Bitcoin Billionaire: I Regressed to Invest in the First Bitcoin!-Chapter 137: Plan Backfires

"With that, Ladies and gentlemen, we at Steele Investments would like to officially launch our first product, Trendteller!"

The screen illuminated with a white and golden display of graphs, numbers and dollar signs, then the logo of the software appeared, before the name followed: 'Trendteller. Never invest blind.'

Then the channel went to an ad break that was muted by the staff.

Silence.

Shock.

Back at Horizon, Tamara's face drained to ash, her manicured nails had dug so deep into the podium and she didn't even know when it happened.

'What the hell just happened? What has happened now?'

She tried not to believe it, not to understand what was going on even though she completely did.

Ryan Anders sighed nonchalantly, hands in pockets. He turned to Tamara as the strands of his long hair shifted to the side. His face was disengaged. "It seems Darren Steele has played us."

He returned his gaze to the screen. "Again."

"P— P— Played us?" Tamara stammered in disbelief. "He played us? H— how? How could he? We... We have the software! The software is ours!"

Denial was always the first to hit.

Everyone in the room was quiet, looking at Tamara with voiceless gazes — or whispering ones rather — while her eyes quivered in horror.

The screen's glow felt like a spotlight on her ruin, and even the silence started to irk her. "What are you all looking at!" she raged. "That's our product! Darren Steele just stole our product!"

No one said a word.

Except Anders of course.

"Technically, he didn't," he explained, still calm, frustratingly so. "His product is Trendteller, ours is… NeuraNest."

Tamara's eyes flashed at him, when she spoke, her voice cracked. "Are you joking? It's the same thing! He just changed the name. It's the same product, the same software. Our product!"

"Still going to be difficult to prove in court. Having similar products doesn't mean they're the same."

Seeing Anders wasn't being helpful, Tamara spun around, thinking as she paced around. "The board members will eat me alive. The software, how did he get it? Was it Evan? Was that bastard two timing us?"

"Doubt it. It was the girl. Did you not see the Lila who spoke? It seems she was the one who actually created the software."

Tamara frowned deeply, filled with fear. "The one that Evan said she pulled out? Evan was lying? About that and about being the creator?"

Anders stood frozen, his reserved mask still there. "Now that I think about it, after hearing both of them speak, it's clear she's more informed on the matter than him."

Tamara grabbed her phone, dialing Evan. Each time it rang, it said straight to voicemail, again and again. "He's gone," she said, panic rising.

Anders shrugged. "What did you expect? He must have seen this on his way here. Now, he's running."

"No. No. No. This can't be happening." Tamara snapped to a staffer. "Send men to his place. Now!"

"You! Get me everything about him. All his information. Relatives. Possible places he could hide. Transactions!"

'Yes ma'am!"

"The software. Run it the way she did. The girl on the TV. Lila Torres." Tamara demanded. "Use it on the same fictional deli. Does it produce the same results!"

She hurried to the man she was talking to, heels clicking with urgency as Ryan just turned around and watched.

"If it does produce the same results," Tamara continued, "Then, Anders. We could sue for plagiarism and infringement of Investor's Right."

The aide, pale, tapped a laptop, testing NeuraNest's code as Lila had on the TV. He introduced the deli, then lined up the millions of transactions, not thousands.

Suddenly, the screen froze, then crashed, errors spitting like venom. The aide looked at Tamara, not daring to speak.

With every error that appeared on the screen, Tamara felt a biting pain in her heart. All her money's work. It had... vanished.

"It... doesn't work," she stammered. "It's overfitted. It works small, then dies big. Before, we checked small-scale, they must have assumed…"

Her voice died off, tired of explaining. "It just... it doesn't work like theirs."

Ryan didn't look surprised. "Of course it doesn't work. Darren Steele isn't foolish. He knows the laws behind these things. He won again. We can only accept defeat now."

Tamara's knees buckled, her breath shallow. "Accept defeat?!" she growling, whirling and stomping towards Anders. "What do you think this is? Some kind of game? You dragged me into your stupid obsession with Darren Steele and now I'm the one paying the consequences for it! This is your fault, Ryan!"

She got on his face, pointing at his tie. "You pushed me towards that investment. You sold that brat, Evan, to me! You lied! You said Steele was chasing scraps! You said this investment was guaranteed to lock me the CEO position and now I have nothing! I have nothing! I'm going to lose it all, just because of you!"

Anders' face darkened. He used his hand to slowly take her finger off his chest. "You are ridiculous, and you are an idiot."

Tamara's eyes turned red.

"You're an investor. You can't pin this on me because I suggested an investment, darling," he said, reserved but cutting. "I suggested; you are the one who invested. I can never force you to invest. Even the five million was your call, not mine."

Her eyes blazed, tears brimming.

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"Are you gonna cry?" Anders laughed at her face. "They say women belong in the workplace and then you cry because you lost an investment?"

Tamara tried to steel herself when she heard that. The anger she got from the words helped her to achieve that. "My authority is crumbling," she choked. "Five million—gone. My board'll fire me. My brother will take over and I'll never be CEO."

Anders dusted his blazer. "None of that is my problem," he said, then added just as he started to leave. "Should've checked the code yourself."

Anger flaring, heart beating, Tamara turned to her workers. "Find me Evan Kimura!"

As they frantically did as they were told, she stumbled to her office, the conference room's chaos fading behind her.

Once she sat down, she dialed Darren, her voice trembling as he picked up. "Darren," she said, desperation raw.

"Tamara," Darren's casual voice replied. S clearly feigned casualness. "Surprised that you're calling me at such a time."

"Cut the games, Darren. I know what you did. You tricked us. NeuraNest — Trendteller — it's the same. You used part of my money to build the software. Refund it, or I'll sue for fraud. My investment was in your success!"

Darren's voice came cool, unshaken, a blade wrapped in silk. "Well you're just going to have to prove that in court, aren't you, Tamara?"

She clenched her jaw.

"Let's not kid ourselves here. You invested in Evan's lies, not my tech, Tamara. Your money's in NeuraNest, you even trademarked it, right? I'm sure you thought that was clever, but it's the major thing stopping you from laying claim to anything Trendteller. Sorry, Tammy. But you made a big mistake challenging me."

"Wait—"

She gasped as the line died.

Then, her office suddenly felt too silent, too judgmental. The cupboards, the books, the pens were all laughing at her, mocking her.

Her phone buzzed, and when she looked down, she saw it was text from her father, stark and cold: 'Why'd we lose millions?'

Tamara's heart sank and she placed her head on the table, the glass tower's silence swallowing her.

Her shoulders shook as she cried. Because now, she knew that there was no path left for her to become the CEO of her family's company.

Who was she kidding? It was not like she ever stood a chance.