The first time I heard the voice, I was alone in my kitchen at 2:17 a.m., eating cold cereal straight from the box because my stomach was too anxious for anything warm.

The video played on my phone, one of those late-night “timeless readings” that always found you when you were exhausted enough to believe the universe had a direct line to your pain.

“This woman is scared of you,” the reader said, calm as a priest. “Scared of her secret coming out. Scared of getting busted and exposed.”

I almost laughed. Not because it was ridiculous—because it was specific in a way that made my skin prickle.

On screen, the reader’s hands hovered over cards I couldn’t see. Her voice deepened like she’d leaned closer to my life.

“She tried some deadly spells,” she continued. “Side effects are showing. People are noticing. The script has changed. The roles have reversed.”

I glanced at the window over my sink. My reflection looked like a stranger: wide eyes, tight mouth, shoulders hunched as if bracing for impact that never stopped coming.

Then my phone buzzed.

A text from an unknown number.

STOP DIGGING OR YOU’LL REGRET IT.

My breath caught. Somewhere in my body, something ancient and automatic whispered: Run.

And then—because the universe has a cruel sense of timing—I looked down at my cereal box and saw the printed number on the bottom flap.

177.

—————————————————————————

I didn’t know if the number meant anything. I didn’t know if “divine forces” were real or just a desperate metaphor people used when life felt rigged.

What I did know was this: someone had sent me a threat within thirty seconds of a stranger on the internet saying the truth was coming out.

And I had been living for months in the kind of tension that makes coincidences feel like fingerprints.

My name is Jules Harper, twenty-nine, project lead at a mid-size marketing agency in Seattle that built campaigns for clean tech companies and pretended burnout was a badge of honor. My apartment was small, my rent was obscene, and my life had shrunk to two anchors: my job and the person I kept trying to protect.

Avery.

Avery was the kind of woman who made a room feel safer just by walking into it—quiet confidence, kind eyes, the patience to listen when other people rushed to fill silence. She’d joined our team seven months ago and became my closest friend by accident, the way you become close to someone when you both notice the same problem and neither of you wants to say it out loud.

The problem had a name.

Serena Vale.

Serena was not the loudest person in any room. She didn’t need to be. She had mastered something sharper than volume: the ability to make people doubt themselves while she smiled like she was helping.

At work, she called it “feedback.” In my life, it felt like poison.

She’d been my mentor when I first got hired—my “big sister” in the agency world. She told me how to dress for client meetings, how to negotiate raises, how to “stay above the drama.” She also told me who to avoid, who was “untrustworthy,” who was “jealous,” who wanted to “use” me.

I believed her because I wanted to belong.

I didn’t realize until later that Serena didn’t build teams.

She built nets.

And once you were in the net, you either stayed useful… or you got cut loose.

Avery saw Serena the way you see an oncoming storm: not panicked, just alert. She didn’t gossip. She didn’t accuse. She simply paid attention, and that made Serena hate her.

I didn’t understand that hatred until the day it turned toward me.

It started with little things.

An email thread where my name was “accidentally” left off a key update. A client call I wasn’t told about until it was already over. A snide joke in a meeting—“Jules has been… a bit sensitive lately.”

Then came the bigger moves.

The whisper campaign.

The sly “concern.”

Serena would tilt her head and say, “I’m worried about Jules. She’s under a lot of stress. She’s been… emotional. You know how she gets.”

Like I was a weather pattern.

Like I was unstable.

And once a person becomes “unstable,” people stop believing them.

That’s how predators work. They don’t have to win every argument. They just have to make sure you’re not considered credible when you finally tell the truth.

The first time I tried to call Serena out—quietly, professionally—she smiled like I was adorable.

“Jules,” she said in the break room, stirring her matcha with a slow swirl, “you’re imagining enemies. That’s… not healthy.”

Her eyes stayed soft, almost maternal.

Then she added, so casually I almost missed it: “Careful. People are watching.”

That night, I went home and cried like I’d been hit.

Not because of her words.

Because a part of me still wanted her approval.

That’s what trauma does. It makes you crave the hand that hurt you.

And for months, I kept trying to earn my way back into Serena’s good graces—until Avery took my phone one evening after work, scrolled through the messages Serena had been sending me, and said quietly:

“This isn’t mentorship.”

“What is it?” I asked, throat tight.

Avery looked up at me. “Control.”

