Chapter 4
The Sterling Design building is all glass and steel, the kind of place that makes you feel small before you even walk through the door. I stand on the sidewalk, clutching my portfolio—the worn leather one I've had since graduation—and try to remember how to breathe.
Three days since Finn's post went viral. Three days of watching my professional reputation burn in real-time. Twelve clients have ghosted me. My former design school classmates have stopped responding to messages. I've been labeled, tried, and convicted in the court of social media, and the verdict is: gold digger, user, fraud.
But Victoria Sterling's assistant called yesterday. An interview. Today. It felt like a life raft in a hurricane.
The lobby smells like money—leather and expensive coffee and the particular silence that comes from thick carpets and thicker wallets. The receptionist, a woman with a severe bob and sharper cheekbones, barely glances at me.
"Mae Tucker. I have an appointment with Ms. Sterling."
She types something with nails that click like tiny knives. "Eighteenth floor. Someone will meet you."
The elevator is mirrored on all sides, forcing me to confront myself. I look tired. My blazer is from Target, three years old, and suddenly I'm aware of every loose thread. I tuck my hair behind my left ear—the tell, the lie I'm telling myself that I belong here—and force my hand back down.
The eighteenth floor is open-concept chaos. Designers huddle around monitors, their workstations decorated with mood boards and empty energy drinks. It's everything I've ever wanted. Everything I've been too afraid to reach for because Finn always said I wasn't ready, that I should wait, that I needed more experience.
A woman in her fifties approaches, silver hair cut in a geometric bob, wearing a black turtleneck that probably costs more than my rent. Victoria Sterling. Her eyes rake over me with the precision of a surgeon identifying where to cut.
"Ms. Tucker." Not a greeting. An assessment. "Your portfolio."
I hand it over. She flips through it standing up, right there in the middle of the office, and I feel every designer's eyes on us. On me. Judging.
"Competent," she says finally. "Derivative in places, but competent. You have a tendency to play it safe. Why is that?"
The question lands like a slap. Because Finn said my experimental work was 'too much.' Because I learned to dim my own light. Because I've been apologizing for taking up space since I was five years old.
"Fear," I say instead. The truth, raw and ugly. "But I'm done being afraid."
Something flickers in her expression. Respect, maybe. Or pity. Before she can respond, the glass doors to the main conference room burst open.
A man in his sixties, red-faced and sweating, storms out. "This is outrageous! Thirty years I've built this firm, and you can't just—"
"Mr. Sterling," a calm voice interrupts from inside the room. "The papers are signed. Your severance package is more than generous. Please don't make this undignified."
I know that voice. It lives in my bones.
Cassius emerges from the conference room, flanked by two lawyers in matching gray suits. He's wearing black today, three-piece, immaculate, and when his eyes find mine across the office, the entire room seems to tilt.
"What's he doing here?" I whisper to Victoria.
Her laugh is sharp and bitter. "He just bought us. Knight Capital now owns Sterling Design. As of—" she checks her watch, "—eleven minutes ago."
The floor drops out from under me.
Cassius crosses the space between us with the inevitability of a storm. He doesn't acknowledge the stares, the whispers, the palpable shock rippling through the office. He stops in front of me, and up close, I can see the exhaustion behind his eyes. He hasn't slept.
"Mae." My name in his mouth sounds like a prayer. Then he turns to address the room, his voice carrying the weight of absolute authority. "Everyone, meet your new Creative Director, Mae Tucker."
Silence. Thick and suffocating.
Victoria's face goes white. "You can't be serious. She's an applicant. An interviewee. She has no corporate experience—"
"She has vision." Cassius pulls something from his inner pocket. A battered sketchbook, its cover faded and worn. My childhood sketchbook. The one I thought I'd lost years ago. "I've kept every piece she's ever shown me. Her instincts are flawless. Her technical skills are unmatched. And unlike the previous leadership, she understands that design is about connection, not ego."
He hands the sketchbook to Victoria, who opens it with trembling hands. I watch her face change as she flips through pages of designs I drew at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Raw and unfiltered, before I learned to make myself palatable.
"This is..." Victoria looks up at me, and the skepticism has shifted into something else. Challenge. "Prove it. Apex Tech is coming in for a pitch meeting in six hours. They're our biggest potential client. If you can win them, I'll accept this... arrangement."
Cassius's jaw tightens. "That's not—"
"Deal," I interrupt. My voice doesn't shake. "I'll need access to your brand files, your previous pitch decks, and a strong espresso."
Victoria's smile is razor-thin. "You have four hours. The espresso machine is in the kitchen. Don't disappoint me, Ms. Tucker."
---
Four hours becomes six becomes nine. The office empties around me, designers filtering out with backward glances and whispered speculation. Victoria leaves at seven with a curt nod. Cassius tries to stay, but I send him away too. I need to do this alone.
The Apex Tech brief is a nightmare. They want to rebrand their entire platform to appeal to Gen Z without alienating their millennial user base. The previous pitch—Victoria's work—is sleek and safe and utterly soulless.
I tear it apart and start over.
At 2 AM, my eyes burning and my fingers cramping, I finish. The campaign is bold, unapologetic, built around the concept of 'digital authenticity in an artificial world.' It's everything I would have been too afraid to pitch a week ago.
It's the truest thing I've ever made.
---
Meanwhile, across the city, Finn sits in a basement bar that smells like stale beer and broken dreams. Marcus Chen, the loan shark, is a compact man with dead eyes and a handshake that feels like a threat.
"Fifty thousand," Marcus says, sliding the contract across the sticky table. "Twenty percent interest, compounded weekly. Your car is collateral. Your future paychecks are collateral. Your kneecaps are collateral. We clear?"
Finn signs without reading, his hand shaking with adrenaline and desperation. The money hits his account with a digital chime that sounds like salvation.
He opens his trading app, finds the crypto-stock Dior has been raving about—some blockchain nonsense that's 'guaranteed to moon'—and dumps every dollar into it.
By morning, he'll be richer than Cassius Knight.
By morning, Mae will come crawling back.
By morning, he'll have won.
The stock ticker blinks green, then red, then green again. Finn watches it like a man watching his own resurrection, never noticing the predatory smile on Marcus Chen's face as he walks away.
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