Chapter 8 - The Ice Floor

FREYA'S POV

Catherine Soren’s office was on the same floor as mine, which I found out on my third day, when Garrick handed me a stack of quarterly reports and told me to walk them down to Brand Partnerships myself instead of sending them through the internal system like every other document I’d touched that week.

“She likes things delivered in person,” he said, like that explained anything.

I picked up the documents and walked towards her office, trying to look as confident as possible. My heart was racing. This was the woman who was getting married to the man I had loved and given myself to for four years. The man who was now giving me the most insulting ultimatum, the cost being my mother"s life.

I recognized her before I even reached the door, since I’d seen her in person at the engagement announcement, and seen photographs of the engagement announcement all over social media. Catherine in an ivory silk dress with her hand resting on Silas’s arm, both looking like they were made for each other. Up close, she was smaller than I expected with a smile that didn’t move past her mouth.

“Set them there,” she said, before I’d said a word, not looking up from her computer.

I set them on the corner of her desk, carefully, the way you’d set something down for someone who might snap at you for touching the wrong surface.

“Not there,” her eyes still fixed on her computer, “there.” She tapped a spot a bit further away from where i had initially placed them, finally looking up.

She quickly glanced through the documents. “I need them stacked by region, not alphabetically. Did no one show you how the department organizes files?”

“No one mentioned it. I can redo them now if....”

“Don’t bother. I’ll have someone competent fix it.” She said, as her eyes did a slow pass over me; from my hair down to my shoes, a look of disapproval on her face. “I heard Raiden interviewed you personally. That’s unusual. He doesn’t normally bother himself with secretarial hires,” she paused, “I suppose you made an impression.”

Heat crawled up my neck. “I suppose I interviewed well.”

“Mm.” She turned back to her screen, waving me away like the conversation wasnt worth her time. “You can go now."

I turned to leave.

"Oh and Freya, next time, knock before you come in. We do things properly on this floor.”

I hadn’t done anything but walk through an open door.

Still, I murmured an apology and went back to my desk to bury myself in the calendar reshuffle Garrick had assigned me.

By the end of the week I understood the pattern. She would take any chance to undermine me or let me know my place. Catherine found reasons to summon me to her office at least once a day; a report she needed hand-delivered, a signature she claimed only I could chase down, a question about meeting scheduling that could have been answered by email in ten seconds but instead required me standing in her doorway while she took her time getting to it, or some other task she could easily get done without me having to walk to her office.

Each visit came with a correction.

My folder tabs were the wrong color.

I’d used the guest elevator instead of the staff one.

I’d said “sure” instead of “of course” to one of the senior partners, and apparently that mattered enough for Catherine to mention it in front of two other assistants on the floor, her voice pitched just loud enough for those around to hear.

“It’s a small thing,” she said, smiling at me like she was doing me a favor, “but presentation matters more for some people than others. You’ll want to be careful.”

Some people. I understood exactly what she meant, and so did the woman standing behind me pretending to reorganize a supply cart.

I didn’t argue. I’d learned a long time ago, mostly from four years of Ravenscroft family dinners, that arguing with a woman like Catherine in front of an audience only gave her more material. So I said, “Thank you, I’ll remember that,” and carried the humiliation back to my desk without it showing on my face.

It kept happening. A report I’d formatted correctly came back covered in red pen for changes that weren’t real changes, just proof she could make me redo things. She even moved a meeting time without telling me, so I showed up ten minutes late to deliver documents on behalf of the executive office and Catherine made a point of checking her watch in front of the room.

Small, deliberate things. The kind of thing that would sound petty if I tried to explain it to anyone who hadn’t lived it; "she made me stand there while she finished an email, she corrected my grammar in a Slack message, she called me “sweetheart” in a tone that meant the opposite" and yet by Friday I felt smaller walking onto that floor than I had walking into Raiden’s office my first day, terrified he’d bring up the hotel.

I went home that Friday and sat on the edge of my bed for a long time before I let myself cry, because crying over Catherine Soren felt like giving her something I couldn’t afford to give away. When I was done, I wiped my face and thought about how my mother looked when i saw her at the hospital, the surgery fund, the growing number in my savings account, the fact that I had survived four years of being made to feel small by people who wore better clothes than me and I knew I would survive this floor too.

I just hadn’t realized yet how much worse Catherine intended to make it once she understood what I actually was to Raiden.