[Yvette should send that basket case to the mental hospital and stop him from going crazy on everyone out here.]

I leaned against the wall as I looked coldly at the man and woman in front of me, acting like the clowns they were. The command to freeze the funding and patent rights had to go through an overseas server first, which would render a delay of about 24 hours. They might be on top of the world right now, but they were in for a quick descent the next day.

"Think what you want." I put my phone away and tried to stand, but the burning in my lower body was intense, and my legs shook like jelly.

When Yvette saw me about to leave, her face fell. "Stop! Who said you could leave? Our company's IPO is about to happen soon. Go to the washroom and clean the blood off your face. Change into something better and come with me to the hall!" she ordered without holding back.

"There will be many huge potential investors present today. Stay by my side like a good boy and play your part as my loving fiancé. If you dare show your temper at me, I'll stop your monthly allowance!"

I paused in my steps and turned to look at her. "Didn't you just hear what I said, Yvette? I said the wedding is off!"

Yvette looked at me in disbelief. She was used to having me wrapped around her little finger. No matter how much she hit me or yelled at me, I would go running to her like a good dog whenever she waved me over to her.

"Are you trying to be funny, Callum?" Yvette was enraged. She turned and shouted into the corridor. "Security! Where's security?!"

Four muscular men in security uniforms came running over right away. "Yes, Ms. James?"

Yvette pointed at me with a venomous look in her eye. "Throw this troublemaker out of here! I don't want him dirtying the company's carpet!"

The security guards looked at each other as they recognized me and knew I was Yvette's fiancé. "Ms. James, it looks like Mr. Lyon is hurt," the head of security said hesitantly.

"Just throw him out as I told you to! Whoever says another word will be fired!"

They no longer hesitated and lunged at me right away, grabbing me by each arm. The intense struggle tugged on my wound, and I almost passed out from the pain. They dragged me out of the building like a ragged doll and threw me onto the cold, cement ground outside the door.

It had started raining heavily, and I was drenched in the icy rain. The rainwater ran down my face, mixed with the blood from my forehead, and continued flowing down my body and into the drain. I lay in the rain, watching the bright lights of the building and listening to the cheering and champagne-popping inside.

Yvette was celebrating her 'success' while passersby were pointing and staring at me as I tried to stand with great difficulty and hail a cab. "Get me to First Hospital's emergency room."

When I arrived at the hospital, the emergency room doctor took a sharp breath when he saw the condition I was in. "How did you end up this way? Your lower body has suffered a horrible chemical burn, and most of your soft tissue is damaged!"

The doctor cleaned up my wound quickly while shaking his head in anger. "This is horrible. You would've been permanently damaged if you were just 30 minutes later."

The cleaning process hurt even worse than when I was injured. I bit hard on the gauze as my bedsheet got drenched in cold sweat. I was given an IV drip as I lay weakly on a hospital bed.

My phone suddenly rang. It was Yvette calling.

I put her on speaker phone, only to hear her high-pitched, frustrated voice coming through. "Where are you, Callum? The IPO event is about to end! Henry accidentally spilled champagne on his suit. You need to get back here right away and let Henry change into the bespoke suit you're wearing."

My hospital room was very quiet, with only a faint beeping audible. Yvette's screaming sounded particularly ridiculous in the empty room. "Did you hear what I said? Henry has an interview with the finance media later. He can't appear on screen in a dirty suit. I was the one who paid for your suit, and you need to bring it over right now!"

I stared at the bright light on the ceiling and replied in a hoarse voice, "I'm in the emergency room, Yvette. The doctor said my lower body is badly burnt, and was almost damaged permanently."

There was a second of silence, followed by Yvette clicking her tongue impatiently. "Are you done, Callum? Can you stop with your act? Why would you need to go to the emergency room when it's just some ointment? Are you trying to trick me into visiting you by acting all pitiful? I can tell you right now that it isn't working!"

Henry's voice could be heard in the background. "Forget about it, Yvette. If Callum isn't willing to loan me his suit, I'm fine with my dirty one. I just hope I won't end up embarrassing you…"

His little scheme of playing victim fueled Yvette's rage. "He won't refuse you his suit!" Yvette raised her voice. "Bring that suit over within 30 minutes, Callum! Otherwise, don't even dream of stepping through the office door again!"

