Chapter 4: The First Day

The car moved through the city like a silent shark. I watched the familiar streets slide by, but they looked different from inside this tinted bubble. People on the sidewalk were just blurry shapes. I used to be one of them.

We pulled into the underground garage of the Axiom headquarters. The driver opened the door, and Angelica got out without a word. I followed, my bare feet touching the cold, smooth concrete of the garage. The air smelled of car exhaust and money.

We didn’t go to the main lobby. Angelica led me to a private elevator tucked away in a corner. She used her keycard, and the doors opened immediately. This was her entrance. No one else’s.

The elevator took us directly to the top floor. The one with the jasmine smell and the obsidian desk. When the doors opened, the office was already buzzing. A few people, all dressed in expensive, quiet clothes, were working at sleek desks. They all looked up as we entered.

Their eyes skipped right over Angelica. They were used to her and landed on me. I saw the same shock I’d seen in the lobby, but here it was sharper, more professional. They masked it quickly, their faces becoming blank slates, but I saw the flicker in their eyes. The calculation. Who is she? Why is she here? Why is she ... like that?

Angelica didn’t stop. She walked straight toward her office at the far end. I followed, keeping two paces behind, just like I imagined a shadow would. I could feel their stares on my back, but I kept my shoulders straight and my eyes forward. I am a fact. I am a statement.

We passed a woman holding a tablet, who instinctively took a small step back to give us a wider berth. Her eyes were fixed on Angelica, but her whole body was angled away from me, as if my nakedness was a force field.

Angelica pushed open the heavy door to her office. “Sit there,” she said, pointing to a small, backless stool placed a few feet to the side of her desk. It was clearly new. Clearly for me.

I sat. The stool was hard and unforgiving. There was no slouching on it. I had to hold my core tight to keep my balance and my posture perfect.

Angelica sat behind her great black desk and picked up her phone. “Send them in,” was all she said.

A moment later, the door opened, and two men in suits walked in. They had important faces and confident strides. They barely glanced at me as they sat in the chairs facing Angelica’s desk. I was already doing my job. I was already part of the scenery.

But as they began talking about mergers and acquisitions, I sat perfectly still, my skin bare to the cool, conditioned air, and I knew I was the most powerful person in the room after Angelica. Because my presence, my silent, naked presence, was a weapon she was using, and I was the one holding it.

The meeting droned on. Words like “equity” and “market saturation” floated past me. I didn’t understand most of it, and I didn’t need to. My job wasn’t to understand. My job was to be.

I focused on staying perfectly still. The hard stool made my back ache, but I didn’t shift my weight. I kept my hands resting lightly on my thighs, my gaze fixed on a spot on the wall behind Angelica’s head. I was a statue. A living, breathing part of the office decor.

The two men never looked at me directly. But I could feel their awareness of me, a constant, low hum in the room. It was in the way one of them gestured a little too widely, as if subconsciously making sure his suit jacket was clearly visible. It was in the way the other wouldn’t quite look in my direction, his eyes always skittering away before they landed on me.