CHAPTER 17-THE RULE EVERYONE FEARED

Anna's POV

I stepped through the glass doors of Mo Ting Global twelve minutes past the hour.

My pulse sat high in my throat. The company’s rules on punctuality were not suggestions. Mr. Kim had made that clear on the first day, and every floor still moved as if those rules were written into the walls. I expected someone to stop me…a note, a look or a quiet summons. Instead the lobby continued its usual flow of people with passes and purpose. I kept my head level and walked toward the elevators, fingers tight around the strap of my bag.

On the fifty-eighth floor, the Planning & Development Division was already working. People's working screens glowed, conversations stayed low. I moved through the open area toward the cluster of workstations that belonged to the Eco-City team and into the small office assigned to me as Assistant Architectural Director.

The door closed behind me with a soft click. I set my bag down, sat, and opened the laptop before my hands could start to shake.

Andrea was not in the building!.

The realization settled slowly. No closed door at the end of the executive corridor, no low voice carrying from the corner office. I stared at the empty stretch of glass for a moment longer than necessary, then reminded myself he was the CEO. His schedule did not begin and end with the same clock the rest of us watched. Still, the absence left an odd space in the morning. I had prepared myself for the weight of his attention and found only the ordinary pressure of unfinished work.

I logged in. Three overnight messages from the structural team waited, along with two revised site plans and a request for clarification on the transfer-beam package I had submitted the previous week. I opened the first file and forced my focus onto the numbers.

A light knock sounded at the open doorway. Emily stepped in, tablet in one hand, a small paper cup in the other. She set the cup on the edge of my desk.

“You look like you ran.”

“I did.” I wrapped both hands around the cup without drinking. The warmth steadied my fingers.

“Amyra’s teacher stopped me at the gate. She wanted to talk about something. I had to leave before she could finish.”

Emily’s expression shifted. “Everything all right?”

“I don’t know yet. I told her I would call later.” I glanced at the time on the screen. “If I still have a later.”

Emily leaned against the doorframe. “He’s not in yet. You’re safe for now. But the division meeting got moved up to ten-thirty, and the landscape consultant sent new constraints overnight. Our team is already circulating the updates.”

I nodded and opened the second file. “How bad?”

“Manageable if you catch it before the meeting. Also, don’t stay too late again this week. People notice when the new lead lives at her desk.”

A faint breath left me that might have been almost a laugh. “I’m still learning which rules are written and which ones are just feared.”

Emily’s mouth curved. “The feared ones are the ones that matter. He expects the work done correctly the first time. He does not raise his voice. He simply remembers. That is usually enough.”

We both knew who “he” was. I did not add anything further. Criticizing the man whose name sat on every project document still felt like stepping too close to a line I was not ready to cross.

Two members of the Eco-City team appeared in the doorway behind Emily…Jun with a rolled set of plans, and Mei carrying a tablet full of cost notes. They waited until Emily stepped aside.

“Ma’am,” Jun said. “The wind-load numbers from the external consultant came in higher than the previous model. We need your sign-off before we adjust the massing on the east tower.”

I took the plans, spread them across the side table, and leaned over the sheets. Mei pointed out the critical zones. We spoke in short, precise exchanges, load paths, possible redistribution, the effect on the public terrace levels. I made three notations in the margin and handed the set back.

“Revise and send the updated model by noon. I’ll review before the division meeting.”

They left. Emily remained a moment longer.

“You’re settling,” she said quietly. “Most people still flinch when his name appears on a calendar invite. You just keep working.”

“I don’t have the luxury of flinching.”

She gave a small nod and left me to my screen.

The morning continued in pieces. A call from the planning authority regarding setback interpretations. An internal message from the cost-control department flagging a material substitution I had not approved. A junior architect from the documentation team appeared with a stack of drawing standards that needed my initials before they could be issued. I reviewed each one, corrected two inconsistent notes, and signed. Another message arrived from Administration confirming the booking for an external consultant review later in the week. I answered it, then returned to the wind-load file.

At ten-fifteen I gathered the updated sheets and walked to the division meeting room. The long table was already half filled with leads from Architecture, Engineering, and Project Development. I took my place, opened the notes, and waited. The discussion moved quickly, timelines, open risks, inter-department dependencies. When the east-tower massing came up I presented the revised approach, answered two technical questions, and recorded the agreed next steps. No one mentioned the twelve minutes I had been late. The work simply continued.

By midday the list of open items on my screen had grown longer. I ate a quick lunch at my desk while answering a string of short messages from Mei and Jun. The corporate machine kept turning: requests from Finance, clarifications from Environmental, a reminder from Administration about the weekly progress log. I handled each one in order, the pressure of the unfinished teacher conversation still sitting quietly at the back of my mind alongside the clock.

I expected Andreas to be waiting for my mistake.

Instead I discovered the CEO was not even in the building yet, so strange.

My schedule continued to fill…meetings, reports, departmental responsibilities stacking one after another, reminding me that being late was only the beginning of a difficult day.