Chapter 4 - Returning to the Lion's Den
Thirty minutes later, I was back in my car, driving downtown toward the towering glass monolith of Vance Global Enterprises—one of the largest corporate conglomerates in the state.
According to Victoria Vance’s brief, sharp instructions over the phone, I needed to swing by my old office at the advertising agency to clear out my remaining personal belongings from my desk, and then report directly to the executive suite at Vance Global.
She hadn't explained why. She had simply said, “Bring your resume, Mr. Cole. And prepare to have a very interesting conversation.”
Parking in the familiar underground garage of my former employer, my stomach tightened with a familiar knot of humiliation. I took the elevator up to the fourth floor, stepping out into the bright, modern bullpen where my former coworkers were frantically typing away at their dual-monitor setups.
The moment I walked through the glass doors, the ambient noise in the office dropped by half.
Heads turned. Conversations died out mid-sentence.
Nick stepped out of his corner office, a smug, superior smirk plastered across his face as he crossed his arms over his chest. He looked me up and down as if I were a vagrant who had wandered in off the street.
"Back so soon, Sebastian?" Nick called out loudly enough for the entire floor to hear. "Forget your stapler? Or did you finally realize nobody else is going to hire an unemployed sentimentalist who stops for stray pedestrians?"
A few nervous chuckles rippled through the junior copywriters, though several senior account managers kept their eyes glued to their keyboards, suddenly deeply uncomfortable.
I didn't shrink back this time. The crushing despair I had felt in the car hours earlier had vanished, replaced by a cold, clear-eyed calm.
I walked slowly toward my old desk by the corner window, picked up my framed family photograph and my coffee mug, and dropped them into my cardboard box.
Nick walked over, leaning against the edge of the empty desk, looking down at me with feigned pity. "Look, Sebastian, I'm doing you a favor. The corporate world is a shark tank. If you stop to feed every stray fish, you end up as bait. You'll thank me one day."
I picked up the box, turned around, and looked Nick dead in the eye.
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"You're right about one thing, Nick," I said, my voice carrying clearly across the quiet bullpen. "The corporate world is a shark tank. And you just spent the morning firing the only person who actually knew how to swim."
Before Nick could formulate a sarcastic reply, I turned my back on him for the final time, walking out toward the elevators with my head held high.
