chapter 3: The First Lie

"Something up, Ms. Reyes?"

Damian's voice stayed calm and even, but his eyes hadn't left my face. The seconds dragged on. I could feel my pulse in my throat, and I knew whatever I did in the next three seconds would pretty much decide how the rest of this went.

I forced myself to look away from the folder, slowly, like it didn't mean anything, like my eyes had just wandered there on their own.

"No," I said. "Sorry. It's been a long morning. I think the elevator ride finally got to me."

It wasn't a great lie. It wasn't even close. But his face didn't change, not really, and after a second he went back to whatever he'd been reading, like the whole thing had already lost its place in his day.

"Renee's office is just down the hall. She'll help you get settled." A pause. "Monday at eight. And don't be late."

"I won't." My voice sounded steadier than I felt. I headed for the door before he could look up again, before he could catch whatever was still on my face, and I didn't let out the breath I'd been holding until I was three steps into the hallway and the frosted doors were shut behind me.

Renee looked up from her desk when I got there,

took one look at me, and set her pen down.

"You

look like you've seen a ghost."

"I'm okay," I said, a little too fast.

"Yeah, okay," I muttered. She didn't push, which I would come to learn was one of her more valuable qualities — she noticed everything and filed most of it away without comment, at least until it became useful. "Sign here, here, and put your initials there.

Orientation's Monday morning, 7:45, so you've got time to grab coffee before he starts running you ragged."

I signed where they told me to, my hand steadier now, but my mind was still four doors back, stuck on the black block letters on that manila folder.

REYES, LOAN #4471, FORECLOSURE TRACK.

My family's whole future had been cut down to a case number, sitting on the corner of a desk like it didn't matter. Like it was just one more folder in a stack he probably barely even looked at.

As I walked back out through the marble lobby and into the normal noise of the street, I wondered if he even knew what was in it. Maybe the name Reyes meant something to him already, or maybe it was just data, numbers on a spreadsheet, one line among thousands of accounts his company handled. I really wanted to believe the second one. That made the job easier to take. And it made it easier to picture walking into that building every day without my stomach tying itself in knots.

I was wrong to hope for that, though I wouldn't realize it until later. But that Thursday afternoon, as I walked home with a job offer in my pocket and a whole folder of dread stuck somewhere behind my ribs, I let myself believe it anyway.

I told my mother that evening only that I'd gotten a job, good pay, downtown, executive assistant work. I left out the company name entirely, told myself it was because I didn't want to get her hopes up over a paycheck that hadn't cleared yet, and didn't examine too closely the other reason sitting underneath that one: that some part of me wanted to see what I could learn before I said anything that couldn't be unsaid.

Sofia noticed the missing piece right away, like she usually did. "You still didn't tell her where," she said under her breath, cornering me in the kitchen while our mother was showering.

"I'll do it. Once I actually get started."

"Mila, come on."

"I'm serious." I kept myself busy wiping down a counter that didn't need it. "I just don't want her stressing about it before there's even something to stress over."She looked at me for a long minute, with that stare that made me feel fifteen again, like I'd just gotten caught sneaking in after curfew.

"You're not about to do something stupid, are you?"

"I'm just planning to work and pay bills," I told her.

"That's all."

I wasn't even sure if I believed it, even while I was saying it.

It was Monday, 7:52 a.m.

The ninth floor bullpen was already about half full when I got there, coffee in hand, badge clipped to a blazer I'd ironed twice because I was nervous. Renee saw me from across the room and waved me over with that sharp, wired energy of someone who'd already had two coffees and three fires to deal with before eight a.m.

"You got here early. Nice. He hates it when people are late."

She handed me a tablet that looked like an entire onboarding manual smashed into bullet points.

"Calendar sync, email protocols, how to file an expense report without getting yelled at — that's chapter four, read it twice. His schedule today is rough. Board call at nine, lunch with investors at noon, site visit at three. You're with me through Wednesday, then you're on your own.\"

\"Okay.\"

\"And one more thing.\" Her voice dropped as she glanced toward the frosted doors at the end of the hall. \"He's not gonna be warm. Don't take it personally. He's not warm with anyone, not me, not the board, not even his own family, from what I can tell. It's not about you. That's just how he does things.\"

\"So what happened to the last four?\

" I asked, mostly just to keep the silence from getting awkward as we walked.

