Cersei framed me with a knife two days later.
She chose the old records room because the security cameras there had been under repair for weeks.
Or so she thought.
K&E’s old building had been renovated three times, but I knew every outdated camera, every hidden backup feed, every blind spot that was not blind at all. I had approved the original security grid when Irwin was still too poor to afford a proper operations team. Men like Irwin forgot infrastructure once it worked. Women like me remembered who installed it.
Cersei cornered me near the file cabinets after everyone left.
She was wearing a white blouse and my mother’s broken necklace chain wrapped around her wrist like a trophy.
“Irwin thinks I’m delicate,” she said, smiling. “That is so useful.”
“Return what’s left of the necklace.”
“No.”
“Cersei.”
“Beg.”
I looked at her.
She stepped closer.
“You still don’t understand. I don’t need to be better than you. I just need him to believe I am.”
From the inside pocket of her blazer, she pulled a small knife.
My body went cold.
Not from fear.
From recognition.
This was not impulsive.
It was staged.
She pressed the handle into my hand, wrapped her fingers over mine, and dragged the blade lightly across her own arm.
Blood appeared in a thin red line.
Then she screamed.
The door flew open.
Irwin rushed in.
Behind him, two employees.
Cersei collapsed beautifully.
“Karma,” she sobbed. “Please don’t kill me.”
Irwin looked at the knife in my hand.
Then at her blood.
Then at me.
For one second, there was a chance.
Not one of mine.
His.
A final flicker of the boy who once looked for truth with his whole body.
“Irwin,” I said, “check the footage.”
Cersei cried harder.
“She’ll edit it. She controls everything. You know she does.”
“Check the footage,” I repeated.
Irwin’s face closed.
“I can’t believe I ever trusted you.”
The sentence went through me so cleanly that at first I did not feel the cut.
He crossed the room and took the knife from my hand, not gently.
“You have been so jealous, so manipulative, so desperate to get rid of her—”
“Call security,” I said.
“What?”
“Call the police. Pull the footage. Let’s do this properly.”
Cersei’s sob hitched.
There it was.
A tiny fracture.
Irwin did not see it.
Landon would have.
Irwin grabbed my arm.
“You think I’ll let you hurt her again?”
I stared at his hand on me.
In my head, memories played without permission.
A seventeen-year-old boy shielding me from rain.
A hospital corridor.
A graveyard.
A vow.
The name K&E written in marker.
His voice saying,
as long as you’re right, I won’t let anyone hurt you
.
Now his fingers were bruising my skin because I was right and he did not want to know.
“That was your last chance,” I said.
He let go as if burned.
“I owed you three. You used them.”
Something in my voice made him hesitate.
Cersei clutched his sleeve.
“She scares me, Irwin.”
He turned back to her.
Of course he did.
I walked out.
Not running.
Not crying.
The hallway lights hummed above me. My kidney ached deep under my ribs. The office smelled like burnt coffee and printer toner. Employees watched from behind monitors, eyes flicking away when mine found them.
By the elevators, Landon stood waiting.
He did not ask if I was all right.
He had learned.
Instead, he said, “Ms. Jones has the backup footage.”
I closed my eyes.
“Good.”
“You’re shaking.”
“From what?”
“Grief,” I said. “But not for him.”
We left K&E together.
The next morning, I resigned.
Irwin accepted with the arrogance of a man who believed departure was a tantrum.
“You think I care whether you leave?” he said over the phone while Cersei murmured in the background. “K&E will run just fine without you. So just go.”
I put the call on speaker so Ms. Jones could hear every word.
“Confirming,” I said, “you accept my resignation from all management duties and approve my withdrawal from the IPO signing ceremony unless otherwise legally required?”
He scoffed.
“Say it however you want. Leave.”
“Thank you.”
I ended the call.
Ms. Jones looked up from her notes.
“That will be useful.”
Landon stood near the window, one hand in his pocket, city light cutting across his face.
“You’re sure?”
He turned.
I smiled without humor.
“I am finished being sure before I’m respected.”
At the IPO signing ceremony, Irwin discovered exactly how much K&E needed me.
The ballroom had been rented months in advance. Blue lighting. Silver stage. Giant digital screen. Cameras ready. Investors in rows. Employees whispering with phones hidden in their laps. Irwin stood onstage in a navy suit, Cersei beside him in pale pink, smiling like she had already been photographed for the cover of a business magazine.
Then the exchange representative asked for the co-founder’s signature.
Silence.
Irwin laughed.
“She’s running late.”
Cersei touched his arm.