On the way to work I get a text from Dash asking to meet me for lunch. So he’s found something on Gideon Fleischmann. I have a few other names I need to give him as well. Each high-level employee I sack will cost a lot of money up front. Even though it will save us a lot long-term, I have to make sure each person I fire is damaging enough to Sencorp for it to be cost-effective and worth the initial financial hit.

When I step into the office, I see Elise and Hugo sitting together. They are both looking at the same screen and arguing with each other.

So that’s her ally? Hugo is a smart choice, probably the smartest choice among all the interns.

There are still more than fifteen interns left, and I want to get that number down to ten or fewer. Once I have the group whittled down to around eight, I can start working more directly with them--offloading critical tasks to them. Some of those eight may crack under the pressure, and I’ll eliminate them, but the ones who can handle the real work will be invaluable to me. They will have no vested interests or ties to existing employees. They will be completely loyal to me, and there will be no risk of corruption.

Once all the interns have arrived for the day, I gather them into the conference room.

“There are seventeen of you here this morning,” I say. “You’ve all been working hard, but tomorrow morning there will only be ten of you.”

Everyone starts whispering amongst each other in anxious voices.

“If you’re eliminated today, I’ll be sure to give your school a good reference letter, explaining the nature of this internship. All of you are working hard, but not all of you can be exceptional. I’m sure the former is good enough for your degrees.”

“I have a list of five new manufacturers,” I say, holding up a sheet of paper. “This list is in a .docx file on the shared drive. These are manufacturers that several of you have selected. Below these five are three of our current manufacturers. I want you to pull us out of those old deals, while signing new ones with the new manufacturers.”

Someone raises their hand: Anna. “Uh, Mr. Thorn, we’re interns, do we really have the authority to cut deals like this?”

“Yes,” I say. “The document has our authorization number. I’ll be called in for the final negotiations, but it will be all of you who set-up the initial terms.”

Another hand goes up: Aiden. “There are five companies and fifteen of us, so how does that work?”

“I think you just answered your own question,” I say. “Now get to work.”

I let the interns loose. I see Elise and Hugo grab Mandy into their group. She wouldn’t be my first choice, but as long as they get the work done.

I head out to meet with Dash.

He’s seated at a quiet corner table at Mario’s, a family-owned Italian restaurant about five blocks from the office, with a glass of wine in front of him.

“Feeling too fancy for beer today, Dash?”

“A glass of wine goes well with lunch,” Dash says. “You should try it sometime. Sitting down and eating...enjoying a nice drink with your meal.”

“Not today,” I say. “What do you have for me?”

I sit down across from him, and he slides a folder across the table to me.

“A bit disappointing, really,” Dash says. “He’s got a mistress--I mean, all these old farts have got one--but his wife probably already knows. You can’t really link him to any of the shit that sunk the company, not directly enough to avoid litigation at least.”

“And there’s no underground connections?”

“No,” Dash says. “I’d just golden parachute his ass if you really want to sack him. He’d likely take it.”

“Alright,” I say, scanning through the folder. I feel serious relief that Elise isn’t in any real danger from Fleischmann. “I don’t think I’ll use the mistress thing on him unless I have to. I’d like him gone with the least noise.”

“Probably a good call,” Dash says, yawning. “You gonna’ bolt? You should try these blue cheese sliders.”

“I have more names for you,” I say, handing him a slip of paper. “Same deal as with Fleischmann, but I want you to do it for less.”

Dash laughs. “Why would I do it for less?”

“Because I’m giving you five names, and because you overcharged me for Fleischmann.”

“Alright,” Dash says, looking the names over. “I’ll give you the standard, non-overcharged rate for these five, but no discounts.”

“Thanks, asshole,” I say, standing up.

“You’re welcome, you cock.”

I work on the golden parachutes while the interns plug away at the manufacturers. I’ve told them to come get me when they have a deal ready to finalize, but no team has come to bother me yet.

Finally, there’s a knock at the door, and I see Aiden, Anna, and Alex standing outside.

I raise an eyebrow. “Did you guys choose your team based on alphabetical order?”

“Huh?” Anna asks. She looks over at Aiden and Alex with a nervous expression, but Alex just pokes her and makes a face.

“Uh, Mr. Thorn,” Anna says. “We have a deal ready to finalize.”

“Alright,” I say. “Which manufacturer is it? Show me the terms.”

“We thought a bit outside the box, sir!” Aiden chimes in, giving me a big, overconfident smile.

“We, uh,” Alex says, “we were calling the place in Shenzhen to, uh, fire them. The thing is, when we told them we wanted to end our contracts with them, they made us this--like--amazing counter offer.”

