Chapter 3

The next morning, right on time, I walked into Finn Lambert's office.

In my hand was a neatly printed Client Handover Request.

Finn pushed his reading glasses up his nose and squinted through the whole thing, and every emotion under the sun crossed his face.

Surprise. Suspicion. But mostly a barely contained glee, the wheels already turning.

"Director Pruitt, you... what exactly do you mean by this?" He shoved his glasses up, feigning calm.

"Mr. Chavez, Mr. Finch, those clients are the lifeblood of this company! Handing them to Max, a rookie... can he really pull that off?"

I smiled and pulled out the chair across from him and sat.

"Mr. Lambert, Max may be young, but he's got drive, he's got hunger, and more than that, his heart's in the right place."

I let those last words land with a little extra weight.

"After the party last night, he came and sought me out. Said he wanted to take some pressure off the company, that he was asking to shoulder more responsibility. It really moved me."

"Besides, I can't stay in the director's chair forever, can I?"

"Someone has to bring up the next generation."

"Give the young ones more chances, and you're pumping fresh energy into the company."

Finn rubbed his smooth chin, his eyes darting back and forth.

I could read the little calculation running behind them with my eyes shut.

Me, sales director, on the company's highest commission rate at ten percent.

Max, an ordinary salesperson, on a rate of just three percent.

Same clients, same numbers, but the cost to the company depended entirely on whose name sat on the account.

If those big accounts stayed with me, the commission alone would be a sum big enough to give him palpitations.

Now here I was, all noble sacrifice, stepping aside for the up-and-comer.

Saving him a fortune, and handing him a favor on top of it.

Making that decision of his to scrap the year-end bonuses look positively brilliant.

What reason did he have to say no?

"Mm... Director Pruitt, you make a fair point."

Finn mulled it over for a moment, then finally showed his hand.

"Since you're recommending him so strongly, and you're willing to mentor him yourself, then... let him give it a shot."

"But," he said, pivoting, "handover is handover. You still carry overall responsibility. If something goes wrong, I'm still coming to you."

Nice try.

I kept smiling. "Not to worry, Mr. Lambert. I'll make the handover list crystal clear and have Max sign off on it."

"Once the handover's complete, those become projects he's independently responsible for."

"He's young. How's he supposed to grow without a few knocks? We can't be shielding him forever, right?"

I sealed off every road back.

Finn choked on that, but in the end, faced with such a fat incentive, he nodded.

"Fine! We'll do it your way!"

The handover went smoothly. Max guarded against me like I was a thief, terrified I'd change my mind.

He didn't just take every scrap of client data, he went ahead and kicked me out of the client group chats himself.

My other coworkers started looking at me differently, sure I'd lost my mind, or that the boss had something on me.

I didn't care in the slightest.

I settled into the easy life that came after losing my "power."

Clocking in and out on the dot every day, not a single minute of overtime.

During work hours, while everyone else was frantic on the phones and hammering out proposals, I was leisurely bingeing shows, sipping herbal tea, and browsing shopping sites.

Max, meanwhile, sank straight into a living hell.

To please those big clients he treated like treasure, he took bootlicking to an art form.

Mr. Chavez said he wanted barbecue from the West Side one evening, and Max drove across the whole city to fetch it without a word of complaint.

Mr. Finch's daughter was in a piano competition, so Max ran around drumming up votes, more invested than if she'd been his own kid.

Janet's dog went missing, and he mobilized his whole family, young and old, searching all night through pouring rain.

He was run ragged, never off his feet, drinking and schmoozing until the small hours every night, the circles under his eyes darker than the bags.

You could watch him wither by the day.

But he loved it. Every time we crossed paths in the hallway, he straightened his back.

Playing the victor, he'd toss out a light little line:

"Boss lady, taking it easy again today?"

I just smiled and said nothing.

The calm before the storm is always especially short.

A week later.

I counted the days and figured it was about time.