Chapter 2

All they saw was the $8 million commission on a $40 million design contract. None of them saw me crawling through construction sites every day, caked in mud like a stray dog.

The guy they called incompetent, the "glory hog," the one who "hogged all the credit" — I was the one holding up more than half the company's revenue, making sure they had salaries to collect and bonuses to spend.

I held my breath, walked to my desk.

Picked up the glass "Outstanding Contribution Award" trophy, and hurled it into the aisle.

CRASH.

Glass shattered everywhere, the sound ripping through the entire office.

Every whisper died instantly.

The whole floor went dead silent.

The conference room door flew open. Kenneth still had a cigarette pinched between his fingers, not even bothered to put it out.

He spotted the shattered trophy on the floor and strolled toward me with a smirk.

"Ronnie, come on, no need for all that. If you've got a problem with how things were decided, I can step aside for you."

I sat in my chair, chin tilted up to meet his eyes.

Same face from three months ago when he first walked in as an intern. But the humble act had long been replaced by the gloating mask of a man who'd lucked into something he didn't earn.

"Sure."

I said it calmly.

"Go tell Mr. James right now. I'll wait."

The smirk on his face froze solid. His eyes shifted from shock to irritation, then landed on pure embarrassment.

He forced out a stiff laugh. "Bro, I was kidding. That's above my pay grade."

I ignored him and turned to my computer, sorting through my files.

Kenneth draped one arm over the glass partition of my cubicle.

The other arm planted itself on my desk. He leaned in, watching my face with that lazy, entitled look.

"Ronnie, Edmund wants you to hand over all the Cloudridge client files. Everything."

"Everything?"

"Yeah. Proposals, material quotes, contact agreements, and the design drafts."

He blew a lazy smoke ring, watching me like he had all the time in the world.

Last month, Cloudridge had requested a lighting design package. Kenneth submitted over a dozen proposals. Every single one got rejected.

On the last day before the deadline, he called me at midnight begging for help.

I pulled an all-nighter to finish it.

The next morning, he walked in with my designs and took full credit.

When Edmund reported to the boss, he said the entire design department had worked overtime to get it done.

I nodded.

"Fine. I'll organize them and send them over."

He smiled, satisfied, and turned to leave.

The stench of cigarette smoke lingered over my workstation long after he was gone.

I opened my hidden files and clicked on a folder labeled "IMPORTANT — DO NOT DELETE."

Inside were eight floor plans for Cloudridge, 108 design proposals, and 2,888 design sketches.

Every single one drawn by my hand. Every single one revised by me alone.

Every last sketch had only one name on it. Mine.

Not one of the other twelve people in the design department had contributed a single line.

Because none of them ever believed I could land this project.

When the Cloudridge luxury renovation project first launched, Edmund had been eager enough to submit a bid.

But out of 150 design firms, only 44 made the cut.

Pinnacle Design got eliminated in the first round.

Edmund gave up on the spot. I was the only one who kept going.

Every day, I showed up at the construction site and worked alongside the laborers.

Whenever I spotted something wrong, I spoke up. I was more thorough than Cloudridge's own construction supervisor.

One time, I noticed the bathroom drain placement was off and flagged it immediately.

"The drain's positioned so the washing machine and the toilet are going to collide. The machine door won't be able to open. I'd recommend shifting it back about four inches."

The site supervisor was a guy named Ken Lawrence, a stubborn old bulldog of a man who made no effort to hide his annoyance with me.

"That's how it was designed. Whether the door opens or not isn't my problem. I build to the blueprints."

I smiled. "But the interior finishing is on your team. A layout like this is going to cause major problems during renovation. Unless you swap the front-loader for a top-loader, but would the homeowners agree to that? Wouldn't that count as fraud?"