The metal bar gave way. Darnell blinked. He pushed through, his heart stuttering. A glitch? Had Human Resources not processed the termination yet?
He made it down to the basement locker room. The air smelled of damp wool and industrial bleach. Gary was standing by the punch clock, his clipboard tucked under a sweaty armpit. Gary looked up, his eyes narrowing as he spotted Darnell. "Here it comes." Gary grunted, chewing on a thumbnail.
"Leave the card." Darnell stopped, his hand hovering over his locker dial. "Look, Gary, about last night I can explain." "I don't care." Gary interrupted, looking distinctly uncomfortable. He pointed a stubby finger toward the ceiling. "You're not on floor duty tonight. You're wanted upstairs.
50." The floor dropped out of Darnell's stomach. The executive floor. They weren't just firing him, they were making an example of him. "Who?" Darnell asked, his voice rough. "The assistant, Mr.
Fletcher, said you're to go straight up. Don't clock in, just go." Gary turned away, muttering something about the union under his breath. Darnell left his cap on the bench. He walked to the service elevator, the silence deafening. The ride up took exactly 42 seconds.
He counted them. The doors parted. The charcoal carpet swallowed his footsteps again. The air was cold, smelling of that same expensive bergamot and cedar. A man in a razor-sharp gray suit was waiting for him in the vestibule.
Mr. Fletcher. He looked like a mannequin carved from ice. Darnell, Fletcher said. It wasn't a question.
Follow me. Fletcher didn't lead him to a security office. He led him down the main corridor past the empty boardroom straight to the heavy mahogany door with the brass nameplate. Victoria Hartwell. Fletcher opened the door and gestured for Darnell to step inside.
Then Fletcher pulled the door shut behind him. The office looked different in the ambient light of the city glowing through the massive windows. It was immaculate and intimidating. Victoria Hartwell was sitting behind the vast expanse of her glass desk. She wore a tailored black blazer, her posture impossibly rigid.
Her hair was pulled back tight. She was looking at a tablet, her face illuminated by the harsh blue light. She didn't look up when he entered. Darnell stood on the Persian rug. The silence stretched tight as a piano wire.
He could hear the faint hum of the HVAC system. He shifted his weight, his bad knee twinging. I'm sorry. Darnell blurted out the words tasting like copper in his mouth. I know I wasn't supposed to be here.
I'm sorry. I saw Sit down. She cut him off. Darnell snapped his mouth shut. He looked at the white leather chairs opposite her desk.
He hesitated, acutely aware of the grime on his work pants. He sat on the edge of the cushion, his back stiff. Victoria finally looked up. Her eyes were sharp, devoid of the bloodshot exhaustion from the night before, but the skin beneath them looked bruised, heavily concealed by makeup. "You didn't run to the press," she said.
It was a statement. "No. You didn't tell your manager. No." "Why?" Darnell stared at her. The question felt like a trap.
"Because I need this job. I scrub toilets for $15 an hour. If I talk about the CEO, I get fired. I have rent. I have a kid.
I can't afford to care about your secrets." It was the most honest thing he had said in years. The rawness of it hung in the air. Victoria held his gaze. She didn't blink. Then she reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a manila folder.
She tossed it onto the glass desk. It slid to a halt an inch from Darnell's hands. "I had Fletcher run a background check on you this morning. Darnell Williams, 34, honorable discharge from the infantry medical. Blew out your knee in a training exercise.
Single father, debt to a local clinic for pediatric asthma treatments. Credit score in the low 500s. No criminal record. Desperate." Darnell felt his face flush hot with humiliation and sudden spiking anger. His hands curled into fists on his thighs.
"You don't get to I was in a helicopter crash 4 months ago," Victoria said. The sudden shift in topic slammed the brakes on his anger. She leaned back in her chair. The movement was painfully slow. "Careful.
Pilot error. We went down hard in the Cascades. The press thinks I was on a spiritual retreat in Vermont. The board of directors thinks I had a minor ski accident. The reality is that I fractured three vertebrae and shattered four ribs." Darnell didn't say anything.
The image of the mechanical brace flashed in his mind. The ugly mottled bruising. "The board is looking for blood," she continued, her voice flat, clinical. "Pinnacle Group is in the middle of a hostile takeover of a logistics firm. If the shareholders find out the CEO is held together by canvas and metal, unable to sit in a chair for more than 2 hours without narcotic painkillers, the stock will tank.
They will invoke a medical clause in my contract and vote me out by Friday. Why are you telling me this? Darnell asked, his voice barely a whisper. Because I am paying off three private physicians, an entire flight crew, and a private clinic to keep their mouths shut. My personal assistant Fletcher manages my schedule to hide my physical therapy, but Fletcher is 130 lb soaking wet.
He can't help me out of a car when my spine locks up. He can't tighten a thoracic brace. She leaned forward, bracing her elbows on the desk. She winced a tiny, almost imperceptible tightening of her jaw. I need someone who is discreet.
Someone who is entirely off the grid of my corporate circle. Someone who needs money so badly they will do exactly what I say when I say it and never ask questions. She looked at his dirty hands. I need a handler. Darnell stared at her.