I grab the paper from Alex’s hand and scan it. “You’re telling me that instead of killing the contract with Shenzhen, you’re trying to sign a new one with them?”

“Look at those rates!” Aiden says. “You can’t beat that!”

“The terms Hugo and Elise’s team got with Estonia and Vietnam are way worse than this,” Aiden says, sticking his chest out.

“So Hugo’s team signed two manufacturers, and you guys couldn’t get one? Not wanting to come back empty-handed, you give me this?”

They all give each other nervous looks. None of them know what to say.

“Did any of you offer to help the others? You could have done legwork for them.”

Aiden bites his lip. “The terms Shenzhen gave us are better than--”

“Yeah,” I say, putting the paper down. “You said that. Shenzhen has said that plenty of times in the past. Did you even look at our history with them? They constantly over-promise and under-deliver, which is the whole reason we wanted to fire them and sign with new, more reliable manufacturers.”

“They said it would be different this time,” Alex says. “They got a new, uh, 3D-printing process.”

“So they have a new and totally untested manufacturing process that they are wildly optimistic about?”

“Mr. Thorn,” Anna says. “We couldn’t help the other teams because, like, we’re competing against them. We had to do something, so we got Shenzhen to give us better terms if we keep them. It’s win-win.”

“No,” I say. “Sorry, but it’s very lose-lose. It would be a loss for Sencorp, and it’s definitely “lose” for the three of you. You’re all eliminated. I’ll have your reference letters to your schools by next week.”

“You can’t!” Aiden whines.

“I just did,” I say, grabbing the phone. “Now I have to call Shenzhen and tell them to shove it.”

The rest of the teams start trickling in. Hugo and Elise’s team comes in all smiles.

“So you guys signed both Estonia and Vietnam?”

Elise beams at me, and I feel pretty fucking proud of her. “Give me the terms.”

I look them over. “Solid. You probably could push them harder than this, though.”

Hugo nods. “We were worried they’d look at Sencorp’s, uh, situation, and think we wouldn’t last beyond the length of the contract.”

“Did you agree with that, Mandy?” I ask.

“Huh?” Mandy says, sticking her tits out at me.

“Did you also think Sencorp’s bargaining position was weak? What did you argue for to Hugo and Elise?”

“Uh,” she says, laughing nervously. “I was like, moral support?”

I look at her like she’s an idiot. I’m pretty sure she is an idiot. “What did you do, Mandy? You were with Hugo and Elise, but how did you contribute to getting Estonia and Vietnam signed?”

Hugo and Elise stand stone-faced, avoiding looking at Mandy or at me.

“I wrote down all the stuff,” Mandy blurts out. “And I got the phone numbers, and then I wrote down the names and stuff--”

“So you just latched onto the strongest team and thought that I wouldn’t eliminate someone from the ‘winning’ team?”

Hugo and Elise look down at the floor, and Mandy’s face burns red.

“I’ll do better next time,” Mandy says. “This was just, like, I don’t know, I don’t like haggling!”

“You’re haggling with me right now, Mandy,” I say. “You’re trying to haggle with me to keep you here. And you’re right, you’re not very good at it. You’re eliminated.”

“But, but--”

I put up a hand. “It’s fine, Mandy. If you don’t like haggling, you don’t want to major in business. It’s better that you find this out and learn this lesson right now.”

Her lip quivers, and she walks out of my office with her head down.

“Good job,” I say to Hugo and Elise.

They smile.

“You guys can go home, I’ll see you tomorrow. I have to eliminate two more people.”

Hugo nods and walks out, but Elise lingers.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I’ll see you tonight,” Elise says. “Not tomorrow.”

I feel my stomach churn. I won’t “see her” how I want to, but it’s better than nothing.

“It was really fun, sir,” Elise says.

“Fun?”

“The, uh, haggling. I like it. I’m good at it. Thank you for trusting us to do this.”

“You don’t have to kiss my ass, Elise.”

Her face flushes and she opens her mouth to speak, but then closes it.

She turns away and storms out the door.

“Jesus,” I whisper.

Staying away from her is going to be the hardest promise I’ve ever had to keep. It was hard when she was tempting me--when I had to be the stronger one. But now she is trying, too, to make things easier for me.

I pull open all of my projections and spreadsheets. If everything goes exactly according to plan, I can walk away from both Sencorp and Nadine in three months. If I hit any snags, it could drag on for over a year.

A year living just across the hall from Elise, not being able to fucking touch her.

My phone rings.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Thorn,” my secretary says. “Mr. Fleischmann would like to meet with you.”

