Chapter 4

By 3:00 PM, the main conference room was packed to maximum capacity.

The employees looked excited.

The vibe felt less like a crisis meeting and more like an end-of-year bonus party.

Amber and Bea sat right in the front row, surrounded by their young supporters.

Bea was loudly bragging to anyone who would listen:

"I told you, Chloe is a paper tiger."

"As long as we stand united and make enough noise, she has no choice but to fold!"

Amber was practically glowing, secretly setting up her phone to live-stream the meeting.

"Live from the scene! Watch how a Gen-Z associate takes down corporate greed and wins back equality!"

I walked in precisely on time.

Every eye in the room locked onto me, waiting for the show to begin.

I turned on the projector.

Images of the happy children from our preschool filled the screen.

They were playing in bright, spacious classrooms, eating balanced, nutritious meals in a pristine cafeteria.

In the crowd, some of the parents couldn't help but smile.

But on Amber’s side, there were only loud, dismissive scoffing.

Ignoring them, I clicked to the next slide.

It was a display of our early-childhood educators’ credentials.

Every single one of them was a top-tier, licensed professional with decades of experience.

I picked up the microphone, my voice echoing clearly through the speakers.

"From initial planning to the grand opening, this preschool required a personal investment of $1.2 million."

"Every piece of equipment, from the playground to the building materials, meets the absolute highest safety standards."

"I poached every single teacher from the best private academies in the city by tripling their salaries."

I scanned the room. My voice remained completely flat.

"The organic produce our children eat daily is sourced directly from a farm two hundred miles away."

"The comprehensive operating cost per child is $2,300 every single month."

"And yet, I have never charged a single employee a dime for this."

The moment the words left my mouth, the room fell dead silent.

The smug grins on the faces of the instigators frozen.

Even the live chat on Amber's screen slowed down to a crawl.

I noticed Sarah Jenkins, the single mother from tech. Her eyes were red.

Just last week, she had sat in my office, clutching her daughter, crying because she could finally focus on her job without worrying about expensive daycare.

Now, she sat in the crowd, her head buried low.

I looked around at the stunned, uncomfortable faces in the room.

"I wanted to remove your burdens so you could work with peace of mind."

"I believed that kindness would be met with kindness. But I was wrong."

My eyes locked onto Amber.

"My mistake was overestimating some people's decency, and underestimating their greed."

Amber squirmed under my gaze, but she quickly recovered, raising her chin defiantly.

"So what? How does any of this change the fact that it's unfair?"

"Do those of us without kids deserve to be treated like second-class citizens?"

"You're just using your wealth to display your privilege and hold us hostage!"

Her words instantly reignited the mob.