While Julian was running around like a headless chicken trying to find me, I was already settling into my new corner office at a top firm in Harbor City.
When the new company saw my resume, they did not just interview me. The CEO cleared his schedule to negotiate in person. He told me to name my price.
I just gave him a thin smile. "I don't need special perks. However, I can promise you ten major projects within the month."

The CEO looked like he had won the lottery. He offered me a salary that looked like a phone number and a stake in the company.
I took the deal. The very next day, I started dismantling Julian's empire.
Those cancelled contracts? I brought them with me. The software that got flagged? I wrote the code, so I knew exactly where the vulnerabilities were. I pulled the rug out from under them before they even knew they were standing on air.
In less than a month, I had absorbed nearly every major project Julian's company had. I was not just an employee at the new firm; I was untouchable.
One evening, as I was walking to my car, I heard a familiar voice. I turned to see Julian shambling toward me. He looked awful: unshaven, clothes wrinkled, dark circles under his eyes. However, when he saw me, he lit up.
"Wifey! I finally found you. I knew you wouldn't."

"I've already filed for divorce," I cut him off, my voice ice cold. "I sent the court evidence of your little affair with Lily, too. You'll be getting the summons any day now."
I looked him up and down with pure disgust. "And don't call me 'wifey.' You don't get to use that word anymore. It makes me sick."
Julian froze, panic rising in his eyes. He scrambled toward me. "Elena, wait! What do you mean? You know the company is sinking. You're just going to walk away? You own half of it! If we go bankrupt, you lose, too!"
"Who do you think sank the ship, Julian?"

I laughed, a harsh, sharp sound. "You have half the shares, sure, but I have all the talent. The company is just a shell. I can build another one tomorrow, but you?"
I stepped closer, watching him squirm. "Without the company, without the money, and with all that debt piling up... Do you really think your precious childhood sweetheart is going to stick around?"
The blood drained from Julian's face. He stared at me, mouth agape, as the realization finally hit him.
"You... You knew," he whispered. "You knew I was nothing without you. Why... Why didn't you say anything?"
"Why?" I smirked. "Because you wouldn't have listened. You were too arrogant to admit that your success was built on the back of the wife you treated like trash."
I checked my watch. "But now that you've lost everything, I figure you'll have plenty of time to think about it."
I turned on my heel and walked away.
"Elena! No! Please!" Julian screamed, lunging after me.
Before he could get close, the company security guards tackled him and dragged him off the property like a bag of garbage.
Two weeks later, the gavel came down. Thanks to my prep work and the mountain of evidence I had gathered, the divorce was granted immediately. I was free.
Word got out that Julian was drinking his sorrows away in some dive bar, completely ignoring the dumpster fire that was his bankrupt company. Lily, meanwhile, did not waste a second. She snagged herself a new sugar daddy and used his influence to strip Julian of his last few assets. She even swiped his remaining tech team just for kicks.
By the time Julian sobered up enough to care, all he had left was a mountain of debt and a hollow shell of a business. He went berserk and tried to hunt Lily down for payback, but her new boyfriend's goons beat him to a pulp and tossed him onto the curb.
That was my cue. I swooped in and took over Julian's company without breaking a sweat. Frankly speaking, I was always the superior leader. If I had not been so blinded by love in my past life, unable to see what a total piece of trash he was, I never would have ended up dead the first time around.
I threw myself into work after that and forgot all about Julian. However, two weeks later, a gruesome story hit the news. Some middle-aged guy broke into a woman's apartment in the middle of the night, tortured her to death, and then dove off the thirteenth-floor balcony.
It was nasty enough to have the whole office buzzing. By dinner time, the police released the names: Julian and Lily.
I raised an eyebrow. Nice. Supposed they finally got their 'happily ever after.'