Chapter 2

The next morning I drove to work at my usual time.

Someone had strung a banner across the entrance to the underground garage.

GIVE US BACK THE HOURS YOU STOLE.

A few young guys with their phones out surrounded my car, livestreaming, slapping the windows.

I kept my face still and drove down into the garage while security scrambled to hold them back.

In the elevator, employees I'd known for years wouldn't meet my eyes.

I walked into the office and Derek came out of the break room with a coffee, straight into me.

Panic crossed his face. Then he squared his shoulders. "Morning, Ethan."

I nodded and kept walking. He fell in beside me anyway.

"You've seen the trending stuff, right? That's not really what people meant."

I stopped and looked at him. "Then what did they mean?"

He rubbed his palms together and gave me a sheepish smile.

"It's just that flex time blurs the line between work and life. People lose track and end up working too much."

I almost laughed.

The whole point of the policy was to hit the target, not to perform overtime for an audience.

Most of Derek's long evenings came from bad efficiency, or from wanting to be seen at his desk.

And now he was the face of oppressed labor.

He kept rubbing his hands together. "Honestly, I think we should listen to public opinion.

"Nobody's saying flexibility itself is bad. It's just —"

"Just what?"

"We should be getting overtime pay, per labor law." He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "People work hard. They shouldn't be doing it for free.

"Let us bank the hours and get paid for them too, and everybody's happy."

I almost laughed again.

He'd volunteered for those three weeks because he wanted to be noticed.

Now the story was that I'd forced him to work for nothing.

I didn't answer. I walked to my office.

Whispers followed me down the corridor.

"See? He doesn't want to change it."

"Of course not. Flex time was a great deal — for him."

My chest tightened.

So that was it. To some of them, the freedom I'd given was just a scheme.

Back in my office, I had my assistant pull Derek's records for the past three months.

Exactly as I'd expected. He'd logged more than sixty hours almost every week, well past the benchmark.

His group's output was the worst in the company.

Mia Carter, my assistant, said it quietly. "He applied for the special-project bonus last month too, Ethan. The review committee turned it down."

I remembered the case.

Derek's team had poured time into that project, but his delays and bad calls cost us the client in the end.

No committee was going to reward that.

That evening Claire rubbed my temples.

"Maybe you should just change it," she said softly.

"Reporters cornered your dad at the hospital again today. His doctor says he can't take any more stress."

I clenched my fists. "Changing it means admitting we were wrong."

"The internet doesn't care about right and wrong. It cares about how it feels."

She sighed. "If you explain now, is anyone going to listen?"

She was right. Every feed was full of people tearing into me.

They said my Porsche was bought on the backs of my employees.

They said my house was built out of wages I'd withheld.

Somebody dug up photos of me donating to wildfire relief three years earlier and called the whole thing a stunt.

My hands shook as I scrolled.

One comment stopped me cold.

"Why doesn't a monster like this just die before he ruins more lives?"

It had thousands of likes.

Then my phone rang. It was Mia.

"Ethan, Derek posted again."