By July, the heat had baked even the glass towers into something soft around the edges.
The Kane Global offices ran colder to compensate, the air-conditioning set to “arctic,” as Ryan put it, which meant Maya had to keep a cardigan on the back of her chair unless she wanted her arms to goosebump every time she reached for the printer.
“Climate change is a scam,” Ryan grumbled one muggy Monday as he hovered near her desk, holding a stack of printouts and a lukewarm iced coffee. “Look at this. I’m freezing and my nipples could cut glass.”
“File an HR complaint,” she said without looking up. “Subject line: ‘Facilities weaponized my areolas.’”
He choked. “You can’t say that in the workplace.”
“You just said ‘nipples’ at my desk,” she pointed out. “This is a safe space.”
He snorted, then lowered his voice. “Speaking of unsafe spaces—Hart’s letter hit the wire.”
Her stomach dipped.
She clicked over to the financial news tab she kept open in a background window.
There it was.
*HART CAPITAL URGES KANE GLOBAL TO “UNLOCK SHAREHOLDER VALUE” WITH STRATEGIC REVIEW, BOARD SEAT DEMANDS.*
She skimmed the bullet points.
“Evaluating strategic alternatives for Arcturus, including partial or full spin-off.”
“Comprehensive cost review.”
“Review of executive compensation tied to ‘clearer performance metrics.’”
“Board refresh.”
“I hate that ‘refresh’ is corporate for ‘guillotine,’” she muttered.
Ryan perched on the edge of her desk. “Jenna’s already got talking points drafted. Marcus will hate them, refine them, and somehow make them sound like he wrote them in his sleep.”
“He probably did,” she said quietly.
Her headset crackled.
“Come in,” Marcus’s voice said through the intercom, calm as ever.
She rose. “Duty calls.”
Ryan saluted. “If he throws a chair, text me. I want to update the group chat.”
“There’s a group chat?” she asked.
He smirked. “You don’t want to know.”
She walked into Marcus’s office, pulled the door closed behind her, and felt the familiar shift in air pressure. This room always felt denser, like decisions hung in it like humidity.
He sat behind his desk, jacket off, tie loosened, sleeves rolled. A printout of Hart’s letter lay on the leather blotter, covered in his sharp, slanted notes.
He looked up.
“You’ve read it,” he said.
“Bullet points,” she said. “He wants to ‘unlock value,’ which we all know is activist code for ‘set everything on fire and sell what doesn’t burn.’”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Accurate.”
“Jenna?” she asked.
“Drafting,” he said. “Oliver?”
“In denial,” he said. “He keeps saying ‘we knew this was coming’ like that makes it less irritating.”
“Irritation level on a scale from one to ‘hostile takeover?’” she asked.
He tapped the paper with his pen. “This is a shot across the bow, not a full invasion. Yet. He’s counting votes. Gauging appetite. The board will panic. That’s their job. Ours is to give them a spine.”
Her chest warmed—half with adrenaline, half with that quiet, dangerous pride that came from being in the inner ring.
“Where do you need me?” she asked.
He met her gaze.
Something in his eyes softened. *You’re here,* they said. *Good.*
“Everywhere,” he said. “Board prep. Staff messaging. Schedules. And…”
He hesitated.
“And?” she prompted.
“Hart asked for a one-on-one,” he said. “Off-site. Just him and me.”
Her stomach clenched. “Where?”
“His office,” Marcus said. “Tomorrow night. He’s hosting some little salon of capitalists in the afternoon. He wants me to ‘drop by and talk strategy.’”
“You’re going,” she said.
It wasn’t a question.
“I don’t capitulate to activist theatrics,” he said. “But I also don’t ignore opportunities to see my enemies on their home turf.”
“Like a nature documentary,” she said. “Observe the predator in his natural habitat.”
His mouth curved. “Exactly.”
“I’m coming,” she said.
“No,” he said reflexively.
“Yes,” she said. “You just said I’m everywhere. This is part of everywhere.”
“It’s not…safe,” he said. “He’s going to try to get under my skin. Yours. He’ll say things designed to provoke.”
“He already has,” she said. “Newsflash: I didn’t spontaneously combust.”
His jaw flexed, that little tell he probably thought she didn’t notice.
“I don’t want him weaponizing you,” he said quietly.
Heat crawled up her neck. “I’m not a weapon,” she said.
“You are,” he said. “He knows that. He saw it at the Harbor Club. You rattled him. He’ll use that.”
“I can handle him,” she said. “I’ve dealt with worse. My aunt at Thanksgiving, for instance.”
“I’m serious,” he said.
“So am I,” she said. “You brought me into this circle. You don’t get to shut the door when it gets ugly.”
Silence stretched.
He studied her. Not as a subordinate. Not as someone fragile.
