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Lena

I stare at the note in my hand, crumpled now from how tightly I’ve been holding it.

You don’t belong here. This place will kill you.

Four hours into my first day, and I’m already wondering if it might be right.

The Shergar Corp orientation video plays on a loop in the glass-walled conference room. The same polished executive has welcomed me to “the family” seventeen times now. I’ve counted. My notebook is filled with corporate buzzwords I’ve jotted down between moments of existential dread: synergy, disrupt, leverage, ecosystem. Words that mean nothing, designed to fill space where something real should be.

“Blackwell.”

I glance up.

Andra, my new supervisor, stands in the doorway, sharp-eyed, severe, and unimpressed with my existence. Her blouse is ironed within an inch of its life, her posture rigid. She looks exactly the same as she did in the company headshot I skimmed last night—except, in person, there’s something harder about her. More calculating.

But on the bright side, she’s not Marjorie.

“Follow me.”

No welcome aboard, no hope you’re settling in. Just follow me.

Her heels click like a metronome as she leads me through a maze of identical glass corridors. No offices have nameplates. No one looks up as we pass. It’s like I’ve stepped into some corporate hive mind, where everyone is plugged into the same invisible frequency.

“Everyone’s excited to meet our new executive assistant,” she says, though no one we pass even looks up from their screens. “Especially after what happened to the last one.”

I nearly trip.

“What happened to the last one?”

Andra stops so abruptly I almost collide with her.

She turns, head tilted like a curious dog—but there’s nothing friendly about it.

“Oh, didn’t they tell you? Heart attack. Very sudden. Very sad. His office was actually where yours is now.”

A disembodied voice from the ceiling announces something about quarterly projections, and I swear it sounds like it’s laughing at me.

We reach a frosted glass door. Andra swings it open without knocking. Inside, eight identical suits sit around a long, gleaming table. Too many teeth. Too many unreadable expressions.

“Everyone,” Andra announces, “this is Lena.”

Eight heads turn in unison.

I feel like I’m auditioning for a cult.

“We’ve been expecting you,” they say, almost in unison.

I take the only empty chair at the table.

The man at the head of the table, Warren Kline, CFO, steeples his fingers, his silver hair slicked back with mathematical precision. His suit is so crisp it might be bulletproof.

He slides a folder across the table. “We’ve heard such great things about you.”

I glance down.

It’s a dossier on me so comprehensive it includes my coffee order from three jobs ago. I wonder if they know about the parking ticket I contested in 2019. Probably.

“We have high expectations for this role,” says a woman to my right. Her lipstick is the exact shade of arterial blood. “Especially after recent… irregularities.”

Irregularities.

The word hangs in the air like cigarette smoke in a sealed room.

“Irregularities?” I repeat, trying to keep my voice steady.

Warren waves his hand dismissively. “Nothing to worry about. Just some unresolved matters left by your predecessor.”

The blood-lipped woman smiles. “We need someone who knows when to look closely and when to… not.”

Oh.

The subtext isn’t subtext at all.

I know what this is. I’m not an idiot.

They don’t want a secretary. They want a gatekeeper.

A convenient blind spot.

A controlled liability.

Fantastic.

But I need this job. I really need this job.

“Of course,” I say. “I’m very thorough.”

“Thorough is good,” says a bald man with eerily perfect teeth. “But flexible is better.”

The meeting drags on for forty-five excruciating minutes. They speak in corporate dialect, a language designed to communicate nothing while implying everything. By the end, my pen has carved “HELP ME” into my notepad.

“Now, considering Mr. Harrison’s schedule…” Andra says.

I’m all ears, but she watches me like she’s waiting for me to fail. She watches me like she already knows the outcome.

“You’ll be managing all of his communications,” Warren says, picking up where she left off. “His calendar, his travel, anything he requires while he’s working remotely. Which, as you’ll find, is most of the time.”

The blood-lipped woman smiles. “He’s very particular.”

I could bet money on particular meaning impossible , but I nod anyway.

“You’ll also be handling sensitive materials, so discretion is key,” Warren continues. “Certain correspondences require a... selective touch.”

Selective.

“I can handle that,” I reply, because what else is there to say?

Warren leans back, satisfied. “In that case, Andra will get you settled. Welcome to Shergar Corp.”