“When?” I ask.

“As soon as you’re able.”

“Tell him to meet me in my office in thirty minutes.”

“Um,” she says, “he’s asking you to meet him in his.”

Fucking bastard. He thinks he can make it look like the CEO is less important than him? Fuck that.

“If he wants to meet me, he can come here,” I say, slamming down the receiver.

I call up Shenzhen and tell them to stick their counter offer up their asses. By the time I’m off the phone, around thirty minutes have passed.

My phone rings again. “What?”

“Mr. Fleischmann says that it’s your last chance to meet him…before he tells everyone.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Thorn. It’s what he said, I don’t know what he means.”

I feel my heart sink into my stomach. Before he tells everyone. Tells everyone what?

There’s only one thing I can think of.

“I’m on my way,” I say, hanging up the phone.

I spring to my feet. My brain feels like it’s fucking vibrating--I’m going into full fight or flight mode.

I always choose “fight” over “flight,” even when I shouldn’t.

I dig my nails into my palms until the veins on my forearm bulge, as I march toward Gideon Fleischmann’s office.

When I reach his secretary’s desk, she says, “Mr. Fleischmann is almost ready for--”

I march past her and nearly kick down Fleischmann’s door.

He’s sitting at his desk with a smug grin. He has close-cropped grey hair wrapped around the back and sides of his head, and his wrinkled forehead smooths out into his bald, gleaming skull.

His eyes are the only part of him that don’t look old. They are an intense blue that look right into me, and without him saying a word, I realize he knows.

“Mr. Thorn,” he says. “Sit down.”

I ignore his request. I want to fucking tower over him.

“What do you want, Fleischmann?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he says. “Though I know what you want. You’ve been poking around where you shouldn’t.”

“I’m the CEO of Sencorp. I can poke around wherever I’d like to.”

A malicious grin spreads across his wrinkled face. “Indeed, you’re putting that to the test, poking into all kinds of forbidden holes. What would the other CEO think of that, Mr. Thorn?”

He knows. He’s not just bluffing that he knows something, he knows about Elise. How the fuck could he know? Has Elise told someone? I sure as hell haven’t been loose-lipped.

“What do you want?” I ask.

I don’t even know what I’m going to do. All I know is that Elise has to come first. Not Nadine, not Sencorp, but Elise.

“You mean for me not to tell?” Fleischmann asks.

“Yes. I presume you want me gone. If you give me a few days to make up a plausible excuse, I can be--”

He leans back in his chair and laughs. “Why would I sacrifice my own rook?”

“Rook?” I ask. “Don’t you mean pawn?”

“No,” Fleischmann says. “You’re more valuable than that, which is why I won’t let you quit. You’ve read up on me, you know how I operate.”

A chill comes over me. I know exactly how he operates. He makes other people do his dirty work, in ways that won’t trace back to him.

“First,” he says, “I want all those interns buying coffee and taking lunch orders. Ask the first four you eliminated from your competition back--those will be the ones we keep after the semester ends.”

The fucking bastard.

“Fine,” I say. “Done.”

“Here,” Fleischmann says, sliding a folder toward the end of his desk, “are your new goals.”

I grab the folder and skim through everything inside it.

“This…” I say, “this looks a lot like how things were already going before I came on board.”

He slams his fist down on his desk. “Exactly! Before you came in and fucked it all up.”

“You really think Nadine is going to buy it when I suddenly roll back every fucking change I’ve made since coming in here? How do I convince her--?”

“That’s your problem,” he says. “If you can’t convince her, then I tell her about you and her daughter. You’ll find a way.”

I walk out of his office shell-shocked. My ears are ringing as if a fucking grenade went off a few feet from me. One that I barely survived.

I clutch his fucking folder in my hand, and I avoid looking at anyone as I walk like a dead man back to my office.

I shut my door and dig my palms into my desk, throwing his folder down. I gasp for breath, unable to think of any way out of this.

I’ve been blackmailed plenty of times in my life, mostly back when I was working the black market. One thing I learned back then was that you should always ask yourself one question first: will the person blackmailing you still have any use for you after you’ve done what he wants?

If the answer to that question is “yes,” then doing what he wants will keep your secret safe. Sure, he’ll hold it over you forever, using it against you again and again, until finally he has no use for you.

If the answer is “no,” then as soon as he’s done with you, the secret will get out.

Once I’ve done what Fleischmann wants, and Sencorp goes under, he’ll have no use for me at all. Then he’ll tell Nadine.

Fuck, I was going to tell Nadine myself anyway after I saved the company.