As someone…equal in a way that had nothing to do with title.
“If he crosses a line,” Marcus said finally, “you walk.”
“Define ‘line,’” she said, because she had to.
“Any you decide,” he said. “If he makes you uncomfortable, if he tries to diminish you again, if he implies…anything, you walk. I’ll handle the fallout.”
Emotion pinched her throat.
“You know that’s not how this works,” she said. “I walk, you pay.”
“I’ve paid higher prices for less important things,” he said. “This, at least, would be worth it.”
She swallowed.
“Okay,” she said softly. “Tuesday. Hart’s lair. I’ll block the time.”
“Don’t call it that in the invite,” he said dryly.
“‘Hart’s Lair – Strategic Discussion’ has a ring,” she said.
He huffed something like a laugh.
His gaze lingered on her face.
“You didn’t sleep last night,” he observed.
“Neither did you,” she said.
“We’re very bad role models,” he said.
“I’ve never claimed to be a role model,” she said. “Just a very efficient chaos wrangler.”
Their eyes met.
The air shifted.
The love confession in the lobby hung between them, unsaid but alive.
He cleared his throat. “You need to go see your mother this weekend?” he asked, the question half logistics, half concern.
“Yes,” she said. “Radiation wraps Friday. She wants to celebrate by yelling at Food Network.”
“Take Monday,” he said. “We’ll manage.”
“I already took last Friday,” she said. “And the one before that. And half of Tuesday. I’m running out of moral superiority.”
“You’re not running out of anything,” he said. “I told you—being a daughter doesn’t count against your ledger.”
Her eyes burned.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
“Don’t,” he said. “If I couldn’t see my mother at the end of something like this because of a job, I’d burn the place down. I’m not about to ask you to make a choice I wouldn’t.”
She stared at him.
“You’re different,” she said quietly.
“In what way?” he asked.
“You weren’t this person a year ago,” she said. “You would’ve said, ‘We have a deal closing, I need you here,’ and then thrown money at me.”
“I still throw money at you,” he said. “I just do it with marginally more empathy.”
She smiled, the ache in her chest easing.
Progress.
Slow. Imperfect.
Real.
***
Hart’s office was the kind of space that made creative directors drool.
Exposed brick. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Art that looked both expensive and deliberately ironic. A bar cart stocked with more top-shelf liquor than most hotel lounges.
“Welcome to the temple,” Jenna murmured as they stepped off the elevator the next evening. She’d insisted on coming too, arguing that PR needed to be in the room for any conversation that might end up in print.
Maya smoothed her blazer—black, sharp shoulders, paired with dark jeans that toed the line between casual and professional.
Marcus walked ahead, radiating control in a charcoal suit and no tie. The open collar made him look less like a CEO and more like a very well-dressed threat.
They were led through an open-plan bullpen where twenty-somethings with expensive hair and ironic T-shirts tapped at dual monitors. A glass-walled conference room at the far end buzzed with voices and clinking glasses.
The salon.
Hart spotted them and broke away from a knot of men in Patagonia vests.
“Marcus,” he said, arms spreading in mock-welcome. “You made it. And you brought friends.”
“Some of us don’t like walking into enemy territory alone,” Marcus said smoothly.
Hart laughed. “Come. I want you to meet some people who actually *like* money.”
Maya clocked faces as they approached.
Men and a few women from other funds. A couple of tech founders she recognized from breathless magazine profiles. A media guy with hair sprayed into submission.
Introductions blurred.
“Cameron, this is Marcus Kane. You probably own some of his debt.”
“Marcus, this is Priya Shah. She runs Horizon Capital. Very into ‘ethical’ investing.” Hart did air quotes around *ethical.* Priya’s mouth tightened.
“And this is—”
“Maya,” he said, gesturing toward her. “The woman who keeps me from ruining everything.”
Hart smiled, shark-bright. “We’ve met,” he said. “Still not an ornament.”
“Still sentient,” she said.
A small smile tugged at Priya’s lips.
“Join us,” Hart said. “We were just talking about whether shareholders have souls.”
“Do they?” Marcus asked.
“Only in Delaware,” Hart said.
Laughter rippled.
Drinks were pressed into hands.
Maya accepted a sparkling water. Jenna took whiskey. Marcus declined.
“On duty,” he said. “I prefer to ruin my judgment sober.”
Conversations flowed around them.
Deal gossip. Regulation gripes. Complaints about “woke boards.”
Maya half-listened, half-scanned.
Priya caught her eye at one point and raised her glass.
“You work for him?” she asked in a lull.
“Yes,” Maya said. “Which him?”
“The one not wearing a Patagonia vest,” Priya said. “Marcus. Olivia—my COO—says he’s less terrible than most.”
