The elevator doors opened with the quiet hiss of money.
Maya Brooks stepped into the marble-and-glass lobby of Kane Global’s headquarters and tried very hard not to look like she’d stepped into another planet.
She *had* done her homework. She knew this tower—sixty-five stories of mirrored glass and understated ostentation—had once been an anonymous corporate building before Marcus Kane bought it outright, gutted it, and turned it into something out of a tech billionaire’s fever dream. She’d seen photos online.
Still, the sheer *shininess* of the place made her want to check the bottom of her sneakers for scuffs.
“Good morning,” the receptionist said in a tone that implied she’d been programmed by an AI with impeccable manners. “Welcome to Kane Global.”
“Hi.” Maya adjusted the strap of her oversized tote and offered her best Interview Smile. “I’m here to see Veronica Lopez. Nine-thirty. Executive assistant position.”
“Name?”
“Maya Brooks.”
The receptionist’s fingers flew over an invisible keyboard. “Yes, Ms. Brooks, I see you here. Please take a seat. Ms. Lopez will be with you shortly. Can I get you anything? Water, coffee, tea?”
“Coffee would be amazing, but if I drink any more I’ll start levitating, so I should probably stop.” The words came out before she could catch them.
The receptionist blinked. Maya winced internally.
“I’m fine,” she amended. “Thank you.”
She perched on the edge of a low, brutally uncomfortable leather chair and clenched her hands in her lap.
“So,” she muttered under her breath. “Step one: don’t overshare about your caffeine dependence. Step two: remember to lie about your relationship with the word ‘no.’”
She’d almost not come.
Yesterday afternoon, when the email from Kane Global HR had hit her inbox, she’d stared at it for a solid two minutes before deciding it had to be spam. Or a mistake. Or karma messing with her for that one time in college she’d lied to a professor about her grandmother dying. (In her defense, the woman had been very much alive and deeply disapproving.)
But the sender address was real. The information matched the job posting she’d stalked for three days before nervously hitting apply.
*Executive Assistant to the CEO of Kane Global Holdings.*
She’d almost deleted it, sure she’d be eaten alive in an environment like this.
And then she’d looked around her studio apartment, at the stack of medical bills on her table and the last polite-but-seriously-now email from her landlord about the rent, and she’d thought, *fuck it*.
She could do anything for money. Within reason. And not *that* anything.
“A year,” she’d told her reflection in the mirror last night while trying to tame her curls into something professional. “You last a year, you pay off half your debt, you get Mom off your back about ‘stability,’ and then you can go back to saving the world for pennies.”
Her reflection had not looked convinced.
“Ms. Brooks?”
Maya jerked her head up. A woman in her early forties stood by the security gate, tablet in one hand, hair in a bun sharp enough to cut glass.
“Hi,” Maya said, popping up so fast her tote slid off her shoulder. She caught it before it cracked the marble. “Maya. That’s me. Hi.”
The woman’s eyes flicked to her tote, the scuffed sneakers, the simple navy dress that fit a little too tightly around Maya’s hips because she’d bought it a size too small off the sale rack and sworn she’d “shrink into it.”
There was a pause.
“I’m Veronica Lopez,” she said. “HR director. Come with me.”
They passed through the glass security gates with a scanner buzz and crossed the lobby to a bank of elevators. Veronica pressed her thumb to a biometric pad; one door slid open like it was obeying a queen.
“Sixty-first floor,” Veronica said. “We’ll use my office.”
“Sounds good,” Maya said. “I love heights. The constant awareness of how far you could plummet at any second is very grounding.”
Veronica’s mouth did not so much as twitch.
*Okay,* Maya thought. *So she doesn’t do gallows humor. Noted.*
The elevator hummed upward.
“How familiar are you with Kane Global?” Veronica asked, eyes on the digital panel.
“Uh, pretty familiar,” Maya said. “I did a deep dive last night.” Her insomnia had seen to it. “Conglomerate. Started as a distressed-asset fund, then went on a buying spree five years ago. Real estate, logistics, some tech, some media. Current obsession: Arcturus Logistics.”
Veronica’s gaze slid to her. “What do you know about Arcturus?”
“Privately held. Family-owned for three generations. Your boss is trying to get a controlling stake before Portvale Capital does it first. There’s a whole David and Goliath narrative brewing in the press, except your CEO is both David *and* Goliath, depending on who you ask.”
