The IRS Agent's Revenge: Auditing My Toxic Family

The year I applied for the Fortune 500 tech giant, my biological fatherthe regional CEOweaponized company policy against me. He arbitrarily spiked the assessment cutoff to a perfect 700. I scored a 699.

He tanked my application, a move that effectively shattered my three-year relationship with Silas.

Yet, exactly one year later, his adopted daughter couldn't even break a 600. His solution? He scrapped the metric entirely, handing her a corner office on a silver platter. His excuse was laughable.

Chapter 1

A bitter smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. Fine. If he wanted to play the impartial executive, I'd give him exactly that. When audit season hit, I would rip his ledgers apart.

The clinking of silverware died instantly. Lawrence, realizing his slip-up, forced a laugh and waved his whiskey glass. "Ah, listen to me rambling. The bourbon's talking. Don't overthink it, Blair."

I shoved his arm aside, ignoring his nervous laughter, and let my vision tunnel until it locked entirely on Alistair at the head of the mahogany table. "So that sudden policy change last year," I forced the words past my teeth. "That was you."

Alistair didn't flinch. He just stared back, his jaw tight.

Colleen's manicured fingers clamped around my wrist, pulling me down. "Don't start a scene with your father."

I ripped my arm from her grip. "Why?" My voice cracked, echoing off the dining room walls. "I scored a 699 on the corporate aptitude test. You raised the threshold to 700 just to box me out. Are you that terrified of seeing me succeed?"

"It's called avoiding a conflict of interest!" Alistair barked, slamming his palm flat against the table. "You are my biological daughter! If I fast-tracked you, the entire C-suite would question my integrity!"

I stared at Alistair in shock. "Integrity?" The word tasted like ash. "Avoiding nepotism means not bending the rules for your blood! If I bombed the assessments, fine. But I ranked first in both the written exam and the panel interviews!"

I pointed a trembling finger across the table. "Then there's Daphne! She couldn't even break 600, yet you obliterated the entire testing requirement for her! Who is the one actually benefiting from nepotism here?"

A glass shattered against my forehead. A sharp, stinging heat sliced across my skin.

Alistair vaulted out of his chair, chest heaving. "Watch your tone with me!"

Chairs screeched against the hardwood. Hands grabbed my shoulders, while two executives pinned Alistair back.

Daphne's eyes welled up with tears. "Blair, please!" Daphne's voice trembled. "You're going to give him a heart attack! Just apologize, I beg you!"

"Look at her! Look at your sister, then look in the mirror!" Alistair roared, pointing at Daphne's tear-streaked face. "Daphne ground away for three straight months! Doesn't she deserve a win? Besides, the whole board knows she's Lance's orphan! If I left her out in the cold, the industry would crucify us for abandoning a veteran's kid!"

He sneered, adjusting his cuffs. "Why are you so obsessed with your own ambition? Why can't you be a team player for once?"

My own ambition.

A hollow laugh scraped its way up my throat. "I sacrificed a year of my life for that position." My vision blurred, the sting on my forehead throbbing in time with my pulse. "Who gave me my win?"

Alistair froze, his hand hovering over his napkin.

"Did you even know?" I stepped closer, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "Did you know that because you torpedoed my career, Silas left me?"

Alistair's face tightened into a harsh scowl.

"Three years." I swallowed against the razor blades in my throat. "We planned to introduce our families the day we both got our offer letters. He got in. I didn't. We were shoved into a long-distance nightmare until it broke us."

I leaned over the table, bracing my weight on my palms. "Are you happy now, Alistair?"

I grabbed my wine glass and hurled it at the floor. Crystal shattered into a thousand jagged diamonds.

Daphne lunged forward, throwing herself like a human shield in front of Alistair. "Blair, have you lost your mind?" she shrieked.

Colleen dug her acrylic nails into my bicep, dragging me back.

I didn't resist. I just stood there, letting the blood trickle down my temple, staring into Alistair's suddenly wide, rattled eyes.

Daphne collapsed onto the carpet, grabbing the hem of my dress. "Blair, I'll resign! I'll give up the position right now!" She sobbed, playing the perfect victim for the audience. "Just don't project your trauma onto Dad! I'm so sorry!" Before anyone could stop her, she buried her face in her hands, sobbing loudly.

Chapter 2

Alistair's grip locked onto her forearm, hauling her back up. "You are not resigning! You take that corner office!" His voice boomed over the stunned whispers of the room. "You ground away for this position. I won't let her temper tantrum invalidate your hard work!"

"No, Dad" Daphne's voice wavered, her gaze dropping to the carpet. "I can't let my success trigger her like this. I don't want to be a red flag for this family."

Alistair and Colleen exchanged a look, their features softening with raw pity.

Alistair's head snapped toward me. "Look at how self-aware Daphne is. Now look at yourself! If you can't even grasp basic family loyalty, how are your mother and I supposed to rely on you?"

Rely on me?

I let out a dry laugh. "If Daphne is the gold standard for maturity, then leave me out of it." I took a step back, the dining room suddenly suffocating. "Let her be your daughter from now on."

I turned on my heel. The heavy oak doors slammed shut behind me.

Footsteps pounded down the hallway, Colleen's frantic voice echoing off the marble. I didn't slow down. I jabbed the elevator button, slipping inside just as the steel doors slid shut.

Through the narrowing gap, porcelain shattered against the wall.

"Let her go!" Alistair's roar bled through the metal. "Let's see how long she keeps up this tantrum!"

The carriage dropped. My eyes couldn't stop stinging as my vision blurred.

