Closing day started with a fire alarm.
Not a metaphorical one.
An actual, shrieking, fluorescent red one at 7:43 a.m.
Margot stepped off the elevator onto thirty-three and flinched as the piercing wail hit her ears.
Red strobes flashed along the corridor. People clustered near the exits, faces annoyed more than scared.
“Drill?” she shouted at Raj, who was herding a group of engineers toward the stairs.
“False,” he yelled back. “Contractor smoke on 29. They’re clearing it.”
“Declan?” she called.
“In his office,” Raj said. “Refusing to evacuate. Go.”
She headed straight there.
The glass was opaque, but the alarm’s echo was muffled, not silenced.
She didn’t knock. Just slid the door open.
He sat at his desk, jaw clenched, eyes unfocused, fingers digging into the armrests.
The sound, in here, was a dulled but still piercing howl.
“Declan,” she said loudly. “We need to go.”
He flinched. “No fire.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Protocol.”
“Waste of time,” he gritted. “I have—”
“Plaid,” she said over the noise. “You’re at plaid. Get up.”
He jerked to his feet because sometimes his body listened before his brain.
She grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair and shoved it into his hands.
The hallway was a stream of bodies and motion and noise.
He tensed, breath coming faster.
She stepped in front of him, making herself a small shield.
“Focus here,” she said, catching his gaze. “Block everyone else out. Just follow me.”
He latched onto her voice, her face, like a lifeline.
They moved with the crowd, down the stairs, the alarm a constant shriek above them.
On the fifteenth floor, the siren cut off.
A crackle.
False alarm. All clear. Please return to your floors.
The collective groan was almost as loud.
People grumbled and started reversing.
Declan sagged against the wall for a second, eyes closed.
“Breathe,” she said. “In. Out.”
“That was… unpleasant,” he muttered, understating by a mile.
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault,” he said.
They climbed back up.
By the time they returned to thirty-three, the adrenaline had burned off, leaving a raw edge.
He walked straight into his office, ignoring the curious glances.
She followed.
He shut the door, toggled the glass to opaque, then leaned back against it, eyes squeezed shut.
“Noise,” he said. “Lights. People.”
“I know,” she said softly.
He slid down the glass until he was sitting on the floor, knees up, suit rumpled.
She’d never seen him like this.
Not the couch. Not the server room memory.
This was… different.
Less controlled.
More… human.
She sat down across from him, mirroring his posture.
“Color?” she asked.
“Plaid,” he said. “And… static. White. Everywhere.”
She nodded. “Okay. We ride it out.”
He laughed weakly. “You talk like this is… weather.”
“Sometimes it is,” she said. “Storms pass.”
He stared at her.
“What if it doesn’t,” he said. “What if I walk into that room with NexTelis and I can’t… hear. Or think. Or… anything.”
She held his gaze.
“Then we adjust,” she said. “We move. We postpone. We put you on Zoom instead of in-person. We send Eliza. We don’t force you to white-knuckle through a panic attack in front of men who will use it as ammunition.”
He snorted. “You think they’d notice?”
“Yes,” she said. “And they’d twist it into ‘unfit to lead.’ They’d never say the word autism, but they’d mean it.”
His jaw clenched.
“Fuck them,” he said.
“Agreed,” she said.
He scrubbed his hands over his face.
“Thirty days,” he muttered. “I couldn’t go thirty days without… breaking.”
“You didn’t break,” she said. “You bent. There’s a difference.”
“You’re very into semantics,” he said.
“Words matter,” she repeated. “You told the world that yesterday.”
He made a face. “I regret that.”
“You don’t,” she said.
He sighed.
They sat in silence.
The muffled sounds of the office seeped through the glass—phones ringing, voices, the low hum of air conditioning.
After a few minutes, his breathing slowed.
His shoulders dropped a fraction.
“Color,” she asked again.
“Orange,” he said.
“Better,” she said.
He watched her.
“You should go down to the war room,” he said. “They’ll need you. Timelines. Logistics.”
“They need *us*,” she said. “But they can have me in ten minutes. Right now, you’re my priority.”
His throat worked.
“Why,” he asked softly.
She raised an eyebrow. “Because you’re my boss. Because if you implode, so does everyone else. Because I’m a control freak. Pick one.”
He shook his head. “No. Why do you… stay? When I’m… like this.”
“Like what?” she asked.
“Broken,” he muttered.
She leaned forward, elbows on her knees.
“You are not broken,” she said. “You’re… wired differently. Overloaded. Human. If you were a machine, this would be a bug. You’re not. It’s… a feature. Sometimes the system needs a reboot.”
He snorted. “Terrible metaphor.”
“Only one you’ll listen to,” she said.
His lips twitched.
She swallowed.
“Do you regret telling me?” she asked quietly. “About the autism. About… everything.”
He considered.