The corner of Veronica’s mouth curved, just barely. “Who wrote your briefing notes?”
“Google,” Maya said. “And insomnia.”
The doors opened on a quieter floor with soft carpeting and art that probably cost more than her student loans. Veronica led her past a row of glass-walled offices to a corner room with a view that made Maya’s stomach tighten.
The whole city stretched below them in hazy morning light—traffic a red and white river, smog blurring the mountains in the distance. For a second her breath caught. She’d grown up forty minutes outside this city, watching the skyline from the side of a freeway, palms pressed to the car window like she could climb into that future.
Now she was *in* it.
“Take a seat,” Veronica said briskly, gesturing to a small conference table. “We’ll talk briefly before you meet Mr. Kane.”
“Right.” Maya sat, telling herself not to adjust her dress every five seconds. Her thighs had decided to spread like they paid rent here.
Veronica sat across from her, tablet open, stylus poised.
“Your résumé is…unusual,” Veronica said.
“That’s one word for it.”
“You’ve never worked in a C-suite environment.”
“Nope.”
“You’ve also never stayed in a role longer than two years.”
Maya kept her shoulders relaxed. She’d known this part was coming.
“I like to fix things,” she said. “I’m good at walking into chaos, figuring out where the holes are, and patching them. Once things are stable, I…get bored.”
“And you move on.”
“I move to where I can help the most.”
“You coordinated digital campaigns for a climate action nonprofit,” Veronica read. “You were promoted twice in eighteen months, then quit to be an office manager for a small production company. Why?”
“I hit a ceiling,” Maya said. “They were never going to pay me more than I was already making, and the burnout culture was…real. I loved the work, but I couldn’t afford my life on that salary anymore, and I didn’t want to become another martyr working eighty hours a week for barely enough to cover rent and ramen.”
Veronica’s eyebrows lifted the tiniest bit. “You’re aware this role will be demanding.”
“I read the posting,” Maya said dryly. “Somewhere between ‘discretion, flexibility, and willingness to anticipate needs’ and ‘24/7 availability,’ I got the picture.”
“That language was cleared by Legal.”
“I’m sure it was,” Maya said. “My point is, I’m not naïve. I know this job will be intense and that your CEO isn’t exactly famous for his work-life balance.”
Veronica tapped her stylus. “What made you apply, Ms. Brooks? You don’t seem like someone who idolizes corporate structures.”
“My landlord doesn’t accept passion as a form of payment,” Maya said before she could stop herself. “Also, my mom’s medical bills are terrifying. I need money. Your job pays a lot of money.”
Veronica blinked. “That’s refreshingly honest.”
“I tried lying for the first half of my twenties,” Maya said. “Didn’t really work out.”
“Lying about what?”
“That I was okay with being underpaid because my work was ‘meaningful,’ that I didn’t resent my bosses for thinking pizza nights counted as compensation, that I was fine watching other people get rich while I streamlined their lives for a fraction of the cost.” She met Veronica’s eyes. “If I’m going to pour myself into a job, I want the paycheck to match the effort. And if that means working for a capitalist shark, fine. As long as he’s not also a creep.”
The temperature in the room dropped two degrees.
“Mr. Kane is not a…creep,” Veronica said, clearly tasting the word like it was foreign. “He is demanding. Exacting. Direct. Some might say ruthless. But he has never had a harassment complaint filed against him, and I would know.”
Maya lifted a hand. “Good. That’s my line. I can handle difficult. I’m allergic to disrespect.”
Veronica studied her for a long moment. Maya forced herself not to fidget.
“What would you say is your biggest…challenge,” Veronica said, clearly skipping the word *weakness* on purpose.
“I have no filter,” Maya said.
There was a beat.
Veronica’s brows drew together. “Pardon?”
“I tell the truth even when it would be…strategically better not to,” Maya said. “I’m working on it. But I’ve been told I can be…direct.”
“By whom?” Veronica asked, sounding oddly fascinated.
“My last three bosses,” Maya said. “And my mother. And my ex. And the lady at the DMV.”
Veronica’s lips twitched again. “Can you give me an example?”
“Of my lack of filter?” Maya thought for a second. “At the production company, I told our CEO in a quarterly staff meeting that if he spent half as much time approving invoices as he did on golf, our freelancers might get paid on time. The room got very quiet.”
“I can imagine.”
