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GRACE

I show up to work two hours earlier than anyone expects, clutching a coffee I bought mostly for armor. The city air is sharp and wet, and I can still taste the burn of brandy and heartbreak from the night before. But I’m here.

The office is cold. My heels echo across the tile as I walk through the space like it’s foreign territory. Maybe it is now. Maybe I’ve already shed the skin that used to fit here, replacing it with one more comfortable in dust and heat.

My assistant does a double-take when I step off the elevator. He’s halfway through a yogurt and nearly drops his spoon. “Grace! I didn’t—I mean, I thought you were taking some time—”

“Change of plans,” I say smoothly. “Can you get Rianna in my office? Now.”

He stares wide-eyed, then bolts. I don’t wait for Rianna to follow. I go straight to my glass-walled, airless office.

I don’t sit. I stand behind my desk, looking at the fake plastic plants in the corner, arms folded, waiting.

It takes ninety seconds before Rianna enters, perfectly polished and already defensive.

“I assume this is about the article—”

“You assume right,” I cut in, voice flat. “Sit.”

She doesn’t. Of course, she doesn’t.

My nostrils flare, fury bubbling like lava. “You leaked my notes. You rewrote entire sections. You published without sign-off.”

She opens her mouth to object, but I don’t give her the chance.

“I don’t care if it was under pressure. I don’t care who gave you the green light. My name was on that piece, and it wasn’t mine. That’s not only lazy. It’s malpractice.”

Her expression tightens. “It’s not like I didn’t follow your framework—”

“You followed nothing but your own ambition.”

That lands. She shifts her weight, eyes narrowing. “I gave you joint credit,” she says. Like that matters. “It was only your piece because I was sick.”

I smile, humorless. “I hope you enjoy it. You’ll need it.”

A flick of my hand dismisses her. She hesitates, then turns and walks out, sharp heels loud against the floor.

I sit down for the first time and let the silence settle around me. It’s thin, temporary. I dial Joshua. He answers too quickly. “Grace! Glad to hear from you—”

“Don’t.” My voice is calm. Quiet. Cold. “You let a bastardized version of my article run under my name. You bypassed my sign-off. You let Rianna butcher my work, and now the whole world thinks I sold out a family I care about.”

A pause. A long one. Then: “You’re overreacting. The piece is doing numbers. That’s what matters—”

“Not to me.”

“Grace,” he says, oily now, patronizing, “don’t let emotions cloud the—”

I slam the receiver down. Hard. Final.

For a second, all I hear is the sound of my breath. Too fast. Too shallow. My vision blurs at the edges. The desk in front of me doesn’t look real anymore. Nothing does. I told myself I was coming in to take control. But now I’m shaking.

The silence returns, and this time, it feels like it might swallow me whole.

My hands grip the edge of the desk like it’s the only thing tethering me to gravity.

The air is too thin, the glass walls too bright, too clear.

I’m reflected in them: wide-eyed, flushed, a woman unraveling in real-time.

I try to breathe. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.

It doesn’t work.

My heartbeat is a drumline in my ears. My chest is tight.

The room feels like it’s shrinking. Like I’m shrinking.

Like if I close my eyes for too long, I’ll disappear entirely.

I stand too fast and nearly stumble. This was supposed to be the brave part.

The closure. The part where I reclaim my power and walk away with my head high and my spine straight.

But I don’t feel powerful. I feel like I’m free-falling through everything I tried to build, and the ground’s rushing up too fast.

And then, at the exact moment I’m on the brink of throwing up or passing out or screaming loud enough to shatter the glass, I see it.

A cowboy hat.

Then another.

And another.

My mind can’t make sense of it at first. The spinning in my head doesn’t slow, but it shifts and gets knocked off course like someone threw a rock through the chaos.

They’re here.

Conway. Dylan. Brody.

Real as ever. Larger than life. Towering over sleek desks and shocked junior staffers. Dusty boots on polished floors. Denim and grit and purpose, cutting through the sterile world I thought was where I belonged.

My assistant follows them, looking small, panicked, and deeply out of his depth.

They don’t look at him. Their eyes are already locked on me.

Conway’s jaw is tight. Dylan’s shoulders are squared like he’s ready to haul someone out of the building if he needs to. And Brody… Brody looks like he hasn’t slept since I left.

They’re here.

Why are they here?

Maybe to threaten to sue the magazine? They’d agreed to be featured, so it’d be a struggle.

But their expressions aren’t murderous; they’re open and entreating. My hands shake at my sides, and tears burn at my throat, but then I remember the hashtag.

They can’t have seen it yet, can they? None of them had social media, and once they do, they’ll know I’m worthless, and they’ll turn right back around.