Chapter 8
The cafeteria on the seventh floor was mostly empty, the hum of the commercial espresso machine providing a dull background drone. Maya sat at a corner table, stirring a cup of black coffee that she had long since stopped drinking. The heavy silence of the morning hung over her like an physical weight.
The glass door swung open, and Elena walked in. She had removed her suit jacket, leaving her in a crisp white silk blouse and tailored black trousers. She carried two cups of coffee, setting one down uninvited on Maya’s table before taking a seat opposite her.
“You undermined me in the boardroom,” Elena said casually, blowing softly across the surface of her coffee.
“I was trying to prevent a corporate bloodbath,” Maya replied, not bothering to look up. “You didn't just audit Clara yesterday, Elena. You backed her into a corner so hard she didn't have any options left. That wasn't justice. That was target practice.”
Elena took a slow sip of her coffee, her expression unreadable. “Clara made her bed the moment she touched client escrow funds. You’ve always had a blind spot for people who play the victim, Maya. It’s an admirable trait, and it’s also a professional liability.”
“And your trait is being a cold-blooded machine,” Maya snapped, finally lifting her gaze to meet Elena’s. “You didn't care about the firm’s money. You wanted Clara out so you could buy out her shares at a fraction of their value before the merger next quarter. I saw the restructuring proposal on your desk last week.”
Elena didn't flinch. Her dark eyes remained steady, though a flicker of genuine irritation crossed her features. “Business is war, Maya. You either conquer or you get conquered. If Clara wasn't smart enough to protect herself from her own husband’s debts, she had no business sitting at our table.”
“She was our friend, Elena!” Maya slammed her coffee cup down onto the saucer, the liquid sloshing over the rim. “Remember college? Remember when we slept on that terrible futon eating ramen because we believed we could build something together that actually mattered? When did you decide that human beings were just collateral damage?”
May you like
Elena set her cup down with deliberate slowness. The silence between them stretched, heavy and profound, loaded with two decades of shared history that was rapidly burning down to ash.
“People change, Maya,” Elena whispered, her voice dropping all pretense of corporate bravado. “Or maybe they just finally stop pretending to be someone else.”