I stared at her, and something in my chest shifted. Not fully. But enough.

Enough to start seeing the pattern.

Serena wasn’t just trying to ruin me at work.

She was trying to isolate me from everyone who might help me.

And it wasn’t just professional.

It was personal.

Because Serena didn’t just want me loyal.

She wanted Avery gone.

I didn’t have proof of that until a month ago, when Avery called me at midnight, voice shaking.

“She’s been messaging my ex,” Avery whispered. “Trying to get him to say things about me. Trying to… make a case that I’m unstable.”

My stomach dropped.

“What kind of things?”

Avery’s voice turned flat. “That I’m obsessive. That I get ‘delusional.’ That I ‘latch onto’ people.”

I sat up in bed, ice flooding my veins.

“That’s what she’s doing to you,” Avery said softly. “She’s just… aiming it at me too now.”

I stared at the ceiling, hearing the tarot reader’s words from last night like they were echoing backward through time:

She’s been poisoning your person’s mind with words. It stopped working. Now she’s flustered.

Poisoning with words.

That sounded stupid. Superstitious.

And yet—if you’ve ever been systematically undermined by someone who smiles while doing it—you know words can be venom.

The “deadly spells” didn’t have to be candles and chants.

They could be manipulation packaged as concern.

They could be lies repeated until they sounded like truth.

They could be a slow campaign of doubt that made you forget you were allowed to trust yourself.

Still… the threat text.

STOP DIGGING OR YOU’LL REGRET IT.

That wasn’t metaphor.

That was real.

I replayed the tarot video again, not because I believed every word, but because my brain wanted a map. The reader talked about karmic repercussions, about the “devil” getting exposed, about roles reversing.

I didn’t want cosmic justice.

I wanted something simpler.

Safety.

So I did what I always did when fear threatened to swallow me:

I made a plan.

Step one: screenshots.

I saved the threat text. I exported it. I backed it up to email and to a drive Serena couldn’t access.

Step two: documentation.

I opened a Google doc titled Timeline and started listing everything Serena had done, with dates and names. Emails. Slack messages. Witnesses. Patterns.

Step three: quiet support.

I texted Avery:

Are you safe tonight?

She replied in under a minute.

Yeah. But I feel like she’s watching everything.

I stared at my ceiling and typed:

She wants you to feel that. Don’t give her the satisfaction. Tomorrow—coffee before work?

A pause.

Then:

Yes. Please.

That “please” hit harder than I expected.

Because Avery wasn’t needy. She wasn’t dramatic. She didn’t ask for help unless she truly needed it.

Which meant Serena had pushed her to a place where she didn’t feel safe standing alone.

And that made something in me go from anxious to furious.

The next morning, I met Avery at a café near the office—one of those spots that smelled like burnt espresso and ambition. Avery looked tired, but her posture was steady.

Before we even sat down, she said, “Jules… I think Serena is doing something bigger.”

My stomach tightened. “What?”

Avery slid her phone across the table.

A screenshot.

Serena’s name at the top.

A message underneath:

You should be careful. People who accuse others end up exposed. I’d hate for your little… mental health history to become relevant.

My hands went cold.

“She doesn’t even know anything about my mental health,” Avery whispered. “Unless she’s… unless she’s digging.”

I stared at the message, at the casual cruelty of it. Serena wasn’t threatening Avery with violence. She was threatening her with humiliation. With the kind of exposure that makes people stop believing you.

I took my phone out and showed Avery the threat text I’d received.

Avery’s eyes widened. “Oh my God.”

“She’s escalating,” I said.

Avery swallowed. “So what do we do?”

I stared out the café window at commuters moving like nothing was wrong.

I thought about the tarot reader’s last sentence.

Don’t lose your mind. Don’t get distracted. Protect yourself. Stay calm.

I didn’t know if the universe was protecting me.

But I knew I could protect me—if I stopped playing nice.

“We go to HR,” I said.

Avery flinched. “HR protects the company, not us.”

“Then we make it in their interest,” I replied, and heard my own voice sharpen into something I hadn’t used in years: certainty.

Avery blinked.

“What do you mean?”

“We bring proof,” I said. “We build a case. We show pattern. We show risk. We show that Serena’s behavior creates liability.”

Avery stared at me for a long moment, then nodded.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay.”

The same day, Serena cornered me in the hallway outside the conference room like she always did—casual, smiling, as if we were friends.