Maya smiled faintly. “High praise.”
Priya tilted her head. “And you?”
“He’s…complicated,” Maya said carefully. “Capable of surprising acts of decency. Also of terrifying efficiency.”
Priya’s gaze sharpened. “You like him.”
“As a boss,” Maya said.
Priya’s brow arched. “Mmm.”
Before Maya could formulate a response, Hart clinked a glass.
“Friends,” he said. “Colleagues. Fellow acolytes at the altar of capital.”
Maya suppressed a shudder.
“We’re here tonight,” Hart continued, “not just to drink Marcus’s very good scotch, but to talk about what leadership looks like when you’re not afraid.”
His eyes flicked to Marcus. It was subtle. It wasn’t.
Marcus’s jaw flexed.
“A lot of people talk a big game about ‘stakeholders’ and ‘community,’” Hart said. “They forget that their *first* responsibility is to the owners of the company. The ones whose capital built the ship. Not the crew.”
Priya’s expression cooled.
“Without the crew, the ship doesn’t sail,” she said.
“Then we automate,” Hart said. “We’re technologists. We find efficiencies. We don’t cling to outdated notions of loyalty.”
“Is that what you tell the people you lay off?” Maya asked, before she could stop herself.
Heads turned.
Hart smiled, teeth white and sharp. “Ms. Brooks,” he said. “You have a knack for asking the sentimental questions.”
“People like me keep your systems from crashing,” she said. “Sentiment has nothing to do with it.”
The room hummed.
Hart looked at Marcus. “You allow this?” he asked lightly.
“I encourage it,” Marcus said. “She’s usually right.”
Warmth flickered under Maya’s ribs.
“And what does *right* look like to you, Marcus?” Hart asked. “Quarterly EPS? Market share? Press sentiment?”
“Survival,” Marcus said. “In a way that doesn’t leave smoking craters behind us.”
Hart chuckled. “You’ve gone soft,” he said. “Must be all that ‘listening’ you talked about at the shareholder meeting.”
Maya’s spine stiffened.
“Listening keeps you from walking into walls,” Marcus said coolly. “Or into lawsuits.”
Hart’s eyes glinted. “You think I’m worried about some angry longshoreman?” he said. “Please. I have lawyers whose hourly rate could buy that man’s house.”
There it was.
The contempt under the charm.
Maya felt a hot, clean anger rise.
“Then you’re dumber than your last fund letter made you sound,” she said.
The room went very quiet.
Hart turned his full attention on her.
“What did you say?” he asked softly.
Maya felt Marcus tense beside her.
She didn’t back down.
“You treat workers like line items and legal risk like an abstraction,” she said. “That’s not bold. It’s lazy. Any idiot with a calculator can cut costs. It takes actual intelligence to grow a company without gutting the people who make it run.”
Gasps. A muffled laugh from Priya.
Hart’s lips thinned.
“You’re passionate,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”
“You’re condescending,” she said. “I won’t give you anything.”
He stepped closer, invading her space.
Marcus moved, just slightly, ready.
“You know what I see when I look at you?” Hart asked, voice low enough that it wasn’t for the room, but loud enough that they could all hear.
“Please say ‘competent woman’ and not ‘future reality show contestant,’” she said.
“I see someone who thinks she’s in control because the CEO listens when she talks,” Hart said. “I see someone who doesn’t realize how quickly this world eats people like her when they stop being useful.”
Anger flared, not just for her.
For Rachel. For Miguel. For every assistant and analyst and dock worker who’d ever been treated like a disposable cog.
“If this world eats me,” she said evenly, “it’ll choke.”
Marcus made a sound—half laugh, half something else.
Hart’s gaze slid to him.
“She’s fun,” he said. “You should be careful, Marcus. Attachments make you weak.”
“So does arrogance,” Marcus said. “We all have blind spots.”
Hart smiled. “Yours is showing.”
Priya stepped in, smooth and diplomatic. “Some of us came here to talk about climate risk and trade policy,” she said. “Not gendered power dynamics.”
Hart shrugged. “It’s all power,” he said. “That’s the point.”
“And some of us know power comes in more than one flavor,” Priya said. “Money. Yes. Influence. Sure. But also who cleans up the mess when you fuck up.”
Her gaze flicked to Maya, warm.
“She’s right,” Priya added. “We need people like her if we want anything we build to last.”
Hart rolled his eyes. “Spare me the TED Talk, Priya.”
“Fine,” she said. “Spare me your chest beating.”
Jenna squeezed Maya’s arm. A silent *breathe*.
Maya did.
Marcus stepped in then, drawing the attention back where it belonged.
“You asked me here to talk strategy,” he said to Hart. “So talk. What do you want? Beyond a board seat and a faster return?”
