC her lawyer. She didn’t BCC the press. She didn’t need to. This wasn’t scorched earth. This was clean air and she was finally breathing it. It dropped at 7:03 a.m. Singapore time. The headline was surgical, precise, bloodless, and terminal. Implosion at Orbestech. Insider accounts reveal chaos, cover-ups, and one consultant’s quiet coupe.
By line Natalie Hang, 10,000 words, names, dates, memos, screenshots. Rebecca’s name appeared for the first time in public as the founder of RC Global Partners Limited. The boutique consultancy quietly absorbing Orbus Tech’s Asia-Pacific portfolio, one contract at a time. The story traced everything. The silent exits, the client migrations, the missing paperwork, the weaponized incompetence.
Connor’s public firing stunt immortalized in a subheading, strategic restructuring or executive ego. Within 2 hours, article trended on LinkedIn, Bloomberg, and Twitter. By noon in New York, Orbis Tech stock had dropped 18%. Trading halted by afternoon. The quarterly earnings call scheduled for 900 a.m. Eastern was already dead before it began.
The call opened with static. Then a voice, someone from investor relations trying to spin a narrative of unexpected headwinds and client realignments. But every analyst on the line had already read the expose. A one was buying the script anymore. And Rebecca, she wasn’t listening. She was sitting in a glass conference room 47 stories above Raffle’s place, sunlight bleeding across the marble table, Singapore humming below her like a heartbeat.
Across from her on a crisp, lag-free video call sat Jews North American expansion team flanked by legal operations and translation. She didn’t need the translator. We’re thrilled to finalize this agreement. Man on the other side smiled and replied in Mandarin. It’s not every day we get to say we’re closing the largest logistics integration deal in our company’s history.
The numbers were staggering, nearly triple the size of the original Orbus tech deal. Three regions, multicurrency, multi-year, full strategic control delegated to RC Global. No middlemen, no weak links, no Connor. Her assistant entered silently, setting a tablet beside her. On screen, a live graph showing Orbus Tech’s market cap bleeding red across the hour.
A push notification blinked at the top. Connor Baines placed on administrative leave pending investigation. Rebecca tapped it closed without reading further. She looked back at the call, calm, measured, certain. Well begin implementation next week, she said. You’ll have my full team, direct lines, no bottlenecks.
She paused, then tilted her head slightly. And this time, we do it right. Team on the other end nodded. Papers shuffled. A contract was lifted and shown to camera. The final clause was read aloud. She leaned forward, scanned it one last time, and signed. The call ended with polite farewells and muted applause.
She stayed seated, alone now in the center of the high-rise. Quiet, surrounded by clean glass and still air. She exhaled. Not relief, not victory, just truth. No title, no office politics. No man to frame her success as his idea. Just her, her name, her clients, her rules. From below, the city moved on.
Buses and bikes and heat and breath, all pulsing beneath the tower like a world she no longer had to fight to belong to. She picked up her phone, opened her calendar, and scheduled her next boardroom for Tuesday. Then she smiled.
