Chapter 18
Serena
Instead, his eyes locked onto Patricia with an intensity that could have melted steel. His fingers drummed against the table—not the controlled, rhythmic tapping from before, but something erratic. Dangerous.
The room went so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat.
"Patricia." His voice was soft. Almost conversational. Which somehow made it ten times more terrifying. "You're absolutely right. This is your fault."
Patricia's smile faltered.
"You just acknowledged that Miss Vance is on her first day," Lance continued, his tone still laced with that eerie calm. "And yet you entrusted a task requiring 'explicit instructions'—your words—to someone with zero experience, and you didn't verify the outcome before sending her upstairs?"
He stood, the movement slow and deliberate. Every eye in the room tracked him as he walked around the table toward Patricia.
"At Lawson Capital, management's value lies in risk mitigation. Not in performing post-failure theatrics about 'inadequate oversight.'"
Patricia's face drained of color. "Mr. Lawson, I—"
"If an analyst can't even quality-control a cup of coffee," he cut her off, "I find it difficult to trust her with next quarter's acquisition models."
The statement landed like a guillotine blade.
Patricia's hands trembled slightly. "I understand. I accept full responsibility and any consequences—"
"You're removed from the Henderson merger analysis team," Lance said flatly. "Effective immediately. Thomas will take over your position. You'll remain on data review until I decide you've demonstrated competence worthy of client-facing work again."
It wasn't a firing. But it was a demotion. Public. Humiliating.
Patricia's jaw tightened, but she managed a stiff nod. "Yes, sir. I understand."
"Good." Lance returned to his seat, his attention already shifting back to the documents in front of him.
Patricia stood frozen for a moment, her face pale but her jaw tight. Then, with a mixture of fear and spite flickering in her eyes, she spoke up.
"Sir." Her voice was careful, controlled. "Regarding Miss Vance... she did make an error as well. Perhaps I should assign her additional work to—"
"Do I need to micromanage every employee decision?" Lance's voice turned ice-cold. He didn't even look up from his documents. "That's not my job, Patricia. Handle your own department. And stop wasting my meeting time."
He waved a hand in dismissal.
"Both of you. Leave."
---
I barely remembered walking out of that conference room.
The hallway felt endless. Patricia's heels clicked against the marble floor in sharp, angry staccato. I kept my expression neutral, my steps measured, but inside, my thoughts were a hurricane.
He protected me.
Lance Lawson—the man who supposedly fired people for breathing wrong—had just taken a blowtorch to my supervisor to defend me.
Why?
We made it back to the twenty-ninth floor in complete silence. Patricia didn't look at me, didn't acknowledge my existence. But the tension radiating from her was palpable, a living thing that filled the elevator and followed us down the hallway.
When we reached my cubicle, she finally turned.
Her smile was gone. In its place was pure, undiluted fury.
"Miss Vance." Her voice was clipped. Professional. Deadly. "I'm assigning you supplemental analysis work. These reports need to be cross-referenced, formatted, and uploaded to the shared drive by tomorrow morning."
She dropped a stack of folders onto my desk. Then another. Then a third.
The pile reached nearly a foot high.
I stared at it, then at her. "This is... a lot for one night."
"Is it?" Patricia's eyebrows arched in mock surprise. "Well, you did tell me you were ready to work at Lawson Capital. I assumed that meant you could handle a standard workload."
Standard. Right.
This was enough work for a full team over a week. Maybe two.
She leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a whisper meant only for me.
"Consider it a learning opportunity. After all, you need to prove you're more than just a pretty face who gets lucky when powerful men feel generous."
Heat flooded my face—not from embarrassment, but pure, white-hot anger.
I could've backed down. Should've backed down. This woman clearly had it out for me, and fighting her would only make things worse.
But I was so damn tired of people underestimating me.
I picked up the top folder, flipped it open, scanned the first page. Financial projections. Revenue models. Due diligence summaries. Complex, sure. Time-consuming, absolutely.
But not impossible.
I looked up and met Patricia's eyes directly.
"I'll make sure it's done," I said evenly. "Don't worry. I won't make the same kind of mistake I made with the coffee."
The emphasis on "coffee" was deliberate. A reminder that we both knew what really happened in that break room—or rather, what didn't.
Patricia's face flushed red.
For a moment, I thought she might actually lose her composure completely. Her hands clenched at her sides, her jaw working like she was physically biting back words.
But she was too smart for that. Too controlled.
"You'd better," she said finally, her voice tight. "Because next time, Mr. Lawson might not be in such a forgiving mood."