The Pyramid's Shadow

Martha stood by the window of her thirtieth-floor hotel room, nursing the same orange juice she'd poured three hours ago. The ice had melted, watering it down to something sad and diluted—much like her career.

Outside, the pyramid-shaped headquarters of Orion Corp gleamed obscenely in the rain. Twenty years of climbing that corporate ladder, and here she was: fifty-two years old, wearing her late husband's fedora hat because it was the only thing that still smelled like him, watching a younger, sleeker rival prepare to dismantle everything she'd built.

The door clicked open. Saul.

"Pack your things, Martha. Security is escorting you out in the morning."

She turned, fingers grazing the brim of her hat. "You're enjoying this."

"I'm doing what needs to be done. You're too sentimental for this business now."

"Sentimental." She laughed bitterly. "You mean I actually remember what we were supposed to be building."

"We're building profit. Always have been."

She reached for her purse, fingers closing around her phone. Instead, they found the photograph she'd tucked inside—a retriever named Barnaby she'd rescued as a puppy, back when she still believed in second chances. Before Saul and his ilk had taught her that in the corporate world, there were no second chances. Only winners and carrion feeders.

"You know what you are?" she said quietly. "A fox that got into the henhouse and forgot it was ever wild. You think you're a predator, but you're just another scavenger picking at bones Orion left behind."

Saul's face darkened. "Get out."

"Gladly."

She left without packing. The hat, the photograph, the watered-down orange juice—let Orion Corp have it all. She walked out into the rain, finally, gloriously free, and for the first time in twenty years, Martha called her own shots.