One question consumed him: Who was Nemesis? He hired a private investigator. The only anomaly was a single low-priority flag from Aerolux Charters, originating from a residential IP address. Damian went to the address himself.
He knocked. A young woman opened the door. It was the waitress. Olivia.
“You,” he stammered. “I remember you. The restaurant. ”
“Yes,” she said.
“I remember you too. Please come in. ”
He stepped inside. A woman slept in a hospital bed.
Two monitors sat on a desk. “What did you do? ” he whispered. “I did what you taught me,” she said.
“The world isn’t run by sentiment. It’s run by systems, assets, liabilities. You taught me that some people serve and others take. You just made a mistake about which one I was.
”
She explained it all. The back door, the keylogger, the manipulation, the trap. “Why? ” he asked.
“You held up $10,000 and offered it for my soul. You never paid. So I collected. ” She paused.
“Your company was worth $3 billion. My mother’s medical bills were $2. 8 million. I took that, plus a little extra for a foundation.
Consider the rest the price of your cufflink. ”
He stumbled out, a ruined man, the sound of her bark echoing in his memory. Olivia moved her mother into a state-of-the-art facility. She created the Nemesis Foundation to fund legal battles for the powerless.
She vanished into a quiet life, her nights still spent before the monitors, now a guardian instead of a destroyer. She had taken the worst moment of her life and transformed it into a force for justice. What Damian Paul saw as a powerless victim was the architect of his ruin.