“He didn’t fire me,” Maya said quickly. “To his credit. He made me head of operations instead. But then he started dating the receptionist and everything devolved into a telenovela, so I left.”
“That wasn’t in your exit interview.”
“You can put it in my *entrance* interview here, if you want. Free intel.”
Veronica actually laughed then, a short, surprised sound like it had escaped.
Maya relaxed a fraction.
“Ms. Brooks,” Veronica said, “you understand that as Mr. Kane’s assistant, discretion is not optional. You will be privy to highly sensitive information. Personal and professional.”
“I know how to keep my mouth shut where it counts,” Maya said. “My lack of filter is more…upward-focused. I don’t punch down. Ever. But if I think a decision is short-sighted or sloppy, I have a hard time pretending otherwise.”
“And you think that will work…how…with someone like Mr. Kane?”
“Depends on if he wants a human being or a robot,” Maya said. “If he wants someone to say ‘yes, sir’ to everything and anticipate his needs without ever pushing back, I’m probably not your girl. If he wants someone who will catch things other people might miss because they’re too scared to point them out, I could be…useful.”
Veronica tapped her stylus again, eyes narrowed.
“You’re…different from the other candidates,” she said carefully.
“I’m aware,” Maya said. “They probably have neat résumés with logical upward trajectories and recommenders who are on speed dial with their country club.”
“Yes,” Veronica said. “They do.”
“And you still called me,” Maya said. “So I have to assume either you’re desperate, or there’s some part of you that thinks Mr. Kane might benefit from something…different.”
The soft *ding* of an incoming message lit up Veronica’s tablet. She glanced at it, then back at Maya.
“You’re not wrong,” she said quietly. “All right. Do you have any questions for me before you meet him?”
“How many assistants has he had?” Maya asked. “Besides the legendary one who just left.”
“Legendary?”
“I read the press,” Maya said. “Every article about him in the last five years has a throwaway line about his ‘indispensable right hand’ and how she ‘runs his empire from behind the scenes.’ So. How many before her?”
“Three,” Veronica said. “In the first year after he became CEO.”
“And how long did they last?”
“Two months, three months, and…four days.”
Maya whistled softly. “And the one who just left?”
“Seven years.”
“Wow,” Maya said. “So she either had the patience of a saint, or he’s not as impossible as everyone says.”
“She had boundaries,” Veronica said. “And he…respected them. Eventually.”
“Good to know.”
“Last question,” Veronica said. “Why did things end with your last…personal relationship?”
Maya blinked. “That’s…not normally an HR question.”
“It is for this job,” Veronica said. “You will be spending more waking hours with Mr. Kane than with anyone else in your life. I need to know you can handle that level of intensity without…complications.”
“You mean, am I going to bang the boss?” Maya said before her brain could tackle her mouth to the ground.
Veronica made a strangled sound. “I—no— I phrased that very carefully.”
“I noticed.” Maya blew out a breath. “Short answer: no, I’m not going to bang the boss. Longer answer: I don’t date my boss. Ever. My last relationship ended because he was allergic to ambition. He thought my jobs were ‘cute’ and kept asking when I was going to get a ‘real’ one with insurance. He also thought my body existed for his commentary. It was…not ideal.”
“I see,” Veronica said. “Thank you for your honesty.”
“I told you,” Maya said. “No filter.”
Veronica stood. “All right, Ms. Brooks. Mr. Kane will see you now.”
Maya’s stomach dipped like she’d just stepped too close to the edge of the sixty-first floor window.
“This is the part where I ask if you have any last-minute tips,” she said, rising. “Like, key phrases he likes, or trigger words I should avoid, or whether he feeds on fear.”
“He values precision,” Veronica said as they walked down the hall. “He does not tolerate excuses. He’s very good at reading people, so don’t try to be anything you’re not. And whatever you do, don’t be late.”
“I’ve been here since nine-twenty,” Maya said. “I’m pathologically early. Blame my nurse mom.”
“Then you’re already doing better than most,” Veronica said. They stopped before a set of double glass doors. Beyond them, Maya could see an expanse of office, all masculine warmth and steel, and a silhouette by the window.
Her throat went dry.
“Ms. Brooks,” Veronica said, her voice low. “You said you have no filter. Consider this an opportunity to…practice having one.”
“I’ll do my best,” Maya said. “No promises, but I’ll try really hard not to get myself escorted out by security.”
“That would be appreciated,” Veronica said.
She opened the door.
***