Reborn My Mean Girl Coworker's Deadly Trap

"Friday night, VIP lounge at Club Spade. I’ve pre-ordered ten bottles of Ace of Spades! See you there, babes!" Chloe leaned against my cubicle partition, sipping Coca-Cola through a straw. Her peach lip gloss left a sticky, greasy ring on the plastic straw. Peach. She always wore peach. Of the six people in our department, five nodded in agreement. I was the only one who stayed silent. "Avery? You coming?" She tilted her head, looking at me. I declined flatly. "No." She stopped sipping her soda. "Oh? Why not?" "Just don't want to." "Are you worried about the money? Don't be! It's covered by the team budget. Mr. Davis already approved it—" "Ace of Spades is twenty-three hundred dollars a bottle. Ten bottles is twenty-three thousand. Our quarterly team budget is five hundred dollars. How exactly are you planning to write this off?" Someone coughed outside the breakroom. Harper’s fingers froze over her keyboard. Chloe slowly pulled the straw from her mouth and stood up straight. "Avery, you're so funny. The owner is a close friend of mine. He’s giving us a massive discount." "How massive?" "Like, super cheap." "Give me a number. I'll do the math for you." She didn't answer. Her perfectly manicured nail scraped against the soda bottle. "Whatever. Don't come if you don't want to." She turned on her heel and walked away. At three in the afternoon, Mr. Davis called me into his office. "Avery, I heard you refused to join the team-building event?" "Yes." "Mind telling me why?" "The pricing doesn't make sense. Ten bottles of Ace of Spades, even at half price, is way over our five-hundred-dollar budget." He tapped his fingers on the mahogany desk. There was a coffee mug on his desk with a crooked heart drawn by his daughter. "I'll look into that. But Avery, your attitude is the problem here. Chloe worked hard to organize this, and you embarrassed her in front of everyone." "Mr. Davis, I didn't embarrass her. I was just doing the math." "You could have asked her privately. Doing it like that makes it look like you're accusing her of embezzlement—" He cut himself off, realizing where that sentence was heading. "Just get back to work. Watch your tone with your coworkers." Leaving his office, I saw Chloe standing at the end of the hallway. She had a fresh bottle of Coke in her hand. "Avery, what did Mr. Davis say?" Her voice was pure honey. "Nothing bad, right?" "It's fine." "Good. Honestly, I don't care where we go. I should have asked you first. Next time, I'll make sure to get your input, okay?" She draped her arm over my shoulder, pretending we were best friends. "Chloe, how many team events have you organized this year?" "Um... maybe seven or eight?" "And they're all expensed to the company?" "Of course. It's team-building." "Do you still have the receipts?" Her grip tightened on my shoulder. Her sweet smile faltered for a split second. "Why the sudden interest? Want to see them? I can show you." "No need. I'll look them up myself." I walked away. She chased after me, her voice still sweet, acting as if nothing had happened. "Okay, okay! Next time then!" Back at my desk, my phone buzzed. In our department Snapchat group, Chloe had sent a voice note. She spoke in a low, conspiratorial whisper. "Avery seems really stressed lately. Let's all show her some extra love, guys." Five minutes later, Harper peeked over her monitor, looking around before whispering to me: "Avery, you shouldn't have picked a fight with her.""Morning." Nobody answered. At 8:06 AM, the only sounds in the office were the clicking of keyboards and the low hum of the AC. I put down my bag and noticed my computer was already on. The screen was locked with a red warning: "Your account has been forcibly logged out. Please contact the administrator." The charging cable on my power strip had been unplugged, and there were visible nail scratches near the port. Carter sat across from me, his AirPods in, his head buried in his screen. I went to the admin desk to borrow a cable. When I got back, a tall cup of iced Americano was sitting on my desk. I picked it up. I knew it was Chloe’s doing—she was the only one in the department who ordered from that specific hipster cafe. Next to the cup was a pink sticky note. Her signature stationery. "Avery, don't be mad! It was my fault. Let me buy you coffee to make up for it~" I tossed the coffee straight into the trash can. But I kept the sticky note and locked it in my drawer. During the 10:00 AM weekly meeting, Mr. Davis was writing the schedule on the whiteboard. When he reached the marketing campaign column, he paused. "Avery, what's the status on the Cascade Media account this week?" Before I could speak, Chloe cut in. "Mr. Davis, the client mentioned something to me yesterday. It seems like there was a bit of friction in their communication with Avery? I'm not entirely sure, they just brought it up casually." Her tone was hesitant, as if she were reluctant to speak. It was classic Chloe. Vague enough to make the boss suspicious, but innocent enough to keep her hands clean. "What friction?" Mr. Davis turned around. "Well... their director, Mr. Brooks, mentioned that the handoff wasn't very smooth. I didn't want to pry too much, since it's Avery's project after all." She turned to me, her face a mask of pure apology. "Avery, please don't hate me. I'm just telling the truth." I stared at her, calm and cold. Her words had laid three hidden landmines for me. "Mr. Brooks told you this? When?" "Last Thursday afternoon. He called my cell." "Did you call him back? Is there a call log?" Hearing my questions, she looked deeply hurt. "Avery, why are you