The way that sentence doesn’t just answer Elena—it cuts through every room I’ve ever been shoved into and reframed inside.
Elena’s attention flicks to me—quick, measuring—then back to Zoë like I’m background noise.
Good enough.
Also—fuck.
Elena sets the board down carefully. “You have ten minutes,” she says, voice quieter now, sharper. “Convince me I’m not wasting them.”
Zoë’s eyes don’t soften. They narrow. “Okay,” she says, and the word sounds like consent and challenge in the same breath.
Those ten minutes stop meaning ten.
Outside Elena Moretti’s office, the hallway is quieter than the lobby, like the building exhales once the door closes behind you and pretends nothing ever happened.
Zoë walks beside me without looking at me. Portfolio case back on her shoulder. Spine straight. Face unreadable in that way that isn’t calm—it’s control with teeth.
I can still hear Elena’s voice in my head. You have ten minutes. Convince me.
Zoë did. Without raising her voice. Without touching anything she didn’t mean to claim.
That should’ve been the end of it.
It isn’t.
We hit the elevator. The doors slide shut. The small, private box makes my skin remember the tunnel. The almost. The choice.
In the elevator, she finally speaks. “Don’t say ‘good job.’”
I let out a breath that isn’t a laugh. “I kept it to myself.”
“Don’t say anything,” she corrects.
The elevator descends. My phone buzzes again. I ignore it. The building lights flicker across her cheekbones, clean and sharp.
“Ten minutes,” I say, because I need to name something neutral before my mouth names her. “She gave you ten.”
“She gave me a test,” Zoë says. “And you watched.”
“Yeah,” I answer. “I did.”
The doors open onto the lobby. The guard’s attention snaps to us—then steadies. Like we belong here because she walked through it like she did.
Outside, the city is cold and glossy with night. Headlights smear across wet pavement.
A camera flash pops from somewhere near the curb.
Then another.
Her head turns a fraction. “Of course.”
“Keep walking,” I say.
“I know how to walk,” she says, and doesn’t speed up. Doesn’t hide. Doesn’t perform.
We’re almost at my truck when my phone lights up again—this time with a name on the screen I can use.
I answer. “Yeah.”
