Chapter 17 - The Announcement

Chapter 17: Chapter 17 - The Announcement

Jesse turned the brass nameplate over in his hand, studying it like a souvenir.

"I’m doing my job, Rudy," he said. "Clearing out the previous occupant."

Rudy laughed. "The previous occupant? Have you been sniffing fabric glue down in that basement?"

"I’m the new VP of Brand Operations and Supply Chain Strategy." Jesse said with a confidence that only confused Rudy. "As of about twenty minutes ago."

For a second, Rudy just stared at him.

Then he threw his head back and laughed so loud it echoed down the hallway.

"Oh, that’s good. That’s really good, Cross-Eyes." He turned and spread his arms wide like he was addressing an audience. "Hey! Everybody! Come here, you’ve gotta hear this!"

He didn’t have to ask twice.

Half the executive floor had already been craning their necks over their cubicle walls since Jesse first stepped off the elevator. Now they abandoned their desks entirely. They drifted toward the corner office in clusters, coffee cups in hand, phones half-raised, eyes bright with the hope of watching somebody get humiliated.

Within a minute, there were twenty people crowded into the hallway. Then thirty.

"The basement guy says he’s the new VP," Rudy announced. "The basement guy."

The crowd laughed.

"He walked into my office and ripped my name off the wall. Like a psycho." Rudy shook his head in mock sympathy. "Mommy just died, so I guess he finally snapped. It’s sad, really."

A few people snickered. Someone at the back whispered, "Should we call security?"

Jesse stood perfectly still.

The murmuring swirled around him.

"Why is he even up here?"

"Isn’t he the guy whose dad stole all that money?"

"Who the hell does he think he is, talking to Rudy Mazer like that?"

"Rudy’s going to eat him alive."

They weren’t wrong to expect it. Everyone at Standard & Silk knew Rudy. Golden boy. Silver spoon. His father sat on the board of three hospitals and played golf with the mayor. And Jesse was the cross-eyed ghost from the basement who most of them had never even heard speak.

Jesse looked at Rudy’s grin, and for a moment the hallway disappeared.

And he was fifteen again, standing in the cafeteria at Crestwood Academy with spaghetti sauce dripping down his face because Rudy had dumped a tray over his head. He was in the third-floor bathroom with Rudy’s hand on the back of his neck and the water rushing up to meet him.

And every single time, there’d been a crowd just like this one. Laughing.

Jesse blinked, and the hallway came back.

He didn’t raise his voice.

"You can make all the noise you want, Rudy," he said. "But the fact still remains that I’m your boss now."

Rudy’s grin thinned. He stepped closer, close enough that Jesse could smell the tequila under the cologne.

"I guess you’ve forgotten what I’m capable of doing to you, huh?" Rudy said, low enough that only Jesse could hear. Then louder, for the crowd: "You’d better head back down to the basement where you belong, before you embarrass yourself any further."

The crowd murmured its approval. A couple of people actually nodded.

Jesse looked around at them. People he’d shipped samples for. People whose botched orders he’d fixed at two in the morning. People whose bonuses existed because he’d saved their projects without ever getting a thank-you. Every single one of them was on Rudy’s side.

’I really need to make a lot of money,’ Jesse thought. ’Enough to own this place outright. So I can fire every last one of these assholes.’

[The ball is in your court, host.]

Jesse almost smiled.

"What’s so funny?" Rudy snapped.

Before Jesse could answer, the crowd shifted.

Footsteps came down the hallway, fast and heavy. People stepped aside without being asked.

Andrew Hyland pushed through the gap. His face was still blotchy red from the shouting match in his office, and there was a small coffee stain on the cuff of his shirt.

Rudy’s face lit up.

"Andy! Perfect timing." He jerked a thumb at Jesse, still laughing. "You’re not gonna believe this. Your basement guy here is walking around telling people he’s the new VP. My job. He ripped my name off the wall." He shook his head, grinning, waiting for Andrew to join in. "Tell him to go back downstairs before I have him dragged out."

Andrew didn’t laugh.

He didn’t even look at Jesse.

"Rudy," he said quietly. "We need to talk. In my office."

Rudy’s grin flickered. "What? Why?"

"Just come to my office."

"Actually," Jesse said, "I think everyone here deserves to hear it."

Andrew’s head snapped toward him. His eyes were murderous.

Jesse met them calmly.

"They’re all so curious, Andy. Look at them." He gestured at the crowd. "Go on. Tell them who the new VP of Brand Operations and Supply Chain Strategy is. It’ll save HR an email."

The hallway went dead silent.

Andrew’s jaw clenched so hard Jesse thought he might crack a tooth. For a long moment, he said nothing at all.

Then he remembered the fabric. The investors. Uncle Victor, waiting in the wings.

He turned to the crowd.

"Effective immediately," Andrew said, every word dragged out of him like a splinter, "Jesse Byrne is the new Vice President of Brand Operations and Supply Chain Strategy."

Nobody moved.

Nobody even breathed.

It was the kind of silence that only happens when thirty people realize at the same time that the floor has shifted under their feet.

Then the murmurs started.

"Wait. What?"

"That’s impossible."

"Is this a joke? Tell me this is a joke."

"The basement guy? Seriously?"

"Isn’t his father a fraud?"

"What does he have on Andrew?"

Rudy stood frozen in the middle of it all. The coffee cup in his hand had tipped sideways, dripping a slow brown stream onto his expensive loafers. He didn’t seem to notice.

"Andy," he said. His voice had gone thin. "Andy, what the fuck is this?"

Andrew didn’t answer him.

Jesse stepped up beside Rudy and patted him on the shoulder, the way an older brother might console a kid who’d lost a soccer game.

"Don’t worry, Rudy. There’s still a space for you downstairs." He pressed the brass nameplate into Rudy’s limp hand. "You should start packing your stuff. The basement office is lovely this time of year. No windows, but you’ll get used to it. And Buster’s great company. He’ll tell you all about the people who come down there to fart."

Somebody in the crowd snorted, then quickly covered it with a cough.

Rudy looked down at his own name in his hand. Then up at Jesse. His face went from white to red to a purple so deep it almost matched Andrew’s.

Jesse laughed.

He turned his back on both of them, the CEO who’d betrayed him and the bully who’d tortured him, and walked away down the hallway. The crowd parted around him like he was carrying something contagious.

Nobody laughed at him now.

He’d made it halfway to the elevators when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He pulled it out.

NOLAN: Your girl’s not exactly a mastermind. It took me 40 mins. Full file attached. You owe me, Jesse.

Jesse tapped the attachment.

A photo filled the screen first. Long red curly hair. Those same piercing grey eyes that had looked right into his across the bar last night.

Except in this picture, she was smiling at the camera in a professional headshot, makeup done, lighting soft. Under it was a name.

CARRIE MORTON.

Jesse scrolled down. Her age; 25. A rented studio in Bushwick. A string of credits for off-Broadway productions he’d never heard of, a few student films, one line in a cop show from three years ago. A theater program she’d dropped out of. A dialect coach listed on an old résumé.

Specialty: British Received Pronunciation.

Jesse let out a slow breath. Then he smiled.

"So she’s an actress," he murmured. "That tracks."