Chapter 10: All Hands

I pressed play.

Henry put his board papers down and came around the island to stand behind my stool.

Bryce's voice came through clear.

"Request denied."

Then Kylie's form, and the signature against the glass, and "A few days won't kill anybody."

Then Kylie's arm through his, and her head on his shoulder.

Then me, dropping my badge in the trash.

Then Bryce picking up my resignation without looking at it and dropping it in the bin.

"What's the harm in you picking up a little extra work for her?"

I watched myself stand up and take my coat and walk out.

The video didn't stop there.

The girl from accounts had kept filming.

After the glass door swung shut behind me, Bryce turned to Kylie and laughed.

"Give it a week," he said on the tiny screen. "She'll crawl back. She always does."

And Kylie, giggling into his sleeve.

"Babe. Be nice."

The video ended.

"Is he doing anything tomorrow?" he asked.

I scrolled up through the girl from accounts' messages.

There was one more, sent before the video.

He's doing an all-hands at 10 tomorrow. He says it's to "address the situation." He's making Kylie head of partnerships. Your old title.

"Yes," I said. "He's doing something tomorrow."

Dorrance Travel had the fourth floor of an old brick warehouse on Wynkoop Street.

At 10:06 on Thursday morning, I walked in again.

The receptionist looked up and went very still.

"Amanda. You can't, I mean, you don't have a badge."

"I know. I threw it away."

She looked at the hallway to the big conference room, and then at me, and then she very deliberately went back to her screen.

The conference room door was open.

Thirty-six people were in there, standing along the walls and sitting on the table edge, because there were never enough chairs.