Chapter 2

Across town, Jannie stood crushed inside a downtown subway car, her face pale as she stared at her phone screen. Her frantic escape had cost her the express train, leaving her ten minutes to make the morning punch-in.

The moment the train doors opened at Wall Street, she sprinted barefoot across the concrete platform, ignoring the stares of commuters. She burst out of the station and ran three blocks, her lungs burning. At the entrance to the building, she shoved her swollen feet back into the heels she had carried from the hotel. She couldn't afford to lose her attendance bonus—not with her mother's bills piling up.

Jannie threw herself through the revolving doors of Apex Capital Group's downtown branch and slammed her thumb onto the time clock.

"Beep. Late."

Her shoulders slumped, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

Crisp footsteps clicked against the marble floor behind her. Financial Manager Brenda Hayes stood there with a clipboard of layoff candidates, her face devoid of warmth as she pushed up her black-rimmed glasses.

"Jannie. My office, now."

Jannie kept her head down as she followed Brenda into the elevator, the older woman's heavy perfume choking the small space.

As the doors slid shut, Brenda stared straight ahead at the brass floor indicator. "Headquarters just issued the merger mandate. Our branch has to cut fifty percent of its staff."

Jannie's stomach twisted into a tight knot. Her fingers dug into the hem of her blouse. "Brenda, my audit ledgers over the past two years have had zero errors—"

"And you were late today," Brenda cut in, tapping her rolled-up file against the handrail. "Right now, any slip-up gets magnified."

The elevator chimed at the finance floor. Brenda marched out, and Jannie trailed behind her past rows of cubicles where coworkers typed in dead silence. Sitting behind her mahogany desk, Brenda tossed a transfer slip across the blotter. "Finance is overstaffed. You're being reassigned to HR to help organize their archives."

Jannie stared at the paper, her eyes widening. Archive sorting was pure manual labor—a classic move by management to force an employee to quit without paying severance. She bit her bottom lip hard. With her family's expenses resting on her paycheck, she couldn't walk away.

She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and forced a stiff nod. "Understood. I'll report there right away."

After packing her desk into a cardboard box under the pitying and gloating stares of her peers, Jannie carried the heavy load down the hall and pushed open the glass doors of the HR department.

A woman in Christian Louboutin red-bottom heels spun around, her bleached blonde curls bouncing. It was Jannie's stepsister, Eulalie Weiss—the last person Jannie wanted to see today.

More than a decade ago, Jannie's father had cheated on her mother with Eulalie's mother. He had eventually abandoned his wife and biological daughter, married his mistress, and devoted himself to raising Eulalie while barely looking back at Jannie.

As if that history weren't bitter enough, Eulalie had joined Jannie's company as an intern several months ago. After starting an affair with the HR manager, she had been fast-tracked into a full-time position. Since then, she had made a habit of provoking Jannie at every opportunity. Jannie had shut her down each time, but Eulalie always returned, as spiteful and shameless as ever.

Holding a Starbucks cup, Eulalie looked Jannie up and down with a sneer, drawing out her words in a fake East Coast drawl. "Well, if it isn't our star accounting assistant. Reduced to hauling cardboard?"

Jannie kept her face blank and stepped sideways toward an empty desk.

Eulalie deliberately stepped forward and drove the narrow heel of her stiletto into Jannie's instep, pinning her shoe against the floor.

A sharp pain shot up Jannie's foot. Her hands jerked, and the box slipped from her grasp, scattering hundreds of pages of financial records across the carpet.

"Oops, my bad," Eulalie gasped, covering her mouth in mock surprise. "I didn't see you down there. Though honestly, you look just like a trash collector right now."

Around them, several HR coordinators snickered behind their monitors, not a single person moving to help.

Jannie's chest heaved, but she refused to give Eulalie the satisfaction of seeing her break. She dropped to her knees, gathered the scattered papers into a neat stack, and slowly raised her head, her gaze sharp and unwavering.

"Get your heel off me," Jannie said, her voice low and steady. "Sleeping with the HR manager may have gotten you a permanent badge, but it didn't make you my boss. Try this again, and I'll send the security footage to corporate compliance—with both your names attached."

Eulalie flinched back half a step, her smug expression faltering under Jannie's glare. Recovering quickly, she crossed her arms and scoffed. "Keep talking tough. Once the final layoff list drops, we'll see how arrogant you are."

Jannie ignored her, stood up, and slammed the box onto the empty desk. The HR supervisor walked over and pointed to a mountain of dusty file boxes in the corner. "Enter all of those into the digital system before five."

Knowing Eulalie had set this up, Jannie sat down without a word and began typing at breakneck speed. By noon, her lower back ached fiercely. Eulalie had a high-end French bistro deliver steak frites to the office, bragging loudly about a Hamptons mixer she'd attended while Jannie quietly chewed a dry turkey sandwich with tap water.

At five o'clock sharp, Jannie hit enter on the final file and rubbed her throbbing temples. Just as she reached for her purse, the desk phone rang.

Brenda's cold voice came through the receiver. "Jannie, the CEO's office on the top floor needs a physical contract from three years ago. Take it up there yourself."

Jannie rode the express elevator to the sixty-eighth floor, hugging the thick leather-bound contract folder to her chest. When she stepped out onto the marble reception area, Chief Operating Officer and Special Assistant Fed Maddox stepped forward to block her path.

Fed checked the label on the folder, took it from her hands, and gave a curt nod toward the elevator bank. "Thank you. That will be all."

Relieved she didn't have to step foot inside the executive suite, Jannie turned and took the next car down.