Chapter 4My Boss On My Payroll

I didn’t sleep.

Not because I had insomnia, but because closing my eyes immediately summoned the chat logs, lined up like an exhibit list in a federal indictment.

"Item A: On the 14th, the defendant sent the Director of Operations $500 with the memo: 'Eat real food, kiddo.'"

"Item B: On the 22nd, the defendant transmitted a voice memo containing severe character assassination."

"Verdict: Immediate social execution."

By six in the morning, I was sitting on my bed in my suit, having reached the only logical conclusion: I was resigning today. Clean break. Hand in the laptop, box up my desk, vanish into thin air.

On the subway, I mentally drafted the email.

"Dear Ms. Reed, due to personal reasons—"

No. If she saw "personal reasons," she’d picture me calling her kiddo.

"Dear Ms. Reed, due to unexpected family obligations requiring my return to my hometown—"

Also no. She already knew my family consisted of an out-of-state college sister and a mother who lived three hours away.

"Dear Ms. Reed, due to acute cardiovascular distress—"

Accurate, considering my heart felt like it was operating at 180 BPM.

I stepped off the train, walked through the revolving doors, and badged in. Everything was normal. Nobody whispered. Nobody threw pitying glances my way.

I breathed a faint sigh of relief. At least... she hadn't paraded the screenshots around the executive suite. Margot wasn’t the type to gossip.

Wait—how did I know what type of person she was? I didn't know her at all. I was just the moron who had subsidized her coffee habit for two months.

I slid into my chair, and Dustin’s face immediately materialized over the cube wall. "Bro, why do you look like you just crawled out of a morgue drawer?"

"Dustin," I said, my voice dead and flat. "If a man does something unforgivable—something so profoundly stupid it alters the fabric of reality—what should he do?"

Dustin considered this. "Depends. How bad?"

"Complete, irreversible social death."

"Easy. Fake your death, or eliminate the witness."

I stared at him.

He ducked down. "Kidding. Don't actually do that."

At ten-thirty, my desk phone let out a piercing chime.

The caller ID displayed the four-digit internal extension for the corner office.

My hand hovered over the receiver for three excruciating seconds before I lifted it to my ear. "Sean Avery."

"Sean. Step into my office."

Click.

Her tone was utterly neutral. It always was. But today, beneath the ice, I heard the underlying reality: the timer had expired. Today was audit day.

I stood up. Dustin peered over again. "Reed?"

"Yeah."

"Did you finish that deck?"

"This isn't about the deck."

"Then what is it?"

"...It’s about my life expectancy."

Dustin watched me walk down the carpeted aisle with the grim solemnity of a soldier watching a buddy march toward a minefield.

I arrived at the frosted door. It was cracked an inch. The muted hum of the air conditioner carried the faint, sharp aroma of dark roast coffee.

I tapped twice on the glass.

"Come in."

I pushed the door open.

Margot was seated behind her desk, a black coffee steaming beside her, several folders neatly stacked. She looked up.

Her gaze was identical to every other day: cool, measured, impenetrable. But looking at her now, every nerve ending in my body was screaming.

"Sit," she said.

I sat. The ergonomic leather cushion was expensive and supportive, but it felt like sitting on a bed of nails.

Margot flipped a page in a folder, closed it with a soft snap, and reached down to pull open her middle drawer. She withdrew a small stack of papers, slid them across the desk, and let them rest directly in front of me.

They were printouts. Seven full-color, eight-by-eleven sheets of Apple Cash transaction logs.

My eyes locked onto the top sheet.

"Amount: $500.00."

"Note: Hey kiddo, you make it back to the dorm okay? Don't starve yourself."

"Recipient: Margot Reed."

My pupils dilated. Not metaphorically—physically. A wave of cold sweat broke across my lower back, surging up my spine like a geyser of liquid nitrogen.

I looked up. Margot was watching me, her expression entirely unreadable.

"Sean."

"...Yes, ma’am."

"Do you know how much you’ve sent me over the last seven weeks?"

My lips parted, but no sound came out.

"Twelve thousand eight hundred dollars," she said.

The number hit the mahogany desk like a row of heavy brass weights.

The air vent overhead blew a continuous, soft hiss. The back of my dress shirt was completely soaked through.

Her long, manicured index finger tapped the top of the stack. "Is there anything you’d like to say for yourself?"

My jaw worked. What was I supposed to say? "I’m sorry? It was an algorithm glitch? I thought you were an eighteen-year-old freshman?"

Every potential sentence jammed in my throat. Finally, my short-circuiting brain bypassed all logic and produced the most humiliating question possible:

"...Can I... can you refund that on an installment plan?"

Margot’s finger froze on the paper.

She looked at me, and for a fraction of a second, something flared in her eyes—something dangerously close to genuine shock.

Then, without a word, she reached back into her drawer.

She brought out a single slip of paper and slid it over the printed logs.

A wire transfer confirmation.

"Amount: $12,800.00."

"Sender: Margot Reed."

"Recipient: Sean Avery."

"No installments necessary," she said, her voice smooth and even. "It was credited back to your account twenty minutes ago."

"You—"

"Every cent," she said. "Itemized."

She leaned back against her chair, lacing her fingers over the edge of the desk. "We consider this matter closed. Moving forward, verify your recipients before you authorize payment. That will be all."

She was handling it like an invoice discrepancy. No HR involvement. No mockery. No lingering threats. Completely sterile.

I gripped the transfer receipt, my legs trembling as I pushed myself out of the chair. "Ms. Reed..."

"Yes?"

"That voice memo..." I swallowed hard, the words scraping my throat. "The one where I... where I talked about you..."

Margot reached for her coffee mug. "What voice memo?"

She took a slow sip, then set the mug down without making a sound. "I don't recall any memo."

I looked at her profile. She wasn’t looking back; her gaze had drifted toward the skyline beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass, where the autumn clouds hung low and grey.

The coffee was still steaming.

She remembered every syllable. She was simply choosing mercy.

"Thank you," I managed, backed out of the office, and pulled the glass door shut.

Standing in the hallway, I let out a breath so deep my chest ached. My palms were damp, the receipt crumpled in my fist.

Dustin was violently waving at me from his desk. "You’re alive?"

"Barely."

"Did she fire you?"

"No."

"Performance improvement plan?"

"No."

Dustin’s face dropped into profound concern. "Bro. You’re in real trouble."

"...Why?"

"Because with Director Reed, if she screams at you, it means she thinks you can be fixed. If she says nothing—" he dropped his voice to a whisper "—it means she’s already signed your death warrant and she’s just waiting for the paperwork to clear."

I sank into my chair and booted up my laptop.

A notification popped up in the corner of my screen.

"New Mail from Margot Reed."

"Subject: Q4 Special Task Force Assignments."

I clicked it open. Scrolled to the bottom line of the brief.

"Lead Strategist: Sean Avery (Reporting directly to Director Reed, Team A)."

Team A was her personal, high-priority project group.

I stared at my name on the screen for three solid minutes.

Then, quietly, I opened my drafts folder and dragged my resignation letter into the trash.