“No,” he said. “Do you regret knowing?”
Her heart clenched.
“No,” she said. “I regret… how much I *want* to know more.”
His eyes darkened.
“Dangerous,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed.
They stared at each other.
The moment stretched.
Then his phone buzzed on the desk.
He flinched at the sound.
She craned her neck to see the screen.
“Victor,” she said. “Subject: ‘Status? We’re cutting it close.’”
He groaned. “Of course.”
She pushed herself up.
Then extended a hand.
He eyed it.
“You okay?” she asked. “Enough to stand?”
He took it.
His grip was firm. Warm.
She pulled.
He rose.
For a second, he was too close.
Their faces inches apart.
She could see the faint stubble on his jaw, smell his soap, count the flecks of green in his gray eyes.
Her breath stuttered.
He swallowed.
The air pressed in.
“Color,” she whispered.
“Still orange,” he said, voice low. “For… multiple reasons.”
A laugh bubbled up, absurd and half-hysterical.
She stepped back.
“War room,” she said. “Showtime.”
***
The rest of the morning moved at an accelerated clip.
Documents were reviewed. Last-minute language tweaks sent back and forth. Lawyers glared at each other over conference tables.
Declan moved through it with the precision of a machine.
Margot prowled the perimeter, intercepting interruptions, fielding calls, adjusting the schedule by seconds to accommodate sliding ends.
At 10:52, with eight minutes to go before the final signing block, she slipped back into his office to grab a folder.
She saw the email on his screen before he could minimize it.
Subject line: *RE: Pilot Results – NexTelis / Hale Logistics (2013).*
Something inside her went cold.
“Declan,” she said, voice oddly flat. “What’s that?”
He froze.
For a heartbeat, he looked… caught.
“It’s nothing,” he said too quickly. “Old correspondence. Pre-deal.”
She stepped closer.
“Pilot results,” she said, reading. “2013. NexTelis and Hale Logistics. That’s… nine years ago.”
He closed the email with a decisive click.
Her heart thudded.
“Hale Logistics,” she repeated. “As in… your company. With a different division name. Working with NexTelis. In 2013.”
“Margot,” he said. “We don’t have time—”
“No,” she said sharply. “We’re making time. Right now. What the hell is that.”
He clenched his jaw.
“An old pilot,” he said finally. “We tested some optimization software with their supply chain. It didn’t go anywhere.”
“Didn’t go anywhere,” she echoed.
“Yes,” he said.
She stared at him.
“You knew,” she said slowly. “You knew Hale and NexTelis had history. Before. Before all this. Before you called me. Before I… signed.”
“It wasn’t—” he began.
“Did you know about my father’s contract when you did that pilot?” she demanded.
“No,” he said quickly. “That was 2013. Before I even started reading their case files. I was… young. Hungry. It was just a client. Another big name logo.”
Her mind raced.
2013.
The year everything had fallen apart.
Her father’s letter.
The bank.
The nights she’d heard muffled shouting through the bedroom wall.
“You were optimizing their supply chain,” she said, numb. “While they were… cutting people like my father. Using your software. Your recommendations. Your… genius.”
He flinched.
“It wasn’t like that,” he said. “We did a limited pilot—two regions, three plants. They didn’t implement broadly. I didn’t even know which suppliers were affected. It was all anonymized. Data sets.”
“You love data sets,” she whispered.
“It was code,” he said. “Patterns. I didn’t see the… faces until later.”
“And now,” she said, each word a stone, “you’re using *that* as justification to buy them. To fix what you helped break.”
“Margo—”
“Don’t,” she snapped. “Do not *Margot* me like I’m being emotional. This is not about emotions. This is about information. You withheld it.”
“I didn’t withhold—” he raked a hand through his hair, agitated. “I didn’t… think it was relevant. It was one pilot. Years ago. It failed.”
“Failed?” she said. “Or succeeded so well they realized they could replicate it themselves and cut you out.”
He went still.
She knew she’d hit something.
“You said they stole your designs,” she said quietly. “Used your optimization model with their own people. That’s in the case file.”
He didn’t speak.
“Was that… that pilot?” she asked, words burning. “Did they steal from you *and* from my father at the same time?”
Silence.
“Yes,” he said finally, barely audible.
Her vision tunnelled.
“You knew,” she whispered.
“I didn’t know until… later,” he said. “After. When I dug back through contracts. When I saw the patterns. I didn’t connect your father’s company to that specific pilot until last month. Even then, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to—”
“You didn’t want to what?” she cut in. “Upset me? Jeopardize your shiny deal? Make me see you as complicit?”
His face twisted. “I *am* complicit,” he said hoarsely. “In a lot of things. I told you that. I’m trying to—”
“You did not tell me this,” she said. “This is different. This is not ‘I read their case files and feel bad.’ This is ‘my company wrote code that helped them squeeze your father’s margins.’ This is ‘I sat in rooms with men like Rourke and gave them tools to hurt people like you.’”
