Damon leaned in close enough that I could smell his cologne and said, “I said scrub, old man. You’re one complaint away from being replaced by a robot. Nobody in this building will ever back you over me.” He actually poked my chest with two fingers. That was the moment I stopped being patient. I pulled the black keycard out of my uniform pocket, the one with no name printed on it, only a small silver crest, and I tapped it against the reader behind the reception desk. Every screen in the lobby flickered, then switched from the morning news to a single frozen frame: my face, in a suit, under the words FOUNDER & MAJORITY OWNER, HALSTON GROUP. The lobby went so quiet I could hear the fountain. Damon’s smile collapsed one muscle at a time. The security guard who wouldn’t look at me a minute earlier straightened up and walked directly to Damon’s side, not mine. The intern covered her mouth. I picked the mop back up, handed it to Damon, and said, “You were right about one thing. Someone in this lobby is one complaint away from being replaced. It just isn’t me.” I told him he had ten minutes to clear his office, that his access to every Halston system was already revoked as of the moment my card touched that reader, and that the intern he’d just tried to silence would be sitting in on his exit interview as a witness. He tried to laugh, tried to say it was a joke, tried to say he didn’t know. I told him that was the problem. He’d treated a stranger like garbage because he thought no one who mattered was watching. Someone always is. As they walked him out, I turned to the intern, still frozen against the wall, and asked her name. She whispered it. I told her to be in my office at nine tomorrow. She’s running Damon’s floor now.