I take in deep breaths, realizing quickly that this isn’t nearly as bad as I’d thought. Doing what Fleischmann wants makes no real sense. He thinks that Elise means nothing to me--he thinks I’m just fucking her. He doesn’t realize I care about her, that I’d do anything to protect her. He doesn’t realize that I’m never letting her go. He thinks that telling Nadine after I help him ruin the company will hurt me somehow.

Fuck him.

I realize what I have to do now. It won’t be easy, and it will only delay Fleischmann telling Nadine, but it’s my only real option.

I call all the interns into the conference room. Elise and Hugo haven’t left yet…it figures.

They look stone-faced, even Elise. They were all breathing in relief that they weren’t eliminated this morning, but here they are again, standing in front of me, wondering what I’m going to pull.

“Can I trust all of you?” I ask.

They look confused, but some nod.

“I’m going to ask you to do something that might get you in trouble, but if any of you are fired or lose credits for your internship, I will take responsibility and try to make things right.”

“We got you, Mr. Thorn,” Hugo says.

“Alright,” I say. “I need you guys to pretend to be typical interns. Start some bullshit Pinterest pages about Sencorp, ask people if they need coffee, plan some kind of dumb luncheon...whatever you guys thought you’d be doing here before I took over.”

“Pretend?” Elise asks. “How are we going to be pretending to do those things? It sounds like you’re asking us to actually do them.”

“Yes,” I say. “You will actually have to do them. I’ve also killed the shared drive.”

I pull out a thick folder. “But I’ve got hard copies of what you’ve been working on in here. Take these files home and don’t get caught with them. You’ll unfortunately have to keep working on what you’ve been doing outside the office. It’s going to use up a lot of your time--”

“Is this some kind of test?” someone asks.

“No,” I say. “Not intentionally. But this will test you. Anyone who can handle this has a job waiting for them at Sencorp. Stash these files in your bags, don’t let anyone see you taking them out of the building.”

They don’t seem overly happy as I dismiss them from the conference room. Elise shuts the door instead of leaving.

“Hunter,” she says. “What the hell?”

“I can’t tell--”

“Bullshit,” she says. “What is going on?”

I was going to deal with her later. I hadn’t decided if I was going to treat her like the rest of the interns, or if I’d tell her that Fleischmann knows.

Both options are risky.

“Did you tell anyone else about us?” I ask.

“What?”

“Elise,” I say. “You have to come clean if you did--”

“I didn’t!”

“Anyone,” I say. “Even someone from back home in Philly? I need to know if anyone knows--”

“No one,” she says. “Not a soul.”

Then how the fuck did Fleischmann find out?

“Gideon Fleischmann knows about us,” I say. “And he’s blackmailing me.”

Her jaw drops. “Shit, what are you going to--?”

“It’s going to get out either way, Elise. All I can do now is delay him. He wants to run the company into the ground, and he wants me to do it for him.”

“You can’t!”

“I’m not going to,” I say. “That’s why I have you guys working in secret.”

“Alright,” she says. “But...we need to tell my mom, don’t we?”

I nod.

“Shit,” she whispers. “I still kind of hate her…but Hunter, I think we were finally starting to get along, you know?”

“I don’t think she’ll take it well,” I say. “But I think she’ll eventually come around.”

Elise bites her lip. “At least...at least we won’t have to wait months to be together.”

I laugh. “Yeah, that’s probably the only silver lining here.”

We both smile, and I’m almost glad I’m getting blackmailed. We have to tell the truth, and any damage that the truth does to Sencorp won’t be my fault. Not directly at least.

There’s urgent knocking at the door. I open it.

My secretary looks at me with a worried expression. “Um, Mr. Thorn, there’s--uhm--”

She looks at Elise, and her eyes bulge. “Mr. Fleischmann--you need to go to meet with the board members.”

Elise gives me a worried look as my secretary walks quickly away. Elise looks down and pulls her phone out of her bag. “Shit!”

“What?” I ask.

“Hugo just texted me,” she says. “Security was checking everyone’s bags on the way out. They found the hard copies--”

My mind races. “Go home, Elise. Wait for me there. You don’t want to be here right now.”

“But--”

“Go!”

I rush toward the boardroom. I see a lot of people whispering, and many eyes looking up at me as I pass by.

Fuck.

As I near the boardroom, I feel hands grab tightly to my arm. I turn around and see Nadine behind me. Her face is full of fury, and her eyes stare daggers through me.

“Nadine--”

“Shut the fuck up,” she hisses.

She pulls me into her office and slams the door.

“Tell me it’s not true,” she says.

“It’s true, but--”

“You fucking sexually assaulted my daughter in the conference room?”