Hart sighed theatrically. “You’re no fun,” he said. “Fine. Let’s go to your favorite place.”
He headed toward a smaller glass room off the main salon, gesturing for Marcus to follow.
“To the spreadsheet cave,” he called.
Marcus glanced at Maya.
“Stay with Jenna,” he said quietly. “Don’t engage him further.”
“I’m fine,” she said, still humming with adrenaline.
“I know,” he said. “I’m not.”
It took her a second to understand.
He didn’t trust himself.
To watch Hart needle her. To keep his temper.
To not start a war he couldn’t finish.
Something in her unwound.
“Go,” she said gently. “I’ll…network with people who actually have souls.”
He huffed a soft laugh. “Try not to recruit anyone to the revolution.”
“No promises,” she said.
As he walked away with Hart, shoulders squared, she let herself watch him for a second longer than was strictly professional.
He looked like a man walking into a fight.
Not with guns.
With words.
Spreadsheets.
Reputations.
She turned back to the salon.
Priya appeared at her side, holding out a fresh sparkling water.
“You were brave,” Priya said. “And…unwise.”
“I know,” Maya said. “It’s a theme.”
“Keep doing it,” Priya said. “Men like Hart don’t hear no enough. Or at least not from people who won’t get fired for saying it.”
“I’d still like to not get fired,” Maya said.
Priya smiled faintly. “Marcus won’t fire you for that,” she said. “If anything, he’ll give you a raise.”
“Don’t joke,” Maya said. “He might.”
“Good,” Priya said. “You deserve it.”
They talked then, quietly, about “ESG” and what it actually meant in practice. About supply chains and regulatory crackdowns and how long this particular iteration of capitalism could sustain itself before something broke.
An hour passed.
Maya kept one eye on the glass room where Marcus and Hart were locked in conversation, their silhouettes sharp against a wall of tickers.
Finally, the door opened.
Hart came out first, expression neutral.
Marcus followed, jaw tight.
Their eyes met across the room.
He gave the faintest shake of his head.
Not now.
Her stomach knotted.
“Ms. Brooks,” Hart said as he passed her on his way to the bar. “If you ever get tired of being an ornament here, my fund could use someone with your…mouth.”
It was a trap.
An insult dressed as an offer.
She weighed her responses.
Then said, coolly, “You can’t afford me.”
Priya choked on her drink.
Hart laughed, but there was a crack in it now.
“Careful,” he said. “The higher you climb, the farther you fall.”
“I’ve been on the ground,” she said. “It doesn’t scare me.”
He moved on.
Jenna exhaled next to her. “You have a death wish,” she whispered.
“Occupational hazard,” Maya said.
When they finally stepped out into the warm night air an hour later, her head buzzed with too much stimulus.
Marcus walked beside her, silent, hands in his pockets.
They reached the car.
She opened her mouth.
“Don’t,” he said softly, not unkindly. “Not yet.”
She closed it.
They rode back to Kane Global in a quiet so dense it felt like a blanket.
In the elevator up to sixty-two, he finally spoke.
“You shouldn’t have to do that,” he said.
“Do what?” she asked.
“Defend basic human decency to a man who thinks fear is a line item,” he said.
She shrugged. “Somebody has to.”
“Not you,” he said. “Not at that cost.”
“What cost?” she asked.
He stared at the doors.
“The part of you that believes this world can be navigated without losing yourself,” he said. “Every time you have to stand in front of someone like him and hold that line, you chip a piece off. I see it. I don’t like it.”
Her chest ached.
“It’s not your job to protect my soul,” she said quietly.
“Isn’t it?” he said. “If I’m the one dragging you into rooms like that?”
She shook her head. “You didn’t drag me. I walked.”
“And I let you,” he said. “That’s on me.”
They stepped out into the empty floor.
Lights dimmed. Computers asleep.
Only his office glowed at the end of the hall.
They stood by her desk.
The line between them—carefully drawn, painstakingly maintained—felt thinner tonight.
More fragile.
He looked at her. Really looked.
She saw exhaustion there. And anger. And something fierce and tender that made her want to cry.
“This is not sustainable,” he said suddenly.
Her heart stuttered. “Which part?”
“All of it,” he said. “You juggling your mother, this job, men like Hart. Me pretending I can keep wanting you at this…volume…and not have it bleed into everything.”
Her breath hitched. “Marcus—”
“No,” he said, more firmly now. “We keep circling this like it’s going to resolve itself. It’s not. Something has to give.”
Fear flared.
“What are you saying?” she asked.
He exhaled slowly.
“Come into my office,” he said. “We need to talk. For real this time.”
Her throat closed.
But she followed.
Because she always did.
And because, despite everything, she wanted to hear whatever came next.
Even if it broke her.
Especially if it set her free.
***