The morning after the partnership collapse, Aruna arrived at Veloria earlier than usual.
The office was eerily silent, save for the hum of the air conditioning. Rows of empty desks stretched out before her like abandoned battlegrounds.
She moved through the space slowly, feeling the invisible cracks in the walls.
It wasn't just outside forces.
Something was wrong inside.
And she had been blind to it for too long.
By noon, the full team gathered for yet another emergency meeting.
"We can't just keep patching holes," Naya said, her voice tired but sharp. "We need a new approach."
"Agreed," Vincent added, arms folded across his chest. "The systems are compromised beyond surface repairs. It's like there's rot underneath."
"Exactly," Reza muttered. "Something deeper. Something we haven't addressed."
Aruna studied their faces.
The fear.
The exhaustion.
The anger.
It wasn't just the external attacks breaking them apart.
It was them turning against each other in slow, corrosive silence.
Trust was bleeding away, unseen but lethal.
Who is feeding this fire? Aruna thought.
Her gaze briefly lingered on Vincent.
He caught her glance, offering a small, tight smile.
It was enough to make her stomach twist, though she couldn't explain why.
Later that afternoon, Aruna retreated to her office, locking the door behind her.
She pulled out the incident reports, the partnership communications, the server breach logs every shred of documentation from the past month.
Laying them across the table, she started connecting the dots.
Patterns began to emerge, faint but undeniable.
Internal system failures always coincided with high-stakes meetings.
Security breaches happened precisely after product updates updates only known to a handful of trusted staff.
Rumors about instability at Veloria had surfaced just before major deal negotiations again, from sources impossible to trace.
Coincidences? Maybe.
But too many coincidences made a pattern.
Aruna leaned back, staring at the ceiling.
If Giselle was still pulling the strings, she had help inside.
But who?
Nadia had been the obvious scapegoat, but her sudden dismissal hadn't stopped the sabotage. If anything, it had grown more sophisticated.
Someone smarter. Someone patient.
Someone... trusted.
The thought sent a chill down her spine.
Over the next few days, Aruna grew more vigilant.
She started watching her team not openly, but quietly, between meetings, during lunch breaks, during late-night work sessions.
She noticed small things.
Reza snapping at interns and pushing projects recklessly forward without due diligence.
Naya growing colder, second-guessing every strategy, undermining morale without realizing it.
Vincent, however, remained the calm center always suggesting purges, more drastic actions, more mistrust.
Divide and conquer, a voice whispered in Aruna's mind.
But the problem was, Vincent's ideas often made sense.
Logical.
Practical.
Exactly what a wounded company should do... if survival was the only goal.
But survival at what cost?
Their soul? Their integrity? Their team?
The real enemy was not shouting from across a battlefield.
The real enemy whispered from within their own camp.
And it was working.
Meanwhile, Giselle observed from her quiet perch, amused by how easily humans destroyed themselves once trust was eroded.
Veloria didn't need to be crushed.
It needed only to stop believing in itself.
Giselle's methods were simple: Doubt. Division. Despair.
Veloria was bleeding from invisible wounds, every ounce of hope slowly drained until nothing was left.
By the time they realized it, it would be too late.
One night, Aruna couldn't sleep.
She sat on her balcony, the city glowing faintly beneath her feet, thoughts running in endless, jagged circles.
Who?
She thought about the early days when every setback was met with laughter and renewed determination.
When they trusted each other completely.
What had changed?
Was it success?
Was it the pressure?
Or was it... something seeded deliberately?
The idea was terrifying.
If someone had infiltrated Veloria's inner circle, if someone was feeding the slow death from within, then everything every victory, every defeat had been manipulated.
And they were still blind.
The next day, Aruna called an emergency closed-door meeting but this time, only with Reza and Naya.
Vincent was deliberately left out.
"I need you both to listen carefully," Aruna said quietly, locking the door behind them. "We have a mole."
Naya stiffened. Reza's mouth tightened into a thin line.
"I don't have hard proof yet," Aruna continued, "but everything points to an inside influence continuing after Nadia's dismissal."
Naya opened her mouth to speak but closed it again.
Reza leaned forward. "You think... it's one of us?"
"I don't know," Aruna said honestly. "But we can't pretend everything's fine anymore. Every day we delay, Veloria gets weaker."
Silence fell.
For the first time, the weight of betrayal wasn't just a ghost it was a living, breathing presence among them.
Outside the closed door, Vincent passed by, glancing casually at the frosted glass.
A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Everything was proceeding perfectly.
Aruna was finally asking the right questions but much too late.
The rot had already spread deep, and soon, no amount of suspicion or courage could save Veloria.
As Aruna, Reza, and Naya argued into the night, trying to salvage the pieces, the clock kept ticking.
And somewhere, hidden in the cracks of their once-glorious dream, the final collapse had already begun.