Page 69 of Corrupting Camille
Not her.
She’s shut me out for the night.
Locked herself in her ivory tower, stewing in silence, fists clenched, thighs tighter, replaying every word, every thrust, every time I dragged the truth out of her body and made her feel alive.
Camille
The scent of fresh espresso lingers in the air in the bright, clean, familiar midtown offices of the New York- Sinclair Foundation Headquarters. The kind of thing that usually calms me.
Today, it doesn’t.
I stand at the wall of glass in the boardroom, arms crossed, watching the city crawl beneath me, fast, loud and too alive. Everyone down there is moving. Living. And I’m here, staring at my own reflection in the glass, wondering how I missed the noose tightening around my neck.
“Camille?” I turn. Nina. My assistant. Tablet in hand. Flustered in a way she never is, her mouth tight and eyes darting like someone’s already screamed at her today.
“What is it?”
“It’s the scholarship fund,” she says. “The disbursement’s been flagged.”
I blink. “What do you mean flagged?”
“Your approval didn’t go through.” Her voice lowers. “New clearance protocol was added this morning. System locked. It’s rerouting through secondary authorization.” I walk toward her, heels biting into the floor.
“Who authorized the change?”
She hesitates, swallows. “Rivera Holdings.”
I stop. Like someone yanked my spine backward. Rivera Holdings. The words land like a punch to the ribs. I don’t move. Don’t speak. My body goes still the way it does right before I shatter, every breath shallow, barely there. I stare at Nina. “Repeat that,” I say, but my voice isn’t mine anymore. It’s thinner. Frayed.
She shifts uncomfortably. “Rivera Holdings. The new strategic partner. They’ve implemented a secondary authorization for all disbursement over twenty-five thousand. It’s already live. Auto-triggered at 7:00 a.m.”
I take the tablet from her slowly, fingers cold. There it is, my name next to a denied request. The status changed in real time. My signature voided beneath a newer one. One that doesn’t belong in this building, let alone in this part of my life. Kane Rivera. There’s a new digital watermark beneath the funds allocation system. Rivera Holdings. A logo where mine used to be. He’s in it. Buried in the backend of everything I built.
Not hovering.
Not haunting.
Embedded.
Like a tick you didn’t feel latch on until it was already draining the blood out of you.
I can’t breathe.
I grip the tablet tighter, fingers shaking as I scroll through line after line of transaction requests.
Blocked.
Denied.
Under Review.
All flagged under the same note: Awaiting Rivera Holdings approval.
My approvals used to be absolute. No delays. No second-guessing. I fought for that, built a world where my name meant something beyond cocktail dresses and curated smiles. Now my voice isn’t even a whisper in the system I created.
“Camille?” Nina says quietly. She steps forward, eyes worried, because I must look exactly how I feel.
Betrayed.
