Clara didn’t hesitate for a single second.

Her answer cut through the hidden call, cold and absolute.

"I choose the rich kid," she said, her voice completely stripped of its usual sweet, gentle tone.

In the quiet outside corridor, my heart sank.

I gripped the phone tighter against my ear, listening to the true nature of the girl who had been hovering around my desk for months.

Inside the restaurant, Kalix leaned forward, his sharp psychologist's eyes tracking every twitch of her facial expressions.

He wasn't done breaking her mask yet.

"If someone is in a dangerous position," Kalix asked, testing her morality, "and if you help them, they will survive, but you will lose a small amount of your own money... will you help them?"

Clara paused, tapping her manicured nails against the table.

"Maybe... I think to do or not," she muttered carelessly.

"What if you risk your entire life and save a person," Kalix pressed on, his voice dropping into a deep, intense whisper,

"but they don't even recognize you or do a single favor for you afterward? What will you do then?"

Clara scoffed, throwing her head back. "I will just tell them straight to their face that I helped them. And if I ever need any help in the future, I will demand that they do me a favor in return. Nothing is free."

Out in the hallway, a heavy wave of disgust washed over me.

This was the girl who acted so angelic whenever I looked at her. It was all a calculated performance to win over the company heir.

"Do you have any questions for me?"

Kalix asked, leaning back in his chair.

"Now, you can ask."

Clara leaned in, her eyes narrowing with curiosity.

"Why are you and Sanjay so close?"

Kalix let out a dry laugh, tapping the table.

"I lose the game."

Underneath the table, Kalix quickly typed out a short, urgent text message to my phone: Come here.

I took a deep breath, pocketed my phone, and pushed open the heavy glass doors of the restaurant.

I walked back over to the table, forcing a completely normal, casual smile onto my face.

"Are you guys having fun?" I asked, pulling out my chair and sliding back into the seat.

Kalix looked up at me, giving me a microscopic nod, before turning his focus back to Clara.

"Clara, can I ask you one final question?"

"Sure, go ahead," Clara said, her voice instantly switching back into its sweet, musical mask the exact moment I sat down.

"A rich kid or the person you loved?" Kalix asked, his gaze drilling straight into her soul.

"Whom would you choose?"

Clara looked directly into my eyes, her expression soft, innocent, and completely fake.

"The person I liked."

"Okay, Clara, you won the prize," Kalix stated flatly, sliding the promised money across the table without a single trace of real enthusiasm.

"Okay, we are going now."

We stood up, cut the dinner short before the rest of the department could even arrive, and walked out of the restaurant into the cool night air.

The moment Clara hailed a cab and disappeared down the street, I whirled around to face my best friend.

"Why did you tell me to come back in?" I asked, my voice raw with a mix of confusion and frustration.

"And why did she suddenly change her answer at the end?"

Kalix let out a long, heavy sigh, looking at me with deep concern.

"Did you observe her behavior, Sanjay? When you were not there, she was completely true to her real, greedy self just to win the prize money."

"But the exact second you walked back into the room and sat down around her," Kalix explained,

"she completely changed her answer to play the role of a perfect, ungreedy girl in front of you. She is highly calculating."

A deep sense of relief and cold clarity washed over my chest.

The confusion that had been haunting my mind for eleven months was finally gone.

"Thank you very much, Kalix," I whispered, looking out at the flashing city lights.

"Now I finally get it. She is completely vice around. Her entire personality is a total lie."

I looked down at the dark streets, a heavy realization settling into my gut.

"Now, we have no other options left in this department. We have to wait until the new employee selection day to find someone real."

Kalix turned to me, his brow furrowing as he remembered the corporate schedule.

"Tomorrow is the official interview day for the new batch. Why don't you come to the office and look at the candidates?"

My chest instantly tightened, a profound, familiar sorrow gripping my heart.

I looked away, my throat suddenly going dry.

"I am so sorry, Kalix," I said quietly, my voice shaking slightly.

"Tomorrow is my mother's death anniversary."

Kalix's sharp, clinical posture instantly vanished, replaced by the deep empathy of a best friend who knew my darkest scars.

"I am very sorry, Sanjay. I forgot the date."

"I know how you are," Kalix murmured softly, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"I know you will go abscond from the world and lock yourself inside your empty house for a few days to grieve alone."

"Even when we were back in our college time, you always did this," Kalix remembered, a sad smile touching his lips.

"Whenever this date arrived, you completely vanished. You missed our important assignments, our major lab tests... you shut everyone out."

He paused, looking at me intensely.

"Then, when are you coming back to the office, friend?"

I stared into the distance, thinking of my mother Tara, and the heavy golden cage I was still trying to break free from.

"I will come back after five days."

"Okay," Kalix nodded respectfully.

"Take your time. I will handle the department until you return."

I turned away and walked toward my car, leaving the corporate world behind for a while.

I didn't know it yet, but while I was locked away in my dark house honoring my mother's memory, the interview doors were about to swing open the very next morning.

And a fiercely brilliant, hyper-intelligent girl named Sara was about to walk into Roy Enterprises, completely unaware that she was stepping straight onto a rigged chessboard.