He flinched.
“Do you know what that feels like?” she demanded. “‘We regret to inform you…’ letter arrives. Bank calls. House goes. I’m twenty-one, canceling trips, skipping meals, lying to my parents about my grades because I’m working double shifts to keep us afloat. And somewhere in a glossy conference room, you’re… running a pilot.”
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
“I was twenty-three,” he said finally, voice low. “I thought I was… changing the world. Making things efficient. Better. I didn’t see… that. Back then, it was all numbers. Faster. Cheaper. Cleaner.”
“And when you *did* see?” she asked. “When you realized? When you made the connection between that pilot and those closures?”
His jaw clenched.
“I hated myself,” he said simply. “And them. And the system. That’s when I started tracking them. Watching. Waiting. For an opening.”
“And now you have one,” she said. “A chance to… atone.”
“Yes,” he said. “And to profit,” he added, because he was too honest now to leave that out.
Her laugh was jagged. “You and your honesty. So refreshing.”
“Margot—”
“You should have told me,” she said. “The second you made that connection. You should have walked into this office and said, ‘By the way, the company that ruined your father’s life? I helped them. Indirectly. Through code.’ You didn’t.”
“I was going to,” he said.
“When,” she shot back. “After the ink dried?”
“No,” he said. “Before. I just… didn’t know how. Or when. Every time I tried—”
“Every time you tried, you decided not to,” she said. “That’s a choice. Don’t hide behind indecision.”
He swallowed.
“You’re right,” he said.
It didn’t help.
“Is this why your therapist kept asking about patterns?” she asked, bitter. “About how you ‘hurt people without meaning to’?”
“Yes,” he said.
“And I’m… another pattern,” she said. “You saw a woman whose family was hurt by this system and thought, ‘Perfect. I’ll hire her to fix it for me.’”
“I hired you because you’re good,” he said. “Because you see things I don’t. Because you don’t… let me off easy.”
“And because it made you feel better,” she said. “To have me close. To think that if I stayed, if I *helped*, maybe that meant you weren’t… the villain.”
He flinched.
“Say it’s not true,” she said.
He didn’t.
Something in her cracked.
“You told me you didn’t want to be ‘that guy,’” she whispered. “The one people whisper about. The one who hurts and pretends it’s saving. You *are* that guy, Declan. You just wrapped it in better language.”
“Don’t,” he said, voice rough. “Please. Don’t… say that.”
“Why?” she asked. “Because it hurts? Welcome to the club.”
He took a step toward her.
Stopped himself.
“Margot,” he said. “I’m not asking you to… absolve me. Or to… understand. I’m asking you to see that I’m trying to do something different now. To use what I built for something other than extraction. I can’t… change what I did at twenty-three.”
“No,” she said. “You can’t. And I… I get that. Intellectually. But right now, the twenty-one-year-old in me—the one who watched her father cry into a letter—wants to walk out of here and never look at you again.”
His face went white.
“Please don’t,” he said.
The crack widened.
“If I stay,” she said, “if I go into that room with you in eight minutes and help you close this, what does that make me?”
“My partner,” he said immediately.
“Your accomplice,” she shot back.
He flinched.
Silence hummed.
“I can’t… think about this right now,” he said finally, sounding more like a man underwater than a CEO. “I have a deal to close. A board. Regulators. Thousands of people waiting. If I… let this in fully, I’ll… drown. I need you. In that room. I know that’s… selfish. I know I don’t have the right to ask. But I’m asking anyway. Please. Don’t… leave. Not today.”
Her chest ached.
He looked… wrecked.
Not in the carefully curated, man-under-pressure way.
In the way of someone seeing himself clearly and hating what he saw.
A part of her wanted to reach for him.
To say, *I know. I understand. We were both kids. We were both… complicit in things we didn’t fully see.*
Another part wanted to walk.
To take her bag, her principles, and her bruised heart and leave him to finish what he’d started without her.
She thought of her father.
Of Luis.
Of Jess.
Of the suppliers who didn’t even know their names were on lists yet.
If she left, would he still buy NexTelis?
Probably.
Would he still try to fix it?
Maybe.
Would he listen as closely when someone like Jess said, *You’re about to ruin my life*?
She didn’t know.
“You’re very good at making your needs sound like the greater good,” she said softly.
He flinched. “That’s… fair.”
“I don’t trust you,” she said. “Not right now.”
He shut his eyes briefly, like the words physically hurt.
“But I… still trust myself,” she went on. “To see. To push. To… be a pain in your ass.”
His eyes opened.
“But if I go into that room with you,” she said, voice steady, “it’s not for you. It’s for them. And if you ever ask me to choose between what’s good for them and what’s good for you, I will pick them. Every time. Even if it breaks you.”
