Also known as my number one nemesis.
My knuckles go white against the ridiculous skull-and-crossbones tablecloth.
What the hell is Vaughn doing in a pirate-themed pancake restaurant in London? Why isn’t he back in San Francisco, continuing to steal his colleague’s ideas and passing them off as his own?
Although, to be fair, maybe even backstabbing, idea-thieving, code-plagiarizing sociopathic assholes need a pancake break now and then.
Yes, I might still have some unresolved issues with the guy.
I worked with Vaughn Mansley at my first real job out of college. I was twenty-two, drowning in student debt, and trying to prove that a kid from the wrong side of Detroit deserved a seat at a table full of MBAs and trust funds. All I had going for mewas one genuinely good idea that I thought could revolutionize blockchain security protocol.
Vaughn offered to help me develop my idea. But instead, he presented it as his own and rode it to a promotion. When I confronted him, it quickly became apparent that he had the family money, the connections, and the boardroom polish to make his version of events stick. I had the option of an IP lawsuit I couldn’t afford or a life lesson about not trusting too easily.
I chose the life lesson.
I’ve been thinking about Vaughn lately, thanks to my friend Andrew’s attempt at revenge against his own personal nemesis. Andrew’s plan backfired spectacularly, but it planted the thought in my head. What would I do if I ever ran into Vaughn Mansley again?
Now it appears the universe has placed Vaughn Mansley in my path to answer that question.
Is it definitely him?
I haven’t seen Vaughn for eight years, and from this angle, I can only see the side of his face. But the guy has the same tousled dark-blond hair, the same straight nose, and the same defined jawline as Vaughn.
A guy comes back from the restroom and claps Potential Vaughn on the shoulder.
“Mansley!” The guy’s booming voice carries over the restaurant.
Right, so it’s definitely him. That settles that part.
Now the question remains: what am I going to do about it?
Based on what Andrew has just gone through, I’m aware that a big revenge plot can backfire spectacularly.
Maybe instead, all I need to put the whole incident behind me is to confront Vaughn? Call him out for what he did to me and let him know that while it might appear he got away with it,I will always know the truth: his career success has been built on something he stole.
Isn’t that one of the reasons my resentment has festered? When I first confronted him about stealing my idea, assuming it was some kind of misunderstanding, he deftly manipulated the conversation so it sounded like I was being unreasonable. He’d crafted a narrative about a junior employee who didn’t understand how collaboration worked, and then made sure his version of events quickly spread through the company.
I never got to tell him exactly what I think about him and what he did.
Maybe this is my chance to rewrite the script?
With that thought in mind, I excuse myself from Ezra—who is now scrolling through a subreddit dedicated to rating the auras of different houseplants—and head in Vaughn’s direction.
On my way to the bow of the ship, I pass one of the pancake furnishing stations and a bottle of syrup catches my eye. I stop to look at it.
Hmm…
Vaughn used to be very fastidious about his appearance. Plus, he always hated being laughed at. These two facts combine to give me a glimmering of an idea.
The syrup bottle is shaped like a skull because, of course, it is. It grins at me like it knows what I’m about to do.
My fingers close around it, the surface cool and slightly sticky.
My heart hammers as I climb the steps to the top section, but I keep walking. Three more steps. Two.
Am I actually going to do this? My hands say yes. They’re already gripping the bottle tightly, the same way I gripped a glass of water in that conference room at QuantumTech after I found out what Vaughn had done. I’ve had eight years of career success since then, and apparently, all it takes is one sighting toput me right back in that room, twenty-two years old and feeling powerless.
Surely what Vaughn did to me then justifies a bit of syrupy revenge?
