My Entitled Intern Tried to Ruin Me, So I Left Her on the Highway

I was so angry I almost laughed. I had bought this Mercedes AMG for over a hundred thousand dollars, and I barely let a speck of dust touch it. Yet, the intern Chloe Bennett was treating it like her own personal trash can. Seeing my dark expression, Chloe rolled her eyes impatiently. "We’re colleagues, Claire. There’s no need to look at me like that. Don’t forget, the General Manager, Justin, is my brother’s best friend from college. He specifically told you to take good care of me. From now on, you should pick me up and drop me off. That way, you can mentor me on the road and have someone to talk to. It’s a win-win, right?" Relying on her connection with Justin, Chloe was treating me like her personal chauffeur. My temper flared. I narrowed my eyes and smiled. "Your place is over thirty miles from mine. The gas money alone is a lot. Even if I am your manager, I have no obligation to drive you for free, right?" "Oh, come on. How much could gas possibly be? I'll split it with you. Just drive. My game is about to start." Chloe pushed herself back against the leather seat, her dirty feet still resting on the console. "I gotta admit, your leather seats are way more comfortable than the city bus." I didn't say another word. I stepped on the gas and drove toward the outer suburbs, stopping at a gas station halfway there. Chloe had just finished a round of her game. "Why did we stop? Claire, we’re still far from my place." "Didn't you say we’d split the cost? Transfer me the money first." Chloe rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Fine, fine. I'll just Venmo you for the whole month, okay? A bus ticket is only two dollars. I'll give you a hundred for the month. Consider the extra as a—" Before she could finish, I thrust the gas receipt in front of her. "Chloe, can you even do basic math? I just put seventy dollars of gas in the tank. A round trip to your place eats up a third of it. Twice a day, even with a discount, is at least fifty dollars." "Plus, you dirtied my brand-new leather seats. A professional detail for this car costs at least a hundred dollars. Carrying someone like you means I'd have to clean it daily. That adds up to over four thousand dollars a month. Venmo me now." Chloe clutched her phone, her face turning bright red. "Claire, Justin told you to look after me! Why are you being so cheap with me? I'm just an intern. I don't even make four thousand a month. How am I supposed to pay you that?" "Oh, so you don't have the money!" I unlocked the doors, reached over, and pushed her out of the car. "Then stop acting like a spoiled brat. Find your own way home." Feeling a rush of satisfaction, I hummed a tune all the way home. A hundred dollars to use my brand-new hundred-thousand-dollar Mercedes as her private Uber? In her dreams. The next day at the office, my colleagues looked at me with strange expressions. Some were whispering behind my back. I immediately realized what was happening. The intern was mad about being dumped on the highway last night. She was spreading rumors. Someone tapped my shoulder. "Claire, you need to check the local Reddit thread." I opened it. A post titled "Intern Brutally Bullied: Dumped on the Highway at Midnight by Her Toxic Manager" was pinned at the very top. I clicked on it. One photo showed Chloe looking miserable and shivering on the side of the road. Another was a shot of my back as I got into the driver’s seat. The top comments were vicious: "Isn't this Claire Miller, the top sales manager from the marketing department? Not only does she exploit her interns, but she also dumps them in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. How can anyone be so heartless?" "No wonder she’s the top sales agent. She built her career on exploiting her subordinates..." The people from my department had all seen the post. They were now crowding around Chloe, offering her comfort. Chloe held her head high, her sharp voice dripping with fake hurt. "I worked so hard until midnight. Instead of getting a simple thank you, I was abused just because I'm an intern." "I used to think corporate bullying was just something you read about online. Now I know how real it is..." I didn't care about a few stupid rumors. But normally, I only cared about my work and didn't socialize much with my team. Now, their attitude was starting to affect the workplace. To prevent this drama from ruining our productivity, I walked over to the main screen and played my dashcam footage for everyone to see. The people who had been pitying Chloe a second ago suddenly distanced themselves from her, their eyes wide with shock. "A hundred bucks for a monthly private Mercedes ride? Is she insane?" "Leaving bare feet on the console is one thing, but wiping boogers on the seat? She looks so clean, but she’s actually so gross..." Publicly exposed, Chloe’s face flushed a deep crimson. She clenched her fists and stormed out of the office. Before she left, she glared at me with pure hatred. This wasn't over.

