When Love Becomes a Cage (Melanie) novel Chapter 68

"Mack, what's your problem?" Jade stood up abruptly, trying to push him away. But Mack seemed undeterred, continuing to advance. Eventually, two of our male colleagues had to drag him away, ending the dinner on a sour note.

As Jade was paying the bill, she couldn't help but vent, "He's seriously messed up. It's not like you've had much conversation with him, what's his deal?"

To tell the truth, Mack and I had barely exchanged a few words, yet he held this inexplicable resentment towards me.

I heard he was a graduate from a prestigious college, even had some achievements to his name, and then he transferred to our company. But upon joining Patterson Group, a company teeming with talent, he quickly lost his edge. Everyone here graduated from top universities, their resumes gleaming with awards and achievements. Even Jade had worked on numerous international projects, her skills and experience equally impressive. It was understandable for Mack to feel bitter. It seemed he harbored a strong sense of male chauvinism, unable to stand the idea of women like us leading him. And to top it off, he seemed to get along well with Kayla?

"Hey, where did Paul disappear to? I was hoping to catch a ride with him," a female colleague suddenly whispered, making Jade and me realize someone was missing. A male colleague mentioned he might have gone to the restroom, but I didn't pay much attention and just followed Jade to hail a cab home.

But the next day, a crisis hit the Design Department.

When I arrived at work, my computer was infected with a virus, spewing endless pop-ups and files, becoming unresponsive, and eventually crashing.

When I attempted to reboot, I realized that all data, including several key project files, had been erased. It wasn't isolated to my computer alone; others faced varying degrees of virus attacks as well.

Panicking, I turned on my laptop only for it to be bombarded with spam emails, its data also destroyed. I instinctively shut it down.

Lina, visibly anxious, said, "Mel, what do we do? We've lost so many files."

Stunned, I remembered I had backups on my personal computer, but now, with both devices compromised, what were we to do? With the partnership project with Aspire World nearing completion, losing the final designs meant potentially derailing the entire project. After some thought, I decided to meet with Vinson.

Patterson Group prided itself on cybersecurity, investing heavily each year. A sudden breach in the Design Department suggested sabotage. Before leaving, I instructed the department to immediately review security footage and secure any salvageable data to prevent further losses. Despite the chaos, everyone managed to organize and start salvaging what they could.

Meeting with Vinson, I briefly explained the situation.

"Should we call the police?" he hesitated. The project facing issues from the start was not a good sign.

"No, I think an internal investigation first, and also..."