The laughter over the angora rabbit had broken the tension. The office settled into a new, easier rhythm. Alexander's theatrics returned, but they felt lighter now, more playful, as if he'd accepted that I could see the strings and didn't mind. We were co-conspirators, building a castle in the air and enjoying the view.
Which, of course, was when Isabella struck.
The attack came not with a dramatic confrontation or a faked allergy, but with the quiet, digital whisper of a leaked email. It was a slow Tuesday morning when the news alerts started popping up on my screen. The headline from the city's most notorious gossip-and-business blog, "The Gilded Leak," was a masterpiece of venomous intrigue:
IS WILDE ENTERPRISES ALL DRAMA, NO SUBSTANCE? INSIDE THE BIZARRE, BILLION-DOLLAR WORLD OF A CEO WHO PRIORITIZES PENGUINS OVER PROFITS.
My blood ran cold. I clicked the link.
There, in horrifying black and white, was an internal memo Alexander had dictated to me weeks ago. It was the "Treatise on the Soul of the Machine" he'd written for Brenda's marketing campaign. But it had been expertly edited. The context was stripped away. The flowery language about "metaphysical weight" and "the heroic journey of the consumer" was presented not as creative direction, but as literal corporate policy. The article painted a picture of a CEO so detached from reality that he was making billion-dollar decisions based on penguin enrichment and the "narrative synergy" of office plants.
The source was anonymous, but the knife was perfectly placed. The leak included a screenshot of the expense approval for the "Crying Burmese Ebony" desk, the line item glaringly highlighted. It mentioned the castle, calling it a "vanity project," and the zoo, dubbing it a "billionaire's bizarre petting zoo."
It was Isabella's masterpiece. She hadn't attacked the company's numbers; she'd attacked its soul. She'd weaponized Alexander's greatest vulnerability—his theatricality—and presented it as incompetence.
I looked up. Alexander was standing at his window, phone pressed to his ear, his back to me. His posture was rigid. I could hear the low, tense murmur of his voice. The calls had already started. The board. The press.
He hung up and didn't turn around. The silence in the room was deafening, a stark contrast to the furious buzzing of my phone. I could feel the eyes of the city on us, laughing.
"Sir?" I said softly.
He didn't move. "She always had an eye for the jugular," he said, his voice flat, devoid of all its usual resonance. It was the voice of the man from the blackout. The man who had been stripped bare. "She didn't go for the financials. She went for the narrative. She's trying to make me a laughingstock."
"They can't prove any of it affected the bottom line," I said, my mind racing. "The numbers are strong. The Zenith acquisition is a success."
"The bottom line doesn't matter if no one takes you seriously!" he snapped, whirling around. His face was pale, his eyes burning with a cold fury I'd never seen. It wasn't the dramatic anger of the Drama King; it was the raw, humiliated rage of a man whose deepest secret had been exposed to ridicule. "They're not questioning my results, Chloe. They're questioning my sanity! A CEO who buys castles for their 'narrative potential' is not a CEO investors trust with their money! He's a character in a bad novel!"
The truth of it hit me like a physical blow. He was right. The media would have a field day. The board's fragile confidence, so recently won, would shatter.
"My God," he whispered, sinking into his chair. He looked… small. "The penguin. The… the toast. She's made it all into a joke." He ran a hand through his hair. "This is it. This is how it ends. Not with a hostile takeover, but with a punchline."
I watched him, my heart aching. This was his greatest fear realized. The world was pointing at the man behind the curtain, and they were laughing.
But then, something in me hardened. Isabella had attacked him, but she'd attacked me, too. She'd attacked our late nights, our shared secrets, our truce over cold lo mein. She'd tried to reduce it all to a farce.
I stood up and walked to his desk, planting my hands on the polished surface. "No."
He looked up, startled.
"This is not a joke," I said, my voice low and fierce. "And you are not a punchline. This is a declaration of war. And she's using your own weapons against you. So, we fight back with better ones."
A flicker of confusion crossed his face. "How? Issue a press release stating I am, in fact, sane? That will only make it worse."
"We don't deny it," I said, a plan, wild and audacious, forming in my mind. "We own it."
I picked up the tablet, pulling up the leaked memo. "She thinks this makes you look crazy? Fine. Let's double down. We release the full memo. The one about the 'consumer's heroic journey.' We frame it not as corporate policy, but as cutting-edge 'narrative-driven branding.' We leak the results of the 'Aura' campaign—the engagement is through the roof, isn't it? We say that's because of the 'metaphysical weight,' not in spite of it. We make your vision look not insane, but… prophetic."
He was staring at me, his anger replaced by dawning comprehension.
"We go on the offensive," I continued, pacing now. "We call a press conference. But not a somber, defensive one. A show. You don't apologize. You perform. You talk about the 'courage to be different.' You call the castle a 'think tank for the next century.' You call the penguin… an 'ambassador for unconventional thinking.' You make Isabella look like she's the one who doesn't get it. A dinosaur attacking an innovator."
A slow, dangerous smile spread across Alexander's face. The fire was returning to his eyes. The Drama King was rising from the ashes of his humiliation. "We weaponize the narrative."
"Exactly. She tried to burn down your stage. So we build a bigger one, right in the middle of the fire."
He stood up, the transformation complete. The vulnerability was gone, replaced by the sharp, thrilling intensity of a general going into battle. "Get Sterling. Get Brenda. Get the numbers for the 'Aura' campaign. And get me a copy of that full memo." He picked up the gilded pen from his desk, weighing it in his hand like a dagger. "Isabella wanted a story? I'll give her a story. An epic."
Two hours later, the "Wilde Enterprises" PR machine, which had been silent, went into overdrive. The full, unedited memo was released to a handpicked journalist, along with a stunning report on the campaign's success. A press conference was scheduled for the next morning. The title: "The Power of Story: Why Imagination is the Ultimate Business Strategy."
Alexander spent the rest of the day rehearsing. But it wasn't a rehearsal for a part. It was a preparation for a fight. He was no longer performing for me. He was preparing to face the world, with me as his strategist.
That evening, as we finalized the talking points, he looked at me, his expression unreadable.
"You weren't supposed to see that," he said quietly. "The… shame."
"There's no shame in who you are, Alexander," I said. "Only in who tries to use it against you."
He held my gaze for a long moment, and the air crackled with something unspoken, something that had nothing to do with memos or press conferences.
"Tomorrow," he said, his voice firm. "We change the story."
As I left the office, the city lights seemed to shine brighter. The gilded cage was under attack. But for the first time, I wasn't just a prisoner inside it. I was a soldier, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the king, ready to defend our bizarre, magnificent, and utterly true kingdom. Isabella's revenge had backfired. It hadn't broken us. It had forged us into a team.