He nodded, once. “That’s… what I hired you for.”
“No,” she said. “You hired me to fix your life. I’m choosing a different job.”
He exhaled, shaky.
“Will you… come?” he asked.
She looked at the clock.
10:59.
The seconds ticked.
Her heart thudded.
“Yes,” she said finally. “I’ll come.”
Relief flashed across his face.
“After,” she said. “We’re going to have this conversation again. Without the clock. Without the excuse of ‘later.’ And if I don’t like your answers… I walk.”
He swallowed.
“Understood,” he said.
She picked up the folder from his desk.
Held it out to him.
“Let’s go close your sins,” she said.
He took it.
Their fingers brushed.
They both pretended not to feel it.
***
The signing was brutal.
Not outwardly.
Outwardly, it was smooth.
Paper sliding. Pen strokes. Handshakes.
Inwardly, Margot felt every signature like a cut.
She watched Declan’s jaw work when NexTelis’s chair said, “May this be a profitable union.”
She watched Rourke’s satisfied smile.
She watched Alvarez’s cautious one.
She watched him.
His mask was perfect.
Only she could see the cracks.
After, in the war room, when the door finally shut and the initial hysteria dimmed, he braced his hands on the table and bowed his head.
“Congratulations,” Victor said, half-genuine, half-gloating. “You did it. You crazy bastard.”
Eliza clapped him on the back. “Welcome to your new headache.”
Raj whooped. “Drinks tonight. On you.”
He managed a thin smile. “Sure. Everyone. Whiskey. On me.”
They laughed.
High, nervous.
Margot stood near the wall, arms crossed, feeling oddly… detached.
It was done.
For better.
For worse.
Victor turned to her. “You should smile,” he said. “You just helped close the biggest deal of your career.”
She met his gaze.
“I’ll smile when I see what we do with it,” she said.
He shrugged. “Fair.”
Declan straightened.
His eyes found hers.
Everything else in the room faded.
“Everyone,” he said, voice steady. “Fifteen-minute break. Then back here. We start integration.”
Groans.
“But—”
“No,” he said. “We move now. Momentum matters. Go. Breathe. Then come back. Margot, with me.”
She followed him out, ignoring the speculative looks.
In his office, he closed the door.
Left the glass clear.
For once.
He walked to the window.
Hands braced on the sill.
The city sprawled below, indifferent.
“I did it,” he said dully.
“Yes,” she said.
“It feels…” He searched for the word. “Bad.”
She swallowed. “Good.”
He huffed a humorless breath. “You’re enjoying this.”
“A little,” she admitted. “It means you’re not… gone.”
He turned.
Looked at her.
“I’m… sorry,” he said.
The words were simple.
They landed heavy.
“For what?” she asked.
“For… all of it,” he said. “For the pilot. For not connecting the dots sooner. For connecting them and not telling you. For using you to… make myself feel less… monstrous. For asking you to stand next to me while I signed things that hurt you.”
Her throat burned.
“I’m not interested in apologies,” she said. “I’m interested in… repair.”
He nodded slowly.
“How,” he asked quietly, “do I do that?”
She took a breath.
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “But we’re going to find out. Or we’re not. And then… I leave.”
Pain flashed in his eyes.
He didn’t argue.
“I said I’d give you thirty days,” he said. “To make you want to stay.”
“That was *your* timeline,” she said. “Not mine.”
“True,” he said. “What’s… yours?”
She thought of the whiteboard.
Of the countdown.
Of the arbitrary number that had become real.
“Thirty days from now,” she said. “If you’re still… you. If this company isn’t NexTelis 2.0. If I still like who I am when I sit at that desk… I’ll decide.”
He nodded once.
“And if you don’t?” he asked.
“I walk,” she said simply. “And you… let me.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“Okay,” he said.
She watched him.
The man who had just bought the company that had nearly destroyed her family, whose code had once helped that company do its worst, who now stood here, shoulders bowed, asking her how to be better.
It was… too much.
Too big.
Too messy.
Too human.
“We have eleven minutes,” she said, glancing at the clock. “Then you’re back in the war room. We can’t fix this now.”
“No,” he said. “We can’t.”
He straightened.
Put the mask back on.
But it sat differently now.
Less like armor.
More like… necessity.
She walked to the door.
Paused.
“Declan,” she said.
He looked up.
“I’m angry,” she said. “I don’t forgive you. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But I’m… still here. That has to count for something.”
His throat worked.
“It does,” he said. “More than… anything.”
“Don’t make me regret it,” she said.
“I’ll try not to,” he said.
She slipped out.
Closed the door gently behind her.
As she walked back toward the war room, the weight of the day settled over her like a wet coat.
She didn’t know yet if she’d drown in it.
Or if, somehow, they’d both learn to swim.
---