“Jules,” she said softly, “I heard you’ve been… talking.”

My stomach tightened, but I kept my face neutral.

“Talking about work?” I asked.

Serena’s smile didn’t move. “Talking about me.”

I held her gaze. “If you have a concern, you can put it in writing.”

For the first time, her expression flickered.

Not anger.

Fear.

Just for a second, like a mask slipping.

Then she recovered. “You’re stressed,” she said lightly. “You’re spiraling. I’m worried about you.”

There it was. The spell.

The reframing. The concern-as-weapon.

I smiled back—sweet, polite, deadly.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m taking care of myself.”

Serena’s eyes narrowed. “Good. Because if you start making accusations, it could… backfire.”

I leaned in slightly, lowering my voice.

“I got a threat text last night,” I said quietly. “I’m documenting everything.”

Serena went still.

She recovered quickly, laughing softly. “A threat text?” she repeated, like I’d told her I’d seen a ghost. “Jules, you’re… paranoid.”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

Then I stepped around her and walked away, leaving her in the hallway holding her smile like it was suddenly too heavy.

That night, a different number texted me.

YOU THINK YOU’RE SAFE?

My chest tightened, but my hands didn’t shake.

Because now I knew what this was.

Not destiny.

Not demons.

A woman terrified of exposure.

And when predators get scared, they get sloppy.

I wish I could tell you I handled the next week like a perfectly calm heroine.

I didn’t.

I flinched at every phone vibration. I kept checking the locks on my apartment door. I jumped when footsteps sounded too close behind me on the street.

But I did the one thing Serena didn’t expect:

I stopped turning my fear into silence.

Avery and I sat down one evening after work at my kitchen table with laptops open, building a file like we were preparing for trial.

I pulled emails where Serena excluded me from client updates, then blamed me for missing deadlines.

Avery pulled Slack threads where Serena “joked” about her mental health.

We highlighted patterns—how Serena always attacked credibility, always hinted at “instability,” always positioned herself as the concerned adult.

Then Avery did something that made my stomach twist.

She opened a folder on her phone.

“I didn’t want to show you this,” she said quietly.

“What?” I asked.

Avery slid her phone across the table.

It was a voice memo recording.

Serena’s voice—crisp, confident, smiling—saying:

“She’s obsessed with you, Avery. You should watch your back. People like Jules don’t handle rejection well.”

My mouth went dry.

“That’s—” I swallowed. “That’s insane.”

Avery’s eyes were wet but steady. “She recorded it in a meeting room when Serena thought she was being funny.”

I listened again, sick.

“She’s trying to make me sound dangerous,” I whispered.

Avery nodded. “Because if you look dangerous, people won’t stand beside you.”

I leaned back in my chair, hands pressed to my temples.

And then, in the middle of the panic, something else surfaced—something I hadn’t let myself admit.

Serena wasn’t just threatened by Avery.

She was threatened by what Avery represented: clarity. Loyalty that Serena couldn’t control. A connection Serena couldn’t infiltrate.

The tarot reader’s words echoed again:

Your person is aligning with you. She can’t mess it up. Everything backfires.

I didn’t believe in “divine conspiracies,” but I believed in human patterns.

And the pattern was this:

The tighter Serena squeezed, the more she revealed herself.

So I did what the reader said—accidentally, practically:

I kept my head.

I didn’t rant on social media.

I didn’t confront Serena in a meeting.

I didn’t give her a dramatic scene she could use as proof of my “instability.”

I documented. I stayed calm. I stayed clean.

And then, on Thursday, the universe—or luck, or Serena’s ego—handed us a gift.

A coworker named Nina pulled me aside after a client call. Nina was quiet, the kind of person who observed more than she spoke.

She looked nervous.

“Jules,” she whispered, “I need to tell you something. I… I think Serena is doing something illegal.”

My heart slammed. “What do you mean?”

Nina glanced around like Serena might appear out of thin air. “Expense reports,” she said. “She’s been filing reimbursements for client dinners that never happened. I saw it because I process invoices sometimes.”

My stomach dropped.

“You’re sure?” I asked.

Nina nodded. “I didn’t want to get involved, but… she’s been asking me weird questions. Like if I ‘remember’ seeing her with certain clients. Like she’s… building cover.”

I felt cold.

Serena wasn’t just toxic.

She was desperate.

And desperate people make mistakes.

That night, I got another sign—one that felt like a punchline.