Sure enough, the General Manager soon called me into his office. Justin was an Ivy League graduate who had been parachuted into his position. He always carried an insufferable, condescending attitude. "Claire, the company made you the marketing manager because we trusted you. Look at what you’ve done!" "You know we are targeting a younger demographic right now. The last thing we need is negative PR. Because of your toxic bullying behavior, our company is being dragged on TikTok and Reddit. You will personally bear all the financial losses!" Just as I was about to laugh in his face, Justin cleared his throat, pretending to give me a way out. "Tell you what. Make a public apology to Chloe first to control the damage. If there are no further issues, we’ll only dock your performance bonus for this quarter." He tapped the document on his desk. "This is the disciplinary form. Sign it if you have no objections." My face remained expressionless, but I was sneering inside. How could I not see through this? He was trying to defend Chloe while using me to establish his authority over the other departments. Too bad I didn't play that game. "Justin, are you saying that if a dog bites me and I kick it away, I'm the one who has to apologize? Why don't you just fire me and hire a pack of dogs instead?" Justin’s face twisted in anger. "Claire! I am your boss! I explicitly told you to take care of the new hires. What’s wrong with driving her home and talking about work on the way?" "You need to take responsibility for your mistakes!" I stood up and calmly picked up the disciplinary form from his desk. "First of all, I have no duty or obligation to take care of Chloe outside of work hours. I am not her mother. I don't owe her a ride home at midnight." Justin cleared his throat and looked away. I ripped the form to shreds. "Secondly, if you aren't blind or deaf, you should have seen the video I played. You know Chloe fabricated the whole story to slander me, which is what actually damaged the company's reputation. If you can’t see that, you should resign. Your IQ is clearly not fit for the GM position." He slammed his hand on the desk and stood up, glaring at me. I tossed the ripped paper into his trash can. "Lastly, you don't even have the authority to dock my bonus. Before the Chairman went to Europe for his business retreat, didn't he tell you that my department reports directly to him?" With that, I smiled politely. "Justin, based on what I just said, I suggest you use your brain and make a more rational decision." He didn't realize that my confidence came from how indispensable I was to this company. The only reason he was the GM was because I didn't want to waste my energy on corporate bureaucracy. By the time I left his office, he was wiping sweat from his forehead. I thought he would back down after this confrontation. Instead, he and Chloe doubled down, trying to rally the entire department to isolate me. During another late night of overtime, Chloe walked up to me, her eyes filled with venom. "Claire, no wonder a low-level manager like you can afford a hundred-thousand-dollar car." "Turns out you’ve been stealing the bonuses that belong to us!"

I glanced at her coldly. "What kind of drama are you trying to stir up now?" Chloe slapped my payroll sheet onto my desk. "Claire, let’s not even talk about the past. Just look at the last major project. Everyone worked their asses off and stayed up late with you, yet you took fifty percent of the bonus pool for yourself. Doesn't that money feel dirty?" "Using your seniority to bully interns and steal your subordinates' hard work—others might tolerate it, but I won't!" I let out a cold laugh and glanced toward the GM's office. "Chloe, who gave you my payroll sheet?" Chloe tapped the paper against my cheek mockingly. "That’s none of your business. Claire, you’d better figure out how to explain this to the team." "I am here to clean up this toxic workplace. Your good days are over!" I didn't need to explain anything. I used my own network and clients to secure one multi-million-dollar contract after another. My contribution went far beyond what was visible on paper. According to the Chairman's agreement, I was actually entitled to eighty percent of the bonus pool. The other thirty percent I distributed to my team was money I voluntarily gave out of my own pocket to reward them. But when it came to money, the team immediately sided with Chloe. Everyone united to isolate me. They dragged their feet on my assignments and even posted anonymously under Chloe's thread: "Turns out Claire didn't just bully the intern. She’s been screwing over her senior staff for years!" "I can confirm. She’s my manager. We do all the grunt work, and she pockets all the cash!" "Gross. She looks like a total fraud..." Meanwhile, Chloe became their savior. She walked around the office with her head held high, looking incredibly smug. "Don't worry, guys. I won't let her rip you off anymore." "As a Gen Z, I'm here to fix this place. Some corporate parasites won't be around much longer." With Chloe egging them on, my team's behavior grew worse. They didn't just slow down their work; if I gave them a stern order, they simply went on strike. All my personal history was dug up and posted in the comment section. Overnight, I became public enemy number one. In my ten years of working, I had never felt this disappointed. When the Chairman returned to the country, I visited his house to discuss the upcoming restructuring. If the current team was uncontrollable, I would simply replace them. After wrapping up our meeting, I walked out of the Chairman’s villa and bumped into Chloe, who was out shopping nearby. She waved her phone at me with a smirk. "Claire, do you still have the energy to visit clients at their houses?" Her young face was filled with mockery. It was as if she had already crushed me under her heel and couldn't wait to gloat. I smiled back. "You should worry about yourself first." The next day, the staff didn't even bother whispering. They pointed and sneered at me openly. I could hear words like "climbing the casting couch" and "corporate escort" being thrown around. Before I could figure out what new lie they had cooked up, Justin called me back into his office. "Claire, your disgraceful behavior has caused our stock price to plummet. A simple fine won’t cut it anymore." "Pack your bags. You’re fired!"