"The real brain of Zenith is just going to roll out of here with a broken cardboard box?" Julian asked.
I shifted the heavy load against my hip, digging my fingers into the rough corrugated edge. The elevator doors remained sealed shut behind him.
"My exit strategy is not your concern," I said.
"An exit implies you actually had a stake to leave behind," Julian replied. He leaned against the steel handrail, crossing his arms over his charcoal suit jacket. "From where I stand, it looks more like an eviction."
I stared at the man Theo had spent the last five years dodging. Julian was a corporate predator, a venture capitalist who bought out vulnerable tech startups and stripped them for parts. Theo used to pace our old office for hours, sweating through his shirts, terrified Julian's fund would launch a hostile takeover.
"If you are looking for Theo, his office is on the top floor," I told him. "You can go congratulate him on his engagement."
"I don't care about his shiny new ring," Julian said. "Or his empty speeches."
He reached inside his breast pocket and extracted a folded sheet of crisp white paper. He held it out toward me.
"What is that?" I asked.
"The truth," he said.
I hesitated, balancing the cardboard box entirely on my left forearm, and snatched the paper with my free hand. I shook the folds open.
It was a highly confidential document. The header read Zenith Tech Internal Capitalization Table. It listed every major shareholder, every board member, and every early-stage investor.
Theo's name sat at the very top, holding sixty percent of the voting shares. Adrienne's name appeared three lines down, gifted a massive chunk of pre-IPO equity.
"Look at line forty-two," Julian instructed.
I scanned down the column. My name sat near the bottom of the page. Bianca Reyes.
Next to my name was a flat salary figure.
Under the equity column, a single digit stared back at me.
Zero.
"No stock options," Julian said, his voice dropping lower, filling the small space. "No restricted shares. No vesting schedule. Not a single drop of equity."
I clamped my teeth together. The paper crinkled under my tightening grip.
"I am a salaried employee," I said, forcing my tone to stay flat. "I signed a standard contract."
"We both know you had a verbal agreement," Julian countered. "He promised you ten percent when the seed funding cleared."
"How do you know about that?" I demanded.
"I make it my business to know exactly how my targets operate," Julian said. "Verbal agreements are just lies waiting to happen. You built the foundation of this company. You wrote the twenty-page manifesto that secured his initial capital. You coded the alpha version of the core software. Zenith's valuation jumped thirty percent last quarter alone because of the architecture you designed."
He stepped closer. The faint scent of expensive cedar and cold rain clung to his suit.
"He took your eight years of loyalty," Julian continued, lifting a finger to tap directly on the zero printed next to my name. "And he priced it at nothing."
The harsh fluorescent light of the elevator glinted off his Patek Philippe watch. I looked from the watch to his dark, unreadable eyes.
"Why do you have this?" I asked. "This cap table is sealed until the public offering."
"I have resources Theo cannot even comprehend," Julian said. "And I know exactly what he is trying to do."
"He is trying to replace me with his new fiancée," I said.
Julian let out a sharp, humorless laugh. "You really think this is about a woman?"
I frowned, dropping my hand to my side. The paper brushed against my skirt.
"Theo didn't push you into a remote advisory role to appease Adrienne," Julian said. "He pushed you out because the Securities and Exchange Commission is launching an audit into Zenith's early IP claims. He needs the real architect out of the building before the investigators start asking who actually owns the code."
The metal walls of the elevator suddenly felt much closer.
"He is burying the trail," I said.
"He is burying you," Julian corrected. "If you walk out of this building quietly, he wins. He takes the company public, cashes out billions, and leaves you with a cardboard box full of dead desk plants."
I looked down at the pathetic collection of items in my arms. My favorite coffee mug. Three notebooks filled with product roadmaps I would never get to execute. A framed photo of the original Zenith startup team, where I stood slightly behind Theo, letting him take the center frame.
I had spent my entire twenties standing behind him.
"What do you want from me, Julian?" I asked, raising my chin.
"A partnership," he said simply.
"You want to buy my silence?"
"I want you to break it," he said. "Stop providing him cover. Stop ghostwriting his defenses. When the SEC calls, you tell them exactly who built Zenith."
"If I testify against him, Theo will bury me in litigation," I pointed out. "He has an army of corporate lawyers."
"And you will have my fund," Julian said. "My legal team. My capital. I will match him dollar for dollar in any courtroom he chooses."
"Why?" I demanded. "What do you get out of this?"
"I want Zenith," Julian said, his gaze hardening into something sharp and dangerous. "Theo is a fraud playing at being a visionary. He is driving a fundamentally brilliant product into the ground because he doesn't understand the tech. I want to rip the company out of his hands. I cannot do that while he maintains the illusion that he is the sole genius behind the curtain."
He reached into his pocket again and pulled out a matte-black business card. He held it between his index and middle fingers, offering it to me.
"Tear down the facade, Bianca," Julian said. "Help me gut him, and I will make sure you walk away with the equity you actually earned."
I looked at the black card. The stark white lettering displayed his direct private line.
A heavy silence settled over the elevator car. The only sound was the faint hum of the steel cables vibrating in the shaft above us.
I thought about the shredded voice recorder sitting in my office trash bin. I thought about Adrienne flaunting her emerald-cut diamond, bought with the wealth I had generated.
I shifted the cardboard box entirely to my left arm.
My right hand reached up to my collar. My fingers closed around the thick plastic of my Zenith Tech employee badge.
I gripped the lanyard and yanked downward. The breakaway clasp snapped violently against the back of my neck, freeing the cord.
I held the plastic ID card in both hands. Theo's signature was stamped across the bottom right corner, right below my title: Director of Operations.
I bent the plastic backward. It resisted for a split second before snapping cleanly in half with a sharp crack.
I tossed the two broken pieces into the small metal trash bin tucked in the corner of the elevator car. They hit the bottom with a hollow clatter.
I turned back to Julian and plucked the black business card from his fingers. The cardstock was thick, heavy, and expensive. I slid it into the front pocket of my skirt.
"I don't just want my equity," I said, meeting his intense stare. "I want his seat on the board."
A slow, dangerous smile spread across Julian's face. It completely transformed his rigid features, revealing the ruthless predator underneath the bespoke suit.
"Done," he said.
Julian reached past my shoulder, his knuckles brushing the fabric of my blouse as he hit the lobby button on the control panel.
"The SEC subpoena will hit Theo's desk in forty-eight hours," Julian said. "Are you ready?"