As I printed our evidence packet, the printer page count flashed:

177 pages queued.

Avery stared at it, eyes wide.

“Okay,” she whispered. “That number again.”

I swallowed hard, half laughing, half shaking.

“Maybe it’s just a number,” I said.

Avery looked at me, and for the first time in days, she smiled—small but real.

“Or maybe,” she said softly, “it’s the universe reminding us she can’t control everything.”

Part 2

We walked into HR on Monday morning with a binder so thick it looked like we were suing the agency instead of asking it to protect its own employees.

Avery and I didn’t sit down right away. We stood in front of the conference table like we were bracing for impact, like the building might reject the truth the way people sometimes do.

Across from us sat Monica Velez, Head of People Ops—forty-something, neat bob, sharp eyes that had seen enough workplace “drama” to be suspicious of every story before coffee.

Beside her was Caleb Stroud, in-house counsel, a man who spoke in careful sentences even when he was silent. His laptop was open. His pen was already in his hand.

Monica glanced at our binder, then at us.

“Okay,” she said. “Tell me what this is.”

Avery’s voice was steady, but her hands shook as she slid her phone across the table first.

“Threats,” she said. “Harassment. Retaliation. And a pattern of credibility attacks that has escalated.”

Monica’s eyebrows rose. “From whom?”

I forced my voice to stay calm.

“Serena Vale,” I said.

That name changed the air.

Monica leaned back a fraction. Caleb didn’t move, but his gaze sharpened.

“Serena is senior leadership,” Monica said carefully. “So I need to ask—are you aware this is a serious allegation?”

“Yes,” Avery said. “That’s why we brought proof.”

I opened the binder.

It was all there—emails, Slack exports, screenshots, meeting notes with dates and times, witness names, and the two anonymous threat texts.

I’d printed them in color. Not because color was necessary—because color looked undeniable. Because I wanted this to feel real in a way Serena couldn’t brush off with a smile.

Caleb scanned the first page, then the second.

Monica flipped to a highlighted email thread where Serena excluded me from a client deliverable and then publicly blamed me in a follow-up.

Monica’s lips tightened. “This is… not great.”

“That’s the point,” I said quietly. “It hasn’t been ‘great’ for months.”

Avery added, “And this isn’t just workplace friction. Serena is contacting people outside work to build a narrative that I’m mentally unstable.”

Caleb’s head lifted. “Outside work?”

Avery’s fingers tightened around her mug. “She contacted my ex.”

Monica blinked, the first real shock breaking through her corporate mask.

Caleb held out his hand. “Show me.”

Avery pulled up the message Serena had sent: the one about “mental health history becoming relevant,” the one that didn’t explicitly say blackmail but walked right up to it and smiled.

Caleb’s expression tightened. “Okay.”

Then I slid forward Nina’s statement.

I hadn’t wanted to drag Nina into this. But Nina had insisted, voice shaking, that she didn’t want Serena to keep using her as an unwilling cover.

Her written summary was short and careful:

Serena has submitted reimbursements for client dinners I did not witness and asked me to confirm I saw her with clients I did not see. She appeared nervous about documentation.

Caleb read it twice.

Monica let out a slow breath. “If this is true,” she said, “this is… fraud.”

Caleb nodded once. “It’s also retaliation risk, harassment, and potential defamation.”

Avery’s shoulders sagged like she’d been holding herself upright with pure muscle.

Monica looked at us both. “I need to ask you something,” she said. “Do you feel physically unsafe?”

I hesitated.

Because the truth was complicated. Serena hadn’t threatened to punch me. She hadn’t followed me with a knife.

But fear doesn’t always come in the shape of violence. Sometimes it comes as constant pressure, constant insinuation, constant reputation damage—until you start checking over your shoulder because you don’t know what version of you Serena is selling today.

“We’ve received anonymous threats,” I said. “I can’t prove it’s her. But the timing aligns with confronting her.”

Avery nodded. “And she’s escalating.”

Caleb’s tone turned crisp. “We’re going to open an investigation immediately,” he said. “I want copies of all original files—no edits. I need metadata on the messages. And I need Nina to speak with me today.”

Monica added, “And I’m putting interim measures in place. Serena will not manage either of you directly while this is active.”

Avery’s breath hitched. “She’ll know.”

“Yes,” Monica said, voice firm. “And that’s fine.”

I swallowed. “What about the threats?”

