Chapter 2

The air in the office was different the next morning.

People were talking in the break room, then stopped when I walked past. Petra's section of the floor had turned into a gathering point—her workspace surrounded by people who had reasons to be somewhere else.

I caught one line as I passed.

"She's not going to actually do anything. She can't go after all of us."

I kept walking.

The afternoon was quiet until it wasn't.

Della showed up at my office door around two, holding a coffee. She knocked once, didn't wait for an answer, and set the cup on my desk.

"Thought you might need this." She gave me a careful smile—the kind that takes effort to hold.

"Petra doesn't mean anything personal by it," she said. "She just gets wound up. Everyone here actually cares about this place, Sera. It's just that if the money came to us directly, it would be more—useful. That's all people are trying to say."

"You think we should switch to cash too," I said.

"That's not—I'm on your side, I promise." She lowered her voice like we were confiding. "I'm worried about you. The way this is going online, it's not great. If you gave a little ground now, just to settle things down—sometimes that's the smarter move. A small gesture. People would notice."

She wasn't worried about me.

She was here to find out how much pressure it would take. Lobbying on behalf of people who'd decided I owed them something, using my goodwill toward her as the opening.

I remembered signing off on three months of her salary advance not four weeks ago.

Before I could answer, my assistant knocked and opened the door in the same motion—her face said it before she did.

"Sera. Petra's post got picked up by a few parenting influencers. It's trending now."

I picked up my phone.

The hashtag read: CEO Turns Pregnant Employees Into PR Props.

I scrolled to the comments. A cluster of new ones had appeared in the last hour. I checked the source data out of habit.

Company network.

"First-hand account: the nurses check in every two hours. They say it's care. What they're actually doing is confirming you're reachable."

"The nutrition program is completely standardized. My colleague was nauseous for her entire first week, filed a complaint, and nobody responded."

"The job guarantee is worthless. Someone on my team came back from leave to find her role had been quietly restructured. The signed letter meant nothing."

I read each one through to the end.

The meal plans were reviewed with the nutritionist four times before we finalized them. We ran monthly satisfaction surveys—I looked at every one personally. The nurse visits ran on the center's own schedule, written into the agreement every employee signed before moving in. The job guarantees had Marcus Thiel's notarization on file.

Whoever wrote these had used the service. Probably sent me a message at some point saying she didn't know how she would've gotten through it without the support.

Della was still talking. "—honestly, if you just showed some flexibility now, I really think people would come around—"

I picked up the coffee cup, walked to the trash can, and poured it out.

"Della."

She stopped.

"Get out."

Her expression froze. Then rearranged itself into something wounded. "Sera, I'm genuinely trying to help—"

"Get out."

She left.

The office went quiet. Then my phone started going.

A business partner. An investor contact. Two journalists I didn't recognize. All within the same ten minutes.

Messages were coming in faster than I could clear them.

You built this on the backs of vulnerable women and called it generosity.

A corporation is a corporation. Doesn't matter who's running it.

Hope your company folds.

I turned the phone face-down and walked to the window.

Two news vans were parked on the street below. Cameras already set up, pointed at the building.