“What? No! I didn’t assault anyone...and we never did anything at work--”

“Jesus, Hunt.”

“What did they tell you?”

“So you are fucking my daughter? Just not in the office? My eighteen-year-old daughter?”

“It’s not like that, Nadine, it’s…”

She lets out a cold, bitter laugh. “Oh, it’s different, huh? It’s worth fucking up everything, losing Sencorp over? Even if this really is different, how the fuck could you do this while married to me?”

I bite down so hard my jaw hurts. “We stopped...I didn’t know she was your daughter the first time, so we stopped.”

“Wow,” Nadine says. “Amazing restraint, I’m so impressed that you stopped.”

“She’s important to me, Nadine,” I say. “I really care--”

“Fuck you, Hunt,” she hisses. “I’ll see you in the boardroom.”

“Wait, you can’t, Fleischmann is--”

“Get the fuck out of my office!”

She shoves me with both hands, and my back slams into the door.

I put my hand on the handle and start to turn it, but stop before opening the door. “Hate me all you want, but do not trust Fleischmann--”

“Out!”

I step out into the hall. I wait outside her office for a few moments, then walk across to the boardroom.

Everyone is seated and waiting for me. Fleischmann acts as shocked as everyone else when I enter, but he looks up at me--just for a split second--with a smug grin.

Nadine comes in behind me, before anyone else can speak.

Many board members give her sympathetic looks, and she shoves past me before sitting down at the head of the table.

My seat is empty--I don’t intend to sit down.

“Alright,” Nadine says. “We all know why we’re here.”

Everyone looks nervously away from Nadine, and some flash me admonishing glares.

“So,” Nadine says, “we’re voting to relieve Mr. Thorn of his co-CEO position.”

Someone raises their hand, Angela Meyers.

“What is it, Angela?” Nadine snaps.

“I...I understand what happened with, um--”

“With my daughter, who is barely an adult?” Nadine says, glowering.

“Yes,” Angela says, frowning, “It’s unprofessional...but I feel obligated to mention that Mr. Thorn has been turning Sencorp around. Our stock is going up again, and I’ve been keeping a close eye on what he’s doing. Aside from this, um, transgression, he’s been--”

“Transgression?” Nadine says, standing and jabbing a finger at Angela. “He slept with my daughter. While married to me, no less--an intern working under him. He abused his authority and is treating this whole thing as a game. Even if you overlook what he did with my daughter, he made hard copies of sensitive materials and asked his interns to take them out of the building. That alone is grounds for dismissal.”

“We’ll hold a vote,” Gary Miller says. “All in favor of dismissing Mr. Thorn of his duties, raise your hand.”

Many hands--Nadine’s included--shoot up. Hands keep raising until it’s split fifty-fifty.

I notice Fleischmann is sitting there, stroking his chin and looking confused. He’s not raising his hand. He really doesn’t want to be connected to this at all, the fucking bastard.

“The measure won’t pass if it’s a tie,” Nadine says, glaring at everyone who doesn’t raise their hand.

“I’m going to abstain,” someone says, shrugging.

“One more,” Nadine says.

Finally, another hand goes up. It’s not Fleischmann’s.

“Done,” Nadine says.

“Hunter, you’re gone.”

“Alright,” I say. “Just look at--”

“Gone!” Nadine shouts. “You don’t get to make a concession speech, you’re irrelevant. Go!”

“Who benefits from this?” I ask. “And who had security check the interns on the way out--?”

“Out!” Nadine says, pointing at the door.

I walk out. Two security guards are standing outside.

“We’re here to escort you out of the building,” one says.

“I think I know the way out.”

“With respect, sir,” one says, frowning. “It’s not optional.”

“Fine.”

They walk with me to my office, so I can grab my things. They must be here so I don’t touch the computer.

“We need to check your briefcase before you leave,” one of the guards says.

I sigh and hand them my briefcase. “There’s no Sencorp documents in here.”

They check through my briefcase anyway, pulling out some papers. Finally they hand it back to me and escort me to the elevator, then out through the lobby.

I’m out on the street now, and Elise is probably getting an earful from Nadine.

Fleischmann has exactly what he wants now. Nadine might stand some chance at saving Sencorp, but she will be so blinded with anger toward me that she’ll have to undo most of what I’ve done as a matter of principle.

I decide to go get my things from Nadine’s apartment while I still can.

While I’m there, my phone vibrates. I check it and see a text from Elise.

“Mom didn’t fire me. What should I do?”

What is she asking me? It’s a vague question. She shouldn’t do anything via text message, it could be how Fleischmann found out about us.

“Meet me at my place,” I text back.