Caleb’s eyes held mine. “If you receive another message, forward it to me immediately. Do not respond. And consider filing a police report. Even if you can’t prove who sent it, documentation matters.”

Avery flinched at the word police.

Monica softened slightly. “I know this is scary,” she said. “But you did the right thing coming forward.”

I wanted to believe her.

I really did.

But Serena had built her power inside this building. She knew how to bend systems without snapping them. She knew how to make herself look reasonable and make you look emotional.

As we left HR, Avery whispered, “She’s going to come for us.”

I kept my voice low. “Let her.”

Avery blinked at me.

“I’m done being afraid of her,” I said, and it surprised me how true it felt.

Serena didn’t wait long.

At 11:13 a.m., she appeared at my desk like she’d materialized from stress itself—perfect blazer, perfect lipstick, eyes bright with polite menace.

“Jules,” she said warmly, loud enough that nearby coworkers looked up. “Can we talk?”

I stood slowly, keeping my face neutral.

“In writing,” I said.

Serena’s smile sharpened. “In writing? Since when do you prefer… documentation?”

“Since I started receiving threats,” I replied evenly.

A hush rippled around us—not dramatic, just that subtle workplace stillness when people sense conflict and pretend they don’t.

Serena’s eyes flicked—fear, quick and buried—then she recovered.

“Oh honey,” she said softly, like she was comforting a child. “You’re spiraling again.”

Again. Like I’d done this before. Like I had a history.

I felt heat rise in my chest. I wanted to say her name out loud, wanted to call her what she was. But calling predators out in public is exactly what they want—because then they can label you as unstable.

So I smiled.

“Thanks for your concern,” I said. “Please email me if there’s something you need.”

Serena leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper only I could hear.

“You really want to do this?” she murmured. “Because if you keep pulling threads… you might find out you’re the one who unravels.”

My stomach tightened.

Then she straightened, smile back on for the audience.

“Take care of yourself,” she said brightly.

And walked away like she’d just complimented my shoes.

Avery appeared at my side seconds later, eyes wide.

“What did she say?” she whispered.

I told her.

Avery’s jaw clenched. “She’s threatening you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Which means she’s scared.”

Avery’s voice shook. “Or angry.”

“Both,” I corrected.

That afternoon, Nina got pulled into Legal.

She texted me one sentence after:

She’s worse than we thought.

Then she sent a second message:

Caleb asked for my laptop access logs. Apparently Serena’s been using my login for reimbursements.

My blood ran cold.

Avery read it over my shoulder and whispered, “She’s framing Nina too.”

“Or she already did,” I said.

That night, another text came to my phone from an unknown number.

HR WON’T SAVE YOU.

Avery was on FaceTime with me when it happened. I held the phone up to the camera.

Her face went pale.

“That’s her,” Avery whispered.

“We can’t prove it,” I said, but the words felt thin.

Avery swallowed hard. “You need to stay with someone.”

I wanted to laugh. I was a grown woman with a lease and a job. But fear doesn’t care about adulthood.

“I’ll be fine,” I said automatically.

Avery stared at me. “Jules.”

I exhaled slowly. “Okay,” I admitted. “Maybe… you’re right.”

We stayed on the call until I got sleepy enough to stop checking the lock every five minutes.

When I finally went to bed, I dreamed of Serena smiling while she pulled my name off a document and watched me fall.

The next morning, Serena made her move.

It wasn’t a text.

It wasn’t a snide comment.

It was a calendar invite.

Mandatory Performance Review — Jules Harper
Organizer: Serena Vale
Location: Conference Room B
Attendees: Jules, Serena, Monica Velez (optional)

My stomach dropped.

Avery texted immediately:

Don’t go alone.

I replied:

I won’t.

I forwarded the invite to Monica and Caleb with one line:

Please confirm this is appropriate during an active investigation.

Ten minutes later, Monica responded:

Do not attend. Investigation protocol.

Relief hit—brief.

Then Serena sent me a message on Slack:

Interesting. Avoiding accountability now?

I didn’t answer.

She followed up:

I’m concerned you’re unwell. You’ve been behaving erratically.

There it was again.

The spell.

The smear.

Avery texted:

She’s trying to build a paper trail of “mental instability.”

My hands shook, but my mind stayed clear.

I opened a new doc.

SERENA — RETALIATION LOG

And I pasted everything in.

