Chapter 2: Retaliation

Just then, the boss stormed over.

He came to my desk and asked, all businesslike, “Is the settlement check ready?”

He barely glanced at me—just barked out the question while scrolling on his phone. His cufflinks glinted in the harsh fluorescent light.

I knew what he meant. Our company’s old equipment was falling apart, and the workers were scared to use it.

There was a worker whose mother was gravely ill. To pay her hospital bills, he forced himself to work.

The machine malfunctioned, and he died right there.

The news tore through the plant like wildfire. You could smell burnt metal in the air for days, and the breakroom was quieter than a funeral home.

I told the boss the $300,000 insurance payout was ready.

He said, “Don’t pay it. Wire it to Client Mason first.”

I was stunned. “If you send it to the client, what about the worker’s mother? The hospital’s waiting for the money to save her life!”

The boss sneered, “Are you stupid? I checked his family background. He and his mother are both only children, and she won’t last long. If we drag it out, once she’s dead, do you think we still need to pay?”

The cruelty in his voice made my skin crawl. It was like he was proud of finding a loophole in someone’s grief.

I stared at the boss in disbelief.

But he thought I was impressed by his cunning, tapped his head and said, “Running a business takes brains. Just stall her, she won’t last long.”

In that moment, I hesitated no longer.

This monster deserves to rot in hell.

It was almost time to get off work, but the boss suddenly told everyone not to leave after clocking out—there’d be a meeting, but remember to clock out first.

That was his usual trick: make us clock out, then hold meetings so he didn’t have to pay overtime.

Everyone shuffled to the conference room, heads down. I deliberately lingered at my desk, organizing papers. When the boss went into his office, I replied to the scam text.

My hands trembled a little as I typed the reply, glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one was watching.

I typed: “Is this Mr. Mason?”

Mr. Mason is our company’s biggest client, holding our lifeblood in his hands.

The scammer replied quickly: “Yes, I changed my account number.”

I smirked. “Okay, I’ll wire the money right away.”

Now was the time to act—during meetings, the boss forbade anyone from looking at their phones.

As the accountant, if I wired money to a client without the boss’s signature, was it illegal?

No doubt. It was.

I’d read the news—some poor accountant wires money to a scammer, company tries to sue, but the court shrugs: you can’t squeeze blood from a stone. The employee didn’t benefit, couldn’t pay it back, and the company just had to eat the loss.

First, I sent the $300,000 meant for the dead worker’s insurance payout. Then I wired every last dollar—$2.1 million—straight to the scammer’s account.

For a split second, my finger hovered. Was I really about to do this? But then I thought of the worker’s mother, and pressed down.

I watched the numbers vanish from the bank portal, line after line, like I was erasing years of pain and humiliation in one breath.

I knew exactly what I was doing. The company was bankrupt, right then and there.

The boss’s Tesla, his wife’s designer handbags, their kid’s private school tuition—after tonight, all of it would be gone.

The thought of his prized car getting towed away made me grin for the first time in weeks.

Especially since half that $2.1 million was private loans. The boss’s fate was sealed: utter ruin.