interrogating me like a criminal? I didn't record the call. Who keeps logs of casual phone calls?" Carter was the first to defend her. "Exactly. Chloe was just trying to help, and you're acting like—" "That's enough," Mr. Davis waved his hand. "Avery, put together a detailed log of your communications with Cascade Media and have it on my desk by the end of the week. Meeting adjourned." At 2:00 PM, I logged into the company’s HR expense portal. The team-building expense reports were filed under the administrative module, one page per month. March: Sushi restaurant, expensed at $4,800. April: Karaoke lounge, $4,500. June: Inter-department mixer, Spa Resort—$12,000. The limit for inter-department events was $5,000. I pulled up the original attached receipt. It was a handwritten invoice with a blurry digital stamp. There were faint white edges of correction fluid around the total amount. It was slightly misaligned, revealing half of the original digit underneath. The original $5,000 had been changed to $12,000. I took a screenshot. The exact second I saved the file, a Snapchat message from Chloe popped up in the corner of my screen. "Avery, what are you up to? Let's go grab a drink downstairs. They have a new seasonal menu, my treat!" She was sitting three rows away, smiling at me through the gap in the cubicle walls. How did she know what I was looking at? "No, thank you." "Don't be such a loner, babes. Everyone thinks you've been acting super weird lately." She walked over, her stiletto heels clicking sharply on the tiled floor. She bent down, leaning close. Her voice was barely a whisper, meant for my ears only. "Avery, some files on the portal are meant to be opened. Others... are better left alone." Her peach perfume was suffocatingly sweet. She was so close I could see the edge of her colored contact lenses. "I was just browsing." "Good." She stood up and blasted a message to the group chat: "Afternoon tea is on me, guys! Drop your orders below!" Within three seconds, six excited emojis flooded the chat. Nobody tagged me. When the clock struck five, we ended up alone in the elevator. She broke the silence first. "Avery, those expense files you were looking at... even if there was something wrong with them, the person who signed off on them was Mr. Davis." The elevator dinged. The doors slid open. She stepped out, turning back to look at me, her peach-glossed lips curving into a smirk. "Who do you think Mr. Davis is going to protect?""Avery, Cascade Media just pulled the plug on you." Mr. Davis delivered the news on Wednesday morning. Before I could even sit down, he snatched the project folder off my desk. "Pulled the plug? Who said that?" "Their director called yesterday afternoon. He said your communication was terrible and demanded a new account manager." "Did Mr. Brooks call you directly?" "No, he called Chloe. She relayed it to me." Chloe again. The calls always went through Chloe. "Mr. Davis, can I call Mr. Brooks directly to clarify this?" "No need. The client’s message was loud and clear. Chloe will take over the account for now." With that, he turned and walked away. I opened my phone and pulled up Mr. Brooks' contact info. Our last text was from three days ago. He had sent a data feedback form, ending with: "Great job, Avery. The strategy is solid." I sent a message: "Mr. Brooks, regarding the change in account managers, do you have a few minutes for a quick call?" The moment I hit send, a red exclamation mark appeared next to my message. The man who had praised my work three days ago had blocked me without a single word of explanation. I slammed my phone face down on the desk. I knew this was a coordinated hit, but without solid proof, I had to keep my cool. At lunchtime, I went to the breakroom to get some water. Three coworkers were crowded around the microwave. The second I walked in, their voices instantly dropped to whispers. "...Yeah, I heard the embezzlement thing is pretty serious..." "Shh, shut up." Carter walked past me with his lunchbox. His eyes never met mine as he brushed right past. The other two quickly scattered, leaving me alone with the humming microwave and a half-heated lunchbox that belonged to god-knows-who. When I got back to my desk, I noticed my drawer had been tampered with. The files inside had been shuffled. The pink sticky note Chloe wrote to me was gone. My flash drive was missing too. The flash drive containing the expense screenshots, which I had left right next to my keyboard this morning, was gone. I booted up my computer. The screenshots on my desktop were gone. Even the recycle bin had been emptied. The security camera over our section had been "awaiting repairs" for three months. I remembered Chloe posting in the group chat back then: "We're all family here, why do we even need cameras?" At 5:00 PM, Chloe walked back into the office, carrying a large bakery bag. "Hey guys! I took a baking class and brought some homemade chocolate chip cookies! Grab one!" She distributed them to everyone. When she reached my desk, she dropped the bag in front of me. "Avery, I saved the biggest one for you. Don't be polite!" She hadn't said a single negative thing about me in public all afternoon. Yet, every single person who walked past my cubicle quickly looked away. Some killers don't need knives or broken bottles. They just trap you in a world where everyone believes them, and slowly suffocate you. At 6:00 PM, I was waiting for the bus outside the office building. Harper walked up and stood beside me. She stared straight ahead and spoke quietly. "Did you know Mr. Davis’s wife is Chloe's cousin?" I tilted my head. "How did you find out?" "At last