By Friday, the office felt like it was holding its breath.

Serena still walked around smiling, but her smile had an edge now, the way people smile when they’re trying not to show panic.

Caleb requested expense reports.

Then he requested client confirmations.

Then he requested vendor invoices.

Monica pulled Serena out of a meeting twice.

Serena’s voice got sharper in hallways. Her laugh got too loud.

And then the “divine” thing the reader had predicted happened in the least mystical way imaginable:

Serena got sloppy.

She sent an email meant for someone else… to the entire leadership distribution list.

Subject: Cleanup plan

For eight minutes, the email lived in inboxes across the agency before she recalled it.

Eight minutes was enough.

Because Nina—quiet Nina—had been expecting it.

She screenshotted it and sent it to Caleb.

Then she sent it to me, with shaking hands and one line:

This is the smoking gun.

I opened the screenshot and felt my stomach flip.

Serena had written:

We need to align narratives. If Jules continues, position her as unstable and Avery as manipulative. HR will fold if we keep it clean. Also—remove reimbursement trail, use Nina’s credentials.

It was all there.

Not a vibe. Not interpretation.

A strategy.

A confession.

Avery called me immediately, voice trembling.

“She just… she just wrote it down.”

I stared at the screenshot. My mouth went dry.

“This is it,” I whispered.

Avery’s voice cracked. “She’s going to explode.”

“She’s going to try,” I said.

And then, like the universe loved timing, my printer beeped behind me at home as it finished printing the evidence packet Caleb requested.

The display read:

177 pages complete.

Avery laughed—one sharp, disbelieving sound that turned into a sob.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “The number.”

I swallowed hard. “Maybe it’s just coincidence.”

Avery wiped her face. “Or maybe it’s the moment she loses.”

Part 3

Serena didn’t lose quietly.

At 4:26 p.m. on Friday, as people started packing up, she stormed into the open office like she’d been holding her rage in all day and couldn’t contain it anymore.

She went straight to Avery’s desk.

I saw it from across the room—saw Avery stiffen, saw Serena’s hand slam down on the desk hard enough to rattle Avery’s monitor.

“This is your fault,” Serena hissed.

Avery stood slowly, face pale but calm. “Step away from my desk.”

Serena laughed, too loud. “You think you can ruin me and just—what—walk away?”

People were watching now. Phones discreetly lifting. The office’s attention turned toward us like a spotlight.

I stood up and started walking toward them, heart hammering.

Serena’s eyes flicked to me, and I saw it—real fear. Her mask slipping. The desperation behind the performance.

“You,” she snapped at me. “You ungrateful little—”

Avery’s voice stayed steady. “Serena, stop. You’re being recorded.”

Serena’s expression changed instantly—rage curdling into calculation.

Then she did the most predictable thing in the world.

She turned toward the crowd and said loudly, “I’m concerned for Jules. She’s been harassing me for weeks. And Avery—” Serena’s voice wavered theatrically—“Avery has been feeding into her paranoia. This isn’t safe.”

The air went cold.

Old Serena move. Flip the story. Make herself the victim.

But she forgot something.

Caleb Stroud was standing by the glass-walled conference room, arms crossed, watching like he’d been waiting.

Monica Velez stepped out behind him.

Monica’s voice cut through the tension like a knife.

“Serena,” she said firmly, “come with me. Now.”

Serena froze. Her smile twitched.

“Monica,” she began, tone instantly sweet. “I was just—”

“No,” Monica said, voice flat. “You were just confronting an employee. In public. During an open investigation.”

Serena’s face tightened. “This is ridiculous.”

Caleb spoke next, calm but deadly.

“We have your email,” he said. “And your expense report irregularities. And your instructions about ‘positioning’ employees as unstable.”

The open office went silent.

Serena’s eyes widened. Her mouth opened.

Then she did the thing desperate people do when they realize they’re caught.

She lunged.

Not at Avery.

At me.

Fast enough that I barely registered movement—just her hand grabbing my wrist, nails digging in, trying to yank me close like she could physically force me to retract everything.

“You’re ruining my life!” she hissed.

Avery moved between us instantly, shoving Serena back with both hands.

“Don’t touch her!” Avery snapped.

Serena stumbled, then pointed at Avery with shaking rage.

“See? Violent!” she shrieked. “She assaulted me!”

Caleb’s voice cut through. “Security.”

Two security guards appeared like they’d been stationed nearby all along.

