Her Second Chance In Red Chapter 2

Harrison managed to cut the feed ten minutes later, but the damage was done. The clip was already trending under the tag #InternRuins300MDeal.

By the afternoon, an emergency crisis meeting was called. Piper sat in the corner of the room, her eyes swollen like bruised peaches. Harrison slammed an incident report onto the table in front of me.

"Legal failed in its oversight. Natalie Ross bears primary responsibility. Piper Montgomery, due to lack of experience, will receive an internal warning."

I flipped to the last page. It was already stamped by the VP’s office—Harrison’s office. All it needed was my signature.

"The investigation hasn't even started, and you’ve already reached a verdict?" I asked.

Harrison leaned back, his expression one of bored annoyance. "If we let this drag on, it hurts the firm’s image. Piper is an intern; she can't pay back three hundred million dollars. What do you want, Natalie? To see her in a cage?"

"Liability isn't about whether someone can afford the damages," I replied. "It’s about who caused them. Whether she’s broke or not doesn't change the facts."

Piper’s tears started again. "I’ll work hard to earn the money back. But I only make four thousand a month... it will take so many years..."

The other executives shifted uncomfortably. She was playing them perfectly, acting as if we were asking her for a check right this second. She was dragging the conversation away from why she crossed the security line and why she took the pen to the paper, and turning it into a narrative of "The Big Bad Corporation vs. The Poor Little Intern."

Harrison’s heart, predictably, melted. "Enough. Natalie, she knows she made a mistake. You’re only holding onto this because she relies on me, isn't it?"

I closed the report. "If you’re so eager to call this an accident, perhaps you can explain why an administrative intern was seated at the signing table in the first place?"

In a firm like Vanguard, an intern shouldn't have been within twenty feet of that inner circle.

Harrison’s eyes shifted. "I invited her to observe. For her professional development."

"And who authorized her temporary clearance?"

"I did."

"And who allowed her to cross the security perimeter?"

"I wasn't paying attention."

"And who asked Legal to falsify a report after the fact?"

Harrison slammed his palm against the table. "Are you cross-examining me, Natalie?"

"I am documenting facts." I opened my laptop and cc’d the incident log to the Board of Directors' Audit and Risk Committee.

Harrison glared at me, his face turning a mottled red. In my previous life, I had been terrified of hurting our relationship, and even more terrified that the Reed family would withdraw their financial support for my mother’s medical care. I had kept quiet. And when the firm finally looked for someone to blame, Harrison had used every document I had signed to bury me while he walked away clean.

Not this time. Every directive, every overreach—I was putting his name on all of it.

After the meeting, Xavier Blackwood caught me in the hallway. "Natalie, Luminary can give Vanguard forty-eight hours."

I looked at him. "And then?"

"If you can produce an independent investigation proving this wasn't a coordinated act of commercial sabotage, we’ll reschedule. If not... the deal is dead." He paused, lowering his voice. "And Natalie? Check that marker."

I met his gaze. "What did you see, Xavier?"

"When she was 'drawing,' she held the end of the pen with two fingers, perfectly upright. She wasn't holding it like a child. She was holding it like she was trying not to block a lens."