year's annual gala, his wife came to pick him up. Chloe ran up and called her 'cousin.' There were two hundred people in the lobby, but I was standing at the exact angle to hear it." The bus pulled up, and the doors opened. As she stepped on, she turned back. "You can't bring her down, Avery. Don't waste your breath.""Avery, please report to HR on the 19th floor immediately." The email was sent at 8:00 AM, CC'ing Mr. Davis, the Head of Admin, and Legal. Legal. In my past life, Legal had never been involved in a routine HR meeting. The door to the 19th-floor conference room was wide open. Five people were already seated inside. Sarah, the HR Director, sat in the center. Marcus from Legal was on her left, and Mr. Davis was on her right. At the far end sat a middle-aged man in gold-rimmed glasses, flipping through a thick stack of printed documents—an external auditor. "Have a seat." Sarah’s tone was cold and professional. In front of her were several printed sheets filled with tables and signatures. "Avery, take a look at these. Do you recognize them?" She slid the papers over. They were five expense reimbursement forms. The amounts were $16,000, $23,000, $18,000, $21,000, and $19,000. Totaling $97,000. In the employee signature box, my name was written in bold ink. On every single page. The handwriting was an exact match. The tilt of the letters, the curve of the loops—even the little flourish at the end of my 'y' was identical to my natural handwriting. But I had never signed these. "I didn't sign these." "These claims were submitted through your employee portal account," the auditor said, pushing his glasses up his nose as he opened another folder. "System logs show that these five claims were submitted in January, March, May, July, and September of this year. Mr. Davis approved them all. They were filed as inter-department event expenses, totaling ninety-seven thousand, three hundred dollars." "Upon verification, three of these events actually cost less than three hundred dollars. The other two... never even happened." They never happened. I stared at the signatures. In my past life, I had never even seen these documents because I hadn't survived long enough for the annual audit. "Mr. Davis, did you review the details of these claims when you approved them?" Mr. Davis's face turned ash gray. He gripped his travel mug so hard his knuckles turned white. "Chloe told me Avery submitted them, and that she was just helping her run the paperwork. I didn't... I trusted—" The door opened. Chloe walked in. Her eyes were red. She clutched a tissue in her hand, her nose slightly pink. She had either just cried, or was perfectly primed to start. "I'm sorry I'm late." She took the only empty seat, right next to me. "Sarah, I have to take some responsibility for this too." She kept her head low, her voice trembling. "I was the one who helped Avery input these into the portal. She said she didn't really know how to navigate the expense system, so she gave me the physical forms and I submitted them for her... I didn't look at the amounts. We're team members. I trusted her..." She looked up at me. In those watery eyes, there was no guilt, no sympathy. It was the deep, sick satisfaction of a predator watching its prey step right into a steel trap. "Avery, tell them. Didn't you ask me to submit them for you?" "No." "If you're going to deny it..." Her voice cracked. "Then whose signature is that?" The auditor spoke up. "We ran a preliminary handwriting comparison. The signatures on these forms match Avery’s employment contract and daily sign-in sheets with a ninety-one percent match rate." Ninety-one percent. Sarah looked at me, her voice dropping to a grim tone. "Avery, you have two choices. Cooperate with the internal investigation and tell us where the money went, or the company will file a police report for corporate fraud." Chloe’s shoulders shook with quiet sobs. Tears dripped from her chin onto the polished table, one by one, with perfect, practiced rhythm. "Sarah, Avery is a good person. Could there be some kind of mis—" She couldn't finish her sentence. She covered her face, letting out a muffled sob. The eyes of everyone in the room softened as they looked at Chloe. They looked at her with far more warmth than they ever did at me. My ID badge was confiscated, my computer was locked, and I was suspended pending investigation, effective immediately. I was banned from the office floor. As I walked out of the conference room, the hallway was dead silent. Chloe ran out after me. The tears on her face had miraculously vanished. There wasn't even a smudge in her foundation. "Avery, wait up." She slipped past me, blocking the elevator doors. She pulled a fresh bottle of Coke from her designer bag, twisted the cap off, and took a sip. "Do you know why I chose you?" I didn't say a word. "Because you're so damn useful. Last year, on your first day, Mr. Davis asked who was willing to spend their weekend organizing the archives. You were the only one in the whole department who raised your hand. I knew right then." She took another sip, running her thumb along the rim of the bottle. "Just plead guilty, Avery. It's only ninety-seven thousand. You can pay it back in installments. I'll even beg Sarah for you. You'll get a write-up, but we won't involve the cops." "And if I don't?" She tilted her head. Her peach-glossed lips curled into a smirk, her false eyelashes fluttering. "If you don't? Avery, I've seen the agenda for the annual company-wide meeting next Friday. Your name is on the very last page. Do you know what's on the last page?" She shook the soda bottle at me. "The termination announcements, babes."