I knew something was off before the first door even opened.
No message. No good morning. No kiss.
Just the kind of silence you recognize from rooms where you're no longer wanted—but not yet thrown out.
The elevator took longer than usual. Or maybe I just imagined it. Maybe everything felt longer now that I knew he had a fiancée. Now that every "I care about you" echoed like a marketing line he'd tested on someone else first.
The lobby was quiet. Too quiet. The girl at the front desk didn't look up. The intern didn't offer coffee. Even the air smelled different—less like money and power, more like disinfectant and finality.
My desk?
Gone.
Not a pen. Not a nameplate. Not a single trace that I had ever existed in this corner of his empire.
I actually laughed.
It wasn't a nice laugh. Not the kind that made anyone feel safe. Just that low, bitter sound people make when reality hits like cold water across a bruised face.
One of the junior managers—new, too young to know how this shit usually works—walked up with a file in hand. Black. No logo. Just my name, misspelled.
"Mr. Vale asked that I give this to you."
"Of course he did."
My voice sounded normal. That was the dangerous part.
I flipped open the file. A "transfer." A "restructuring." A fuck-you written in HR language and dipped in iced-over control.
I stared at the paper. At the lines he didn't even sign himself.
He didn't demote me.
He unpersoned me.
"So this is how you handle things now?" I asked, looking over the paper. "No meeting? No warning? No dignity?"
The poor guy blinked. "I—I just deliver these. I wasn't told—"
I smiled. The kind of smile that precedes either tears or violence. I wasn't sure which one I'd choose yet.
"No worries," I said sweetly, folding the paper once and sliding it into my bag. "Tell Mr. Vale—actually, don't tell him anything. He'll notice eventually."
I turned.
And just before I reached the elevator, I paused. Let myself really feel it. The burn. The insult. The cowardice.
He couldn't even fire me like a man. Couldn't say the words himself. Because deep down, he knew.
He knew I'd fucked up.
He knew I'd seen her.
He knew I'd still let Dante fuck me the whole night.
But what he didn't know—what none of them knew—was that I was already done playing pretend.
I reached the front desk.
"By the way," I said, loud enough for anyone still pretending not to listen, "I quit."
The receptionist blinked. "You're… resigning?"
"No," I said, still smiling. "I'm leaving before someone mistakes me for someone who ever needed this place."
I stepped out into the street.
Sunlight too bright. Air too hot.
But for the first time in days—I could breathe.
Even if it tasted like rage and freedom at the same time.