I stumbled out the lobby doors. A massive digital billboard illuminated the valet stand: Congratulations to the Tengfei HeiressTop Interview Score!

The Tengfei heiress. My breath hitched.

A heavy cart clipped my shoulder. I gasped, stumbling sideways against a pillar.

"Oh my god, I am so sorry!" Skylar, a breathless hotel server, steadied her pastry cart. "The VIPs in Room 606 just rush-ordered another custom tier cake! They need Francois to pipe the icing immediately!"

"Another one?"

"Someone crashed their dinner and totally ruined the vibe." Skylar rolled her eyes, leaning in conspiratorially. "The dad is livid. He demanded a total reset, twice the budget. Apparently, the daughter just secured a massive corporate tech job. Major flex."

A hollow smile stretched across my face.

I had taken the federal exams. I had landed a spot as a Special Agent in the IRS Criminal Investigation Division. But from day one, Alistair and Colleen only tracked Daphne's application status. Not a single person asked if I passed, or where I was going.

I dragged myself into the field office. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, blurring the spreadsheets on my monitor into a gray smudge.

My phone lit up on the passenger seat that night. An Instagram notification. Daphne's story. It was a reel. Alistair and Colleen flanked her, a crowd of relatives cheering around a towering fondant cake. Daphne flashed a brilliant, rehearsed peace sign at the lens.

The caption mocked me from the screen: So blessed. Mom and Dad always have my back when the haters try to gaslight me.

I killed the screen. Blackness reflected my exhausted face.

I skipped the mandatory Sunday family dinner. Instead, I gripped the steering wheel and drove straight to my old college campus. This was ground zero. Where Silas and I collided.

Three years of undergrad spent mapping out a bulletproof timeline. We picked out neighborhoods for our starter home. We debated baby names. We even pinpointed the exact coastal town where we'd retire. We calculated everything.

Except my own father sabotaging my executive board interview.

Silas got the offer letter. I got a dial tone.

Chapter 3

Just one month later, Silas pulled the plug. His pathetic excuse was that the long-distance commute was simply too toxic for his mental health. I felt utterly helpless, but I swallowed my pride and accepted it. Seeking some kind of closure, I drove back to our old off-campus diner.

I slid into a vinyl booth. Across the aisle, a familiar cadence caught my ear.

"I practically lived here during undergrad. The blackened tilapia is insane. You have to try it."

"Lived here? With who?" A girl's voice teased, dripping with a manufactured pout.

The man chuckled.

I froze.

"Silas?"

The broad shoulders in the opposite booth went rigid. He turned slowly. Our eyes locked.

Across the table from him, Daphne stared at me in disbelief. "Blair?" she whispered.

"Be good. Give me a second." Silas brushed his knuckles against Daphne's cheek, flashing her a practiced, reassuring smile. He shoved out of the booth, clamped his hand around my bicep, and dragged me out the front door.

The diner door slammed shut, cutting off the chatter.

"Stop spiraling," Silas ordered, releasing my arm. "I didn't even meet her until after we went our separate ways."

"Bullshit!" Hot tears of pure rage pricked my eyes. "I know for a fact she hard-launched her relationship exactly a year ago! We were still picking out apartment furniture back then! You were already sleeping with her!"

He paled visibly, stumbling over his words. I stepped into his space, forcing him back against the brick wall. "Was the distance ever the real issue, Silas?"

"I"

"Don't even try it. I know your tells."

His jaw ticked. He squared his shoulders, a sudden, chilling indifference settling over his features. "Fine. I cheated. So what?"

The blunt confession knocked the wind out of me.

"Blair, my parents punch the clock at a steel mill. Do you have any idea what it took to claw my way into this tax bracket?" He shoved his hands into his pockets, playing the tortured pragmatist. "I have to leverage every single opportunity that crosses my path. Period."

I stared at him, thoroughly disgusted by his twisted logic. "What exactly are you leveraging?"

He let out a long, patronizing sigh. "I missed the cutoff for the final corporate aptitude test by a few points. Daphne stepped in. She pulled strings with her dadthe regional CEOand fast-tracked my offer letter."

I thought I heard him wrong. "Her dad? You mean Alistair? The CEO?"

"Yeah."

I nearly lost my footing.

Alistair spiked the testing metric specifically to box out his own biological flesh and blood. Yet, one whispered plea from Daphne, and he shattered protocol to hand a corner office to a total stranger.

I wasn't the daughter. I was the liability.

The second he secured his bag, his first move was to cut me loose.

My vision blurred, but I forced my jaw shut, refusing to let the tear fall. "I never pegged you for a parasite, Silas."

"Don't project your jealousy onto me." He scowled, slipping effortlessly into the victim role. "You have zero concept of the grind it takes to secure a seat at the table in this city! Sure, I could have stayed in our little bubble. But a woman offered me a shortcut across class lines. She handed me a bulletproof career trajectory. Why wouldn't I take it?"

He leaned in, his tone dripping with toxic sincerity. "If you actually loved me, you wouldn't gaslight me for securing my future. Be real, Blair. If you had the exact same leverage staring you in the face, you would have dropped me in a heartbeat. Don't even try to deny it."

Chapter 4

I looked at him, utterly appalled.

He let out a patronizing sigh. "So drop the victim act. If you want someone to blame, look at your own resume. You didn't have the stats for a Fortune 500. You definitely don't have Daphne's pedigree, or a CEO father like Alistair backing you."

My lungs seized. "You don't know who my father is?"

"Does it matter?"

"What if Alistair is my father?"

He froze.

He laughed. "If you were Alistair's kid, why did you get rejected from his own board?"

My jaw locked. The words died in my throat