Behind her, Arthur Vance moved like a consequence. Half a step back, half a step beside. A six-foot-seven reminder that some men didn’t perform protection. They simply blocked the doorway.
As they passed the marketing department, Chad tried to pop up from behind a cubicle like a whack-a-mole.
Arthur shifted. The sound of his suit jacket tightening across his back was enough.
Chad slowly sat back down.
April watched it all happen with a lopsided smirk. “I spent years thinking I was the dramatic one. Every time Chad hid my keys or “jokingly” crossed a line, he’d call me Cupcake and say I didn’t have a sense of humor. I started to believe him. I thought I was the glitch.”
“The server room felt like a revelation,” she said. “And Jax... he’s a lot. But he saw it. He saw what Chad was doing, and logged it. He saw what I couldn’t admit.”
For three years, she'd been chosenfor—managed, molded, Cupcaked. But in that cold, blue-lit room, she had done the choosing. And it felt like breathing.
Arthur reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his calculator. His thumb tapped the keys. Click. Click-clack. Click.
“Arthur?” she asked, “Are we... friends?”
His thumb hovered over the + key. Then he looked up. He looked like a man who'd been asked to solve a problem and intended to.
“Yes.” His thumb returned to the keys.
“Jax showed me something,” April said. “In the server room. Chad’s been trying to access my accounts.”
She hesitated. “Jax has been tracking him. Policy violations. Security breaches. HR’s been ignoring it.”
Arthur stilled. “What exactly did Jax show you?”
“A dashboard. Logs. Evidence of Chad accessing things he shouldn't. Using other people’s credentials. Jax says he’s reported it. More than once.”
Arthur’s jaw tightened.
“I flagged inconsistencies. I failed to follow up.” He turned the calculator over in his hands. "Now I will. I don’t tolerate corruption.
“So what happens now?”
"Now, the system finally gets to work the way it was designed."
A laugh bubbled up, sharp, bright, and just a little wicked. "If you’re following up," she said, stepping closer, "how do you feel about the audit being... extensive? Exhausting? Methodical?"
Arthur tilted his head. The calculator clicked. “Go on.”
“I want to bury him in effort. I want him to spend every waking hour justifying his existence to a system that doesn’t care.”
Arthur smiled. "Audits," he murmured, like reverence. "Itemized receipts reconciled against mileage logs. Expense ratios flagged for variance. Mandatory resubmission until every decimal matches the record."
"Can you do that?"
Arthur slid the calculator back into his pocket, hand resting briefly over his heart.
"I noticed his Q3 expense reports were... sloppy. I ignored them. He was a rounding error. Now? He’s a non-compliance emergency. I will find a typo on page four of every form he submits," Arthur said. "Affidavits for missing five-dollar coffee receipts. Direct deposit resubmitted until the signature matches the record."
He didn’t blink.
“By the time I’m done with him, he’ll be too tired to remember your name.”
April beamed. "Arthur Vance, you are the most beautiful wall I’ve ever met."
“I’m an accountant, April,” he said, already turning toward the elevator. “Everything must balance.”