\"One of them quit. Two got moved to other departments because they couldn't keep up. The last one?\" Renee hesitated, glancing sideways. \"The last one got a little too curious about things above her pay grade. She started digging through files that weren't hers to dig through. He doesn't put up with that. Not even a little. If you're smart, you'll stay in your lane and let the rest go.\"

My stomach twisted at that, but I kept my face neutral. \"Okay, noted.\"

\"I mean it,\" Renee said, her voice softer now, almost kind. \"He's not a bad guy. He's just careful, and if you don't know him, that can come off cold. Don't give him a reason to get wary of you.\"

I nodded, filing that away, though the part about his own family stuck with me, like a loose thread I'd pull on later, the way I was starting to file everything away in this building.

The morning moved fast. I shadowed Renee through a mess of calendar clashes and last minute document requests, and I got the odd rhythm of staying two steps ahead of a guy who changed meeting times like most people switch lunch spots. By ten, I'd already handled three calls from board members, sent a courier off course and back again, and fixed a dumb formatting mistake in a slide deck Damian would've shredded in front of everyone if it had gone out like that.

I didn't see him directly until almost eleven, when he strode out of a conference room mid conversation with two men in suits who looked like they'd rather be anywhere else, his phone already pressed to his ear as he moved so fast Renee had to half jog beside him with a folder of documents he needed to sign before noon.

"Ms. Reyes," he said. He didn't even slow at all. He barely looked at me, one hand extended for the pen Renee was already holding out, and he signed three separate pages without stopping. "Lunch reservation," he said. "Move it back twenty minutes." "Tell them it's not up for debate."

"Which restaurant is it?" I asked, already pulling up his calendar.

"Renee's got it." He was already past me, already dialing someone else, the whole exchange took maybe eleven seconds, and in that tiny window I felt his attention hit me and then slide away, like a spotlight skimming across a stage.

It should've felt like nothing. A boss barking an instruction at a new hire, forgettable within the hour. But there was something about how his eyes snagged on mine for just a second before he looked away, sharp and measuring, like he was putting me in a mental file the same way I'd been sorting everything all morning, and it made my stomach clench for a reason that had nothing to do with the foreclosure letter sitting three floors below us.The site visit at three took us to a property Cole Industries had recently bought on the east side of downtown, a squat, tired-looking commercial building that was supposed to be redeveloped. I stood back at a respectful distance while Damian moved through the site with a team of contractors, listening more than he talked, and his questions had grown men in hard hats visibly rethinking their answers halfway through.

I watched him crouch down at one point to check a crack in the foundation himself, dragging a thumb along the concrete like he didn't fully trust anyone else's read on it, and I started wondering, without meaning to, whether he'd once bent over a different stack of paperwork, my family's paperwork, with that same quiet, methodical focus.

I hated how fast that thought showed up. I hated more than watching him work, even here, even now, I couldn't quite make myself look away.It was almost six by the time the office finally went quiet, most of the floor had emptied out, and the last of the day's fires were finally out. I was gathering my things when Renee stuck her head into the small workstation that had been assigned to me.

"He wants to see you before you leave."

My stomach sank. "Me, really? Why me?”

"No clue. He just said to send Ms. Reyes in before she leaves." Renee shrugged, but there was something careful in the way she said it, something that made me think this wasn't normal.

"For what it's worth, first day in and he's already asking for you by name instead of just yelling into the hallway. That's weird."

My pulse still hadn't settled by the time I got to the frosted double doors. I knocked once, heard him say to come in, and stepped inside. He was at the window with his back to me, the city lights just starting to flicker on below.

"You wanted to see me?"

He turned and looked at me. Whatever had been unreadable about his expression that morning was different now, sharper and more deliberate. It felt like he'd spent the whole day deciding exactly what he wanted to say and was only now ready to say it. He didn't sit down himself, choosing to stay standing instead, arms loosely crossed, watching me like he was sizing up a deal he'd already decided, just hadn't said it yet.

"Have a seat," Damian said. "I need to ask you something, and I want the truth."

I slid into the chair across from him, spine straight, hands folded in my lap, hoping I looked composed and not like I was bracing myself.

"Alright."

I kept my voice steady, even though everything underneath it felt like a mess, my pulse already climbing toward whatever was next.

"That folder on my desk last Thursday." His eyes didn't leave my face. "You noticed something on it.

Yeah, I saw it.

I'd like to know what it was."

My whole body went rigid, and the question hit exactly where I'd been worried it would since the moment I first spotted that folder.The office was dead quiet around us, the building's hum fading into that after-hours stillness, and I got it, almost physically, that there wasn't any version of tonight where I walked out of this room without saying something that mattered. Outside, the last daylight had slipped out of the sky entirely, leaving only the scattered glow of a thousand other office windows across the city, each one hiding its own small, ordinary drama behind glass. Mine, I thought, was about to get a lot less ordinary, and all I could do now was wait and see how I answered.”