Chapter 1
Outside the courthouse steps, Julian Vance shoved the divorce settlement across the table to me.
"You keep the house. You keep the savings. You keep the car."
His voice was dead calm, as if he were haggling over useless scrap metal.
I stared at the very last clause:
"Astra Tech remains solely in the possession of the Husband. The Wife voluntarily surrenders all equity."
Six years ago, Julian and I were cramming into a run-down studio apartment, typing out our very first lines of code. Back then, he told me this company was our baby.
Now, he was claiming he birthed it all by himself.
Julian held out the pen.
"Sign it, Evelyn. Let me have the company, and you take everything else. You're not losing out here."
I almost laughed out loud.
The house, the car, and the cash in the bank amounted to maybe two million dollars at best.
My equity in Astra Tech was worth at least a hundred and fifty million. And I wasn’t losing out?!
I locked eyes with him.
He hesitated for a second, then looked away.
"You don't know how to run a business anyway. Leaving it in your hands would only run it into the ground. I have to think about our employees."
I gave a faint smile, didn't say a word, and signed my name on the dotted line.
Since you're so unwilling to share the empire we built together...
Then nobody gets to keep it.
The moment I finished signing, the woman beside Julian let out a quiet sigh of relief.
Chloe Reed. Our former head of administrative services.
Or rather, the new lady of Astra Tech.
She tugged gently at Julian’s sleeve, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. "Julian, hurry up. We still have that executive meeting back at the office."
Julian stood up, took his copy of the agreement, and walked straight out without looking back once.
I stayed seated, watching them slide into that shiny black Porsche.
It was the first luxury toy he bought right after the company went public last year.
As Chloe bent down into the passenger seat, she glanced back at me.
Her eyes were filled with smug triumph—and pity.
The door slammed shut. The engine roared to life.
I pulled my phone from my bag. Three unread notifications:
Anonymous Investor: "Evelyn, the funding and the term sheet are locked and loaded. When can you come sign?"
Liam: "Boss, the servers for the new company are deployed. Ready to fire up whenever you are."
Joe: "Evelyn, the product launch is locked in for next Wednesday. Media invites have gone out to every major tech outlet."
I replied to them one by one.
Julian really thought that snatching the corporate brand meant he’d won.
Too bad for him.
The real Astra Tech was locked inside my head.
News of our divorce leaked much faster than I anticipated.
By that evening, social media was buzzing.
First, Wendy, an old colleague who loved kissing up to management, posted on Ins:
[Congratulations to Julian on escaping that toxic trap! Here’s to fresh beginnings!]
The photo showed Julian and Chloe in the corporate lounge, holding coffee cups and beaming ear-to-ear.
Chloe commented underneath: [Thanks Wendy! I'll take good care of Julian.]
Such a devoted little trophy.
Even Marcus Sterling, one of our earliest angel investors, posted a status:
[Business is war. Some people can only survive the trenches together, but they aren't meant to share the glory. Can’t wait for Astra Tech’s next chapter.]
Julian liked the post.
I dialed Liam.
"How’s the office?"
"Not great," Liam answered, sounding exhausted. "Julian called an all-hands meeting this afternoon. He announced you stepped down due to 'health reasons.' Then he restructured the entire org chart. I... I got demoted."
My grip tightened around the phone.
"What else?"
"Leo from Core R&D got banished to a dead-end maintenance team just for daring to ask when you were coming back.”
“Chloe’s newly hired HR director has been pulling old employees into private rooms all day, basically forcing people to swear loyalty."
Outside my window, city lights flickered against the night sky. The June breeze swept across the balcony, but all I felt was cold.
"Liam, how much longer can you take it?"
"Me?" He gave a dry chuckle. "I already drafted my two-week notice. They can't wait to push me out anyway. Oh, by the way, Boss—all the evidence and records you asked me to back up? Done."
"When can you join the new company?"
"Tomorrow."
"Good." I turned around, looking at the half-packed cardboard boxes in my living room. "Three days from now, we hold our first official product sprint."
After hanging up, my phone pinged with a new Snap request.
The note read: [Evelyn, it's Chloe. Add me back. There are a few things I really think we should talk about.]
I approved it.
Instantly, a wall of texts flooded my screen.
[Evelyn, I've kept this inside for so long. Julian has been so exhausted these past two years. You never understood him, and you never supported him.]
[A CEO needs to network, socialize, and bring in capital. And you?]
[You spent every single day locked in the lab coding, completely detached from everything else.]
[He needs a supportive partner, not a robot programmer.]
[This divorce isn't his fault. You were just way too stubborn and aggressive.]
[If you were actually a good wife, would he ever have left you? I just gave him the warmth he desperately needed when he was down.]
[We did nothing wrong.]
I read it over three times, screenshotted every word, and saved it to the cloud.
I didn't bother typing a reply.
Before I could even put my phone down, Julian called.
"Evelyn, did Chloe message you?" His tone was sharp with irritation. "Can you stop giving her a hard time? She's young and naive. If you have a problem, take it out on me!"