Two weeks passed, and within Veloria, the atmosphere had shifted but not in the way anyone expected.
The internal tension that had begun to brew seemed to cool. Naya, while still somewhat distant, performed her tasks with clinical precision. Vincent remained helpful, keeping his presence low-key. The growth metrics continued their upward trend, new investors showed interest, and user adoption kept accelerating.
From the outside, Veloria looked unstoppable.
And to Aruna, it felt like victory had finally cemented itself into permanence.
"I think it's over," Aruna said one evening, leaning back in her chair, sipping a lukewarm coffee. "Giselle... she's done. She lost everything when her last move failed. No way she can crawl back from that."
Reza glanced up from his laptop, skeptical.
"Maybe," he said. "But people like her... they don't forget. Or forgive."
Aruna shrugged. "Let her stew in her bitterness. We're too far ahead now. She's irrelevant."
Reza wanted to argue but held back. Aruna had earned her optimism after years of fighting uphill battles, she deserved a little peace. And maybe, just maybe, Giselle really was finished.
But far from their sight, small things had begun to shift.
It started subtly.
A key supplier one of Veloria's cloud service partners suddenly raised their rates without notice. It seemed odd, but manageable.
Then, a strategic media partner canceled an upcoming promotional event without explanation, citing "internal restructuring."
A few days later, a well-established influencer who had agreed to endorse Veloria's platform quietly pulled out, offering vague apologies about "changing priorities."
Each event, on its own, was minor. Inconvenient, but not devastating.
Together, though, they formed a pattern.
The kind of pattern only visible when you stood far enough back.
Unfortunately, no one at Veloria was looking from that distance.
Inside a discreet meeting room across town, Giselle tapped a red pen against a sleek black notebook.
Across the table sat her shadowy partner the same figure who had slid her the confidential envelope weeks ago.
"They're not even noticing," Giselle said, her voice dripping with satisfaction. "They're too drunk on their own success."
The figure gave a rare, approving smile.
"It's working. Death by a thousand cuts."
"Not yet death," Giselle corrected sharply. "Weakness first. Confusion second. Then death."
She flipped open the notebook, revealing a meticulous timeline names, events, sabotage points, all mapped with ruthless precision.
"They think they've won," Giselle murmured. "Perfect."
Back at Veloria, another strange hiccup occurred.
An unexpected glitch appeared in their platform's newest update a small but embarrassing bug that caused the user dashboard to misreport statistics. Angry customer emails poured in. Forums buzzed with criticisms. Some media outlets even picked up the story, spinning it into a headline about Veloria "stumbling under its own weight."
Aruna brushed it off during the team meeting.
"Relax," she said, waving her hand. "It's normal. Growing pains. We'll fix the patch and move on."
Naya frowned. "But these glitches... they don't feel random."
Vincent glanced at her, saying nothing.
Reza shifted uneasily but said, "We'll investigate. Let's not overreact."
As night fell, Aruna found herself alone in the empty office, staring out at the city lights beyond the windows.
The buzz of victory had started to dull into routine, but beneath it, a strange restlessness gnawed at her.
She turned back to her laptop, reviewing reports.
The supplier changes, the event cancellations, the influencer withdrawals, the media backlash alone, all small. Together...
Aruna frowned.
A shadow flickered across her thoughts an echo of a warning.
What if Giselle isn't gone?
What if she's just waiting?
She shook the thought away.
"No," Aruna muttered to herself. "She's done. She burned too many bridges. She can't touch us anymore."
She closed her laptop with a decisive click, grabbing her bag.
Outside the building, as she locked the doors behind her, a figure watched from a distance, unseen.
Giselle smiled faintly from her car, tapping her nails against the steering wheel.
"You should've finished me when you had the chance," she whispered into the darkness.
And then she drove away, the city swallowing her taillights.