The afternoon crawls by. I answer emails. Coordinate calendar adjustments. Update the donor response matrix.
Nico doesn’t leave his office. At one point he sets the smart glass back to transparent, so I can see him on calls, reviewing documents, and doing whatever it is billionaire CEOs do when they’re not crushing their employees’ souls.
He doesn’t look at me.
Not once.
This is it. He’s figuring out how to fire me. Probably consulting with HR right now about severance packages and legal liability.
At least I said my piece.
At least I went out swinging.
At 5:47 PM, my laptop chimes with a new email.
I glance at the notification.
From: N. Rossi
To: B. Dawson
Subject: Tomorrow
My stomach drops.
Here it comes.
I click open the email.
Four sentences. No greeting. No signature beyond his initials.
3 PM tomorrow.
Board prep meeting, main conference room.
Prepare standard meeting materials and take notes.
Ensure coffee service is arranged for 2:45 PM.
-NR
No acknowledgment of our conversation.
No hint that he heard a single word I said.
Just... business as usual.
Take notes. Arrange coffee. Be invisible.
The message is clear: Nothing has changed.
My throat tightens. That fragile pride from earlier? Gone. Replaced by something that tastes suspiciously like humiliation and resignation.
Of course nothing changed. What did I expect? A heartfelt apology? A promotion? Some grand acknowledgment that I was right?
This is Nico Rossi. The man treats who emotions like inefficiencies to be optimized away.
I’m his secretary.