I hung up right away and blocked her number. I closed my eyes to force myself to calm down. It still required some time for the funding to be stopped, and before that happened, I had to take back everything that belonged to me.

There was a copy of my core code and an emerald pendant that my mother left to me before she died. They were all kept in the safe at my office.

I tore off the IV tube from the back of my hand and forced myself to get out of bed despite the nurse trying her best to stop me. I hailed a cab and returned to the office.

The office was in a mess as the party for the IPO event had just ended. The employees gathered in different groups as they talked about the celebration. I avoided the crowd and headed straight to my personal office on the top floor. I was furious at what I saw when I pushed the door open. Someone had rummaged through my office table, leaving it in a mess.

Henry was seated in my office chair, acting like a boss with his feet on my redwood table. He was wearing the bespoke suit I had carefully put away because of its high value while playing carelessly with my emerald pendant.

"Well, look who it is. The man who declared our CEO's bankruptcy via cyberspace." Henry looked at me and laughed wildly instead of feeling guilty about what he did. "What are you doing here? Did you come back to the office to play with your simple app because the hospital has lousy Wifi?"

I stared at the emerald pendant in his hand, looking like my eyes could spout fire at any time. "Put it down." My tone was icy as I walked over to Henry.

Henry's lips curled as he waved the pendant under the lights. "What are you so mad about? Isn't this just an ordinary piece of stone?"

"Yvette said I could take anything I wanted because she paid for everything in your office. A fan from my streaming channel told me this stone has a retro look to it, and I was planning to use it as a lucky draw prize for my stream tonight," he said as he made a show of slamming the emerald pendant onto the table to crack it.

"Don't you dare!" I no longer held back as I lunged at Henry to grab him by the collar and dragged him out of the chair. The pendant fell from his hand. I managed to catch it midair, holding it tightly against my chest.

Henry squealed out loud like a pig when I dragged him to the ground. "Help! He's trying to beat me up! Murder!"

The office door was pushed open, and Yvette entered with several members of top management. When Yvette saw Henry on the ground, the look on her face changed, and she dashed toward me in her heels to push me off Henry.

"Henry! Are you alright?" Yvette helped Henry up with a worried look on her face before she turned to glare viciously at me. "Are you crazy, Callum?! How dare you hit Henry?!"

I looked at her coldly while holding my pendant protectively. "He touched the emerald pendant my mother left for me."

Yvette was taken aback, but quickly sneered with indifference. "I thought it was some sort of treasure, but that's just a worthless piece of stone. You should feel honored that Henry has eyes for anything you own. You're a big man, aren't you? Why are you acting so pettily?"

She pointed at my nose and said in a charitable tone, "Apologize to Henry right now. I'll let this go if you kneel and apologize to him, and you can return to my side at the celebration party tonight."

"Apologize?" I kept repeating those words as I looked at the confident look on Yvette's face, and I laughed in anger.

"Did you inhale that ointment and let it mess with your brain, Yvette? He was the one who poured that ointment down my pants and took my bespoke suit, and you want me to kneel and apologize to him? He was also the one who wanted my mother's emerald pendant as a lucky draw prize for his streaming audience!"

Yvette turned red from my retort as she felt she had been humiliated and disrespected in front of her top management. "You should know what's good for you, Callum! That thing with the ointment was just a harmless prank. That suit and the pendant are collecting dust here anyway. What's wrong with using them?"

She took a deep breath as a malicious look flashed in her eye. "If you insist on doing this the hard way, don't blame me for what I'm about to do next!

"Security! Throw this madman into the basement storage room! No one is allowed to let him out without my permission in case he causes a scene at the party tonight and embarrasses me!"

The security guards came toward me, but I did not fight back. While everything had been going on, I had quietly grabbed the USB with the core code from under the table. Now that I had taken everything that belonged to me, I no longer cared what these people were saying because they would be ruined very soon.

It was dark and damp in the basement, and it smelled heavily of mold. When the storage room's heavy metal door closed behind me, the sound of the door being locked echoed in the empty corridor.

I leaned against a heap of abandoned cardboard boxes and carefully hid the emerald pendant on me. After that, I took out my phone to check the countdown timer on the screen. Less than three hours were left before the funding for Yvette's company was pulled. It coincided with the peak of tonight's celebration party.

Footsteps were heard outside the metal door about 30 minutes later. The lock turned, and the door creaked as it opened.