Chapter 8 - The Aftershocks at the Agency
While I was looking out over Manhattan, fifty blocks north, absolute panic had gripped the offices of my former employer.
The fourth-floor bullpen was dead silent except for the frantic clicking of mouse keys and the sound of Nick screaming into his landline phone from inside his glass-walled corner office.
"What do you mean, they pulled the account?!" Nick roared, slamming his fist down onto his desk so hard a coffee mug tipped over, spilling dark liquid across quarterly financial projections. "We've had that municipal transit contract locked in for three years! You can't just terminate us without a thirty-day review clause!"
The voice on the other end of the line—a jittery municipal liaison officer—sounded entirely indifferent.
"I'm sorry, Nick, but the directive came straight from the board of directors at Vance Global," the liaison replied crisply. "Furthermore, we've been instructed to audit all ongoing joint-venture marketing campaigns managed by your firm effective immediately. Good luck with your restructuring."
Click. The line went dead.
Nick stared at the phone in his hand as if it had turned into a venomous snake. He slowly raised his head, looking out through the glass walls of his office into the bullpen where thirty terrified employees were watching him with wide, anxious eyes.
The loss of the municipal transit account wasn't just a minor setback. It represented forty percent of the agency’s total operating revenue. Without it, payroll for the next month was impossible, rent on the commercial floor was past due, and layoffs would have to start before Friday.
Nick yanked open his office door and marched out into the center of the room.
"All right, listen up!" Nick barked, his face flushed a mottled, ugly crimson. "Nobody leaves until we figure out how to salvage this! Miller, call the regional transit director back and beg for a meeting. Sarah, pull up every email Sebastian Cole touched this month. Maybe we can salvage some of his old pitch decks—"
An account manager near the front row slowly raised her hand, her expression entirely blank.
"Nick," she said quietly.
"What?!"
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"You fired Sebastian this morning," she reminded him, her voice deadpan. "And he took all his client contacts, his unreleased campaign strategies, and his personal digital files with him when he cleaned out his desk."
Nick’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. The absolute, chilling realization that he had just fired the golden goose because it stopped to save a dying woman finally settled deep into his bones.
