#Chapter 74: Stepping Up

Emily The discrepancy was small. Eighty-seven points was barely a whisper in the quarterly ledgers. Easy to miss. Easier to ignore. But I didn’t ignore it. I’d learned long ago that sabotage doesn’t start with fireworks. It starts with faint smudges on otherwise clean glass. And I’d spent enough time cleaning up after Chloe to recognize her fingerprints, even through layers of accounting software and digital formalities. The flagged entry was hidden in a routine transaction between one of Titanfang’s suppliers and an auxiliary firm. It was Eldrin & Vale—Chloe’s new workplace. I opened the archived contract logs, cross-checked dates, reviewed access history. Someone had deliberately rerouted funds through a dummy holding account under Chloe’s signature access level—then adjusted timestamps to make it look like I’d signed off on the expense. It was a setup. A subtle one. By the time anyone noticed the deviation, the suspicion would fall directly on me. But they hadn