“It’s recently come to my attention that you’ve been taking credit for work that doesn’t belong to you. Even this presentation—you didn’t create it, did you? Not a single slide.”

“Well… I… didn’t exactly…”

“Why is your name on it then?”

James laughs, a nervous, braying sound. “Come now, Marlen. There are those of us at the top who have to make the tough decisions, and then there are the people at the bottom, the drones who keep the hive going. As long as we’re making the company more marketable and turning a profit, that’s all that really matters. This idea is coming from the department I happen to manage, so all ideas that come through it belong to me—to us. All of us.”

I imagine the temperature dropping ten degrees in the conference room as silence swells. When Marlen finally speaks, his voice is low and deadly.

“I don’t know what kind of company you think you work for, but we’re not only about making a profit here. I will not tolerate anyone, whether it’s an executive or a mail clerk, taking credit for work that isn’t their own—lying to get ahead. That’s not the kind of company I run, and those aren’t the kind of people I want leading my team. You’re fired.”

“I’m what?”

“Fired.”

“But… I have obligations. A mortgage, my son’s college to pay for, alimony…”

“You’ll have a chance to formally resign, if you go quietly—today. But if I have to call security, you get nothing.”

For a heartbeat, I think James is going to argue. The silence feels charged with malice, and I can practically see the foam that must be dripping from his pale lips. Finally, a chair squeals as it rolls across marble. Cloth snaps, like James is straightening his suit coat.

“Gentlemen,” he says, voice dripping with venom.

The conference room door whooshes open.

James emerges in the lobby, hands balled into fists. When he catches sight of me, his eyes narrow. I scramble to my feet. He stops inches short of me and jams his stubby index finger in my face.

“You did this to me. You little—”

“Back off,” hisses Graeme, who’s suddenly between us. He towers over the much shorter, paunchy man, and James stumbles back a step. Walsh and Christina scurry to my side, flanking me.

James’s nostrils flare as he glares at me. “I helped build this company, goddamn it. Who the hell are you? You’re nobody. Just a mousy little girl who thinks she’s ready to play in the big leagues, when really you’re barely out of the kiddie pool.”

In the past, his words would have stung like wasps. Now?

Lifting my chin, I stare down my nose at the man who would have suffocated my career until it withered.