Monica’s expression didn’t change. “Serena, you’re done.”

Serena’s eyes darted around, wild now. She looked at the phones recording, at coworkers staring, at Monica and Caleb like they’d betrayed her.

Then she did one last thing.

She smiled.

Not a friendly smile.

A sharp, ugly one.

“You think this ends me?” she whispered, loud enough for the closest people to hear. “You have no idea what I have on all of you.”

Caleb’s eyes narrowed. “Escort her out.”

Serena started to protest, then shifted into sobbing like a switch had flipped.

“I built this place,” she cried. “I made all of you!”

No one moved to comfort her.

Because comfort is currency, and Serena had spent hers.

The doors closed behind her.

And the office exhaled like a lung releasing poison.

Avery turned to me, eyes wet. “Are you okay?”

I looked down at my wrist—red marks where Serena’s nails had dug in.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I’m okay.”

For the first time in months, I meant it.

It didn’t end with her being escorted out.

It ended with consequences.

By Monday, Serena was formally terminated. Caleb filed reports with finance. Nina’s involvement was cleared—logs proved Serena had used her credentials. The company’s external auditors were called in.

And because expense fraud at that scale wasn’t just “policy violation,” law enforcement got involved.

Serena didn’t get dragged out in handcuffs in a dramatic way. Reality is rarely that cinematic.

But she did get served.

At her apartment.

In front of neighbors.

And in the small ecosystem Serena lived off—reputation, control, fear—being served was its own kind of public shame.

Avery and I were offered transfers, “fresh starts,” as if changing desks could erase what it felt like to be targeted.

Avery declined.

“I’m not leaving,” she said quietly. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

I stared at her, throat tight. “Neither did I.”

Monica called us into her office and said something that surprised me.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t see it sooner. Serena was… skilled.”

“Skilled,” Avery repeated, bitter.

Monica nodded, not defensive. “Yes. Skilled. And dangerous. And we should’ve protected you.”

Caleb added, “If either of you wants to pursue a restraining order for harassment, I’ll connect you with resources.”

We didn’t. Not because Serena didn’t deserve it. Because she was already falling apart under the weight of exposure. Because the investigation became bigger than us.

In the weeks that followed, Serena’s name started disappearing from places that had once protected her.

Panels removed her from speaking slots. LinkedIn endorsements vanished. People “unfollowed” her quietly.

The divine justice the tarot reader promised looked a lot like regular justice:

documentation, accountability, consequences.

Still, fear doesn’t leave instantly just because the threat is gone.

Some nights I’d wake up convinced my phone would buzz with another unknown number.

Avery admitted she still checked over her shoulder in parking garages.

We started going to therapy—not because we were “broken,” but because we’d learned the hard way what gaslighting does to the nervous system.

One evening, months later, Avery and I sat in a park near the water, coffee in hand, watching the city lights shimmer.

“You ever think about how close we were to believing her?” I asked.

Avery’s mouth tightened. “I did believe her,” she said quietly. “At first. Not fully. But enough to doubt myself.”

I swallowed. “Me too.”

Avery leaned back on the bench and let out a slow breath. “You know what saved us?”

“What?” I asked.

Avery looked at me, eyes soft.

“You stopped trying to win her approval,” she said. “You chose reality over comfort.”

I felt something warm and painful bloom in my chest.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “And you stood beside me when it got ugly.”

Avery smiled—small and tired and real.

“Of course,” she said. “That’s what she couldn’t stand. That we had each other.”

I stared out at the dark water and thought about the tarot reader’s ridiculous, dramatic phrase:

Everything she does backfires. You’re already winning.

Maybe “winning” wasn’t fireworks and glory.

Maybe it was simply waking up and realizing your life was yours again.

No leash.

No spell.

No voice in your head telling you you were unstable for noticing your own pain.

My phone buzzed once.

A text from Nina.

FYI—auditors found more. Serena’s being investigated for financial misconduct at her last company too. Thought you should know.

I stared at the message, then looked at Avery.

“She’s still falling,” I whispered.

Avery nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

I expected to feel triumph.

What I felt was relief.

And something else—quiet grief for the version of me that would’ve taken her words as truth.

I turned my phone face down and leaned back against the bench.

The night air smelled like cold rain and clean beginnings.

And for the first time in a long time, silence didn’t feel like waiting for the next hit.

It felt like peace.

THE END