Chapter 5
Monday morning arrived with a torrential downpour.
James drove me to the office while the windshield wipers beat a steady rhythm across the glass.
When I stepped into the lobby, wet commuters were shaking out umbrellas and dripping onto the polished floor. Trevor, Brianna, and Lauren trudged in a few feet away, looking miserable. Their shoes were soaked. Their hair clung to their foreheads. Two hours on public transit in a Seattle storm had not been kind to them.
Trevor saw me crossing the lobby completely dry, carrying a perfectly steamed latte, and rage twisted his face.
Before he could speak, the elevator doors opened.
Two men in dark suits stepped out.
They weren’t from our building.
Their ID badges identified them as auditors from Hawthorne & Vale, our external audit firm.
Behind them walked my father.
Edward Langford.
The lobby went still.
The CEO almost never came to the lower operational floors unless someone was being fired or a department was being dismantled.
My father was tall, broad-shouldered, and silver-haired, with the kind of gaze that could cut through steel. He didn’t look at me.
He looked at the employees gathered in the lobby.
“Good morning,” he said, his voice carrying through the marble space. “I need Trevor Cole, Brianna Pike, and Lauren Cross to follow me to the boardroom immediately. Everyone else, return to your desks.”
Trevor went pale.
He looked at Brianna, who suddenly seemed on the verge of vomiting. Lauren clutched her wet umbrella like it was a lifeline.
“Mr. Langford,” Trevor said, trying to pull himself together, “sir, we actually filed a complaint with HR regarding an employee—”
“I am aware of your complaint, Mr. Cole,” my father interrupted smoothly. “At the moment, we are going to discuss the external audit of your department’s financial records and data integrity. Boardroom. Now.”
The three of them exchanged terrified glances, then moved toward the elevator like prisoners being marched to sentencing.
I did not follow.
I went upstairs to my floor, sat at my desk, and opened my email.
The entire department buzzed with panicked whispers. The CEO showing up with external auditors was the corporate equivalent of a missile strike.
Two hours passed.
At eleven o’clock, the glass doors to our department opened.
My father walked in, followed by the auditors, the head of HR, and building security.
Trevor, Brianna, and Lauren were nowhere in sight.
My father stopped in the center of the room.
“May I have everyone’s attention?”
Typing stopped instantly.
A pin could have dropped and everyone would have heard it.
“Effective immediately,” my father announced, “Trevor Cole, Brianna Pike, and Lauren Cross are no longer employed by Langford Analytics.”
A collective gasp moved through the room.
“Following an external audit initiated over the weekend, we uncovered severe breaches of company policy. These include fabrication of client data, embezzlement through fraudulent expense reports, and the deliberate routing of vendor contracts to unauthorized family members.”
The whispering died at once.
The people who had glared at me on Friday were now staring at my father in horror.
“We are pursuing legal action against all three individuals in order to recover stolen company funds,” he continued. “Langford Analytics operates on a foundation of integrity. If you steal from this company, if you lie to our clients, or if you manipulate our systems for personal gain, you will not merely be terminated. You will be prosecuted.”
He let that settle over the room like a slab of concrete.
Then his expression hardened further.
“Furthermore, it has come to my attention that the three terminated employees attempted to weaponize the HR process against another employee in order to cover their tracks. They orchestrated a campaign of harassment and defamation against an analyst who refused to participate in an extortion scheme involving a private carpool.”
Simon looked like he might faint.
He had just realized how close he had come to sacrificing me to keep the peace.
“I have reviewed the HR complaint,” my father said, his voice dropping into something dangerously quiet, “and I have reviewed the security footage showing Mr. Cole physically assaulting that analyst in this room while multiple employees stood by and allowed a false narrative to spread.”
People shrank in their chairs.
The younger associates who had laughed along in the break room looked terrified.
“Let me be perfectly clear. Langford Analytics does not tolerate bullies. We do not tolerate mob behavior. If I ever hear of an employee being isolated, harassed, or defamed in this office again, everyone involved will be joining Mr. Cole in the unemployment line. Am I understood?”
A ragged chorus answered at once.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Back to work.”
My father turned and walked toward my cubicle.
He didn’t stop.
But as he passed, he tapped his knuckles twice on my desk.
Our old childhood signal for well done.