Chapter Twenty-Eight — Part One
**Pink Slip**
*(Amira Rivera — first person)*
The boardroom door closed behind me with a sound that felt final. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just precise—like a seal being pressed into wax. I stood there for a beat, box in my arms, cardboard edges biting into my skin. My name was still etched in gold on the glass behind me, but it already felt like it belonged to someone else. Inside the box: my mug, a plant I forgot to water, a framed photo from a company retreat that suddenly felt obscene. Proof I'd existed here. Proof I no longer did.
"Shame," Margaret Ellis said, stepping into my path as I turned down the hall. Her mouth curved into something that pretended to be sympathy. "Such promise. Such… poor judgment."
I didn't stop. "You should bottle that concern," I said lightly. "Sell it to XMZ. They're hungry."
Her eyes narrowed. "Consequences catch up with girls like you."
I kept walking. "So do cameras."
They were waiting for me at the elevator bank—phones raised, whispers popping like static. Someone had tipped them. Of course they had. When the doors opened, I stepped in without flinching, chin up, box steady in my arms. I wouldn't give them the tremor they wanted.
The lobby was worse. XMZ vans idled by the curb like sharks. Flashbulbs exploded the moment the doors slid open and I stepped outside into the afternoon glare.
"Amira! Over here!"
"Did you sleep with your boss?"
"Are you being fired for the affair?"
"Any comment on Cassandra Hale Archer?"
I didn't answer. I walked. The box felt heavier with every step. My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I didn't look. I could feel the story forming without me—my face, my heels, the cardboard box reduced to a symbol. Fallen. Dismissed. Disgraced.
"Smile!" someone called.
I did. Not wide. Not soft. Just enough to say: *You don't own me.*
Inside the car, the noise dulled to a distant roar. I closed my eyes and counted breaths until my hands stopped shaking.
---
My apartment smelled like dust and lemon cleaner. I set the box down on the kitchen table and leaned against the counter, letting the quiet settle. The numbers ran through my head whether I invited them or not: rent paid, groceries stretched thin, one consultation I could afford if I was careful. Pride and panic tugged at me from opposite ends of the same rope.
My phone buzzed again.
**Julian:** *I'm so sorry. Are you home?*
I stared at the screen, the anger flaring hot and fast. Sorry didn't pay rent. Sorry didn't stop the cameras.
Then there was a knock.
I opened the door to him standing there, suit jacket slung over his shoulder, tie loosened, guilt etched deep around his eyes. He looked smaller somehow, less certain. Human.
"You shouldn't be here," I said.
"I know," he said. "But I couldn't not come."
I stepped aside. We didn't talk at first. He followed me into the bedroom, the space suddenly charged with everything we hadn't said all day. I sat on the edge of the bed; he stood, hands braced on the dresser, staring at the floor like it might give him absolution.
"They were waiting for me," I said finally. "XMZ. Outside the firm. Someone tipped them off."
His jaw tightened. "I'll handle it."
"You couldn't handle it when it mattered," I shot back, then softened, exhausted by my own anger. "I know. I know what you're up against."
He looked at me then, really looked. "I never wanted this for you."
"And yet," I said.
He moved closer, the space between us closing without decision, without strategy—just gravity.
When he kissed me, it wasn't gentle. It wasn't an apology. It was a collision. I grabbed his lapels, not to pull him closer, but to hold on, my fingers twisting into the expensive wool until the fabric threatened to tear. I poured every second of the day's humiliation into his mouth—the reporters' shouts, Margaret's smug pity, the gold lettering on the door that meant nothing now. I bit his lower lip, hard, tasting copper, needing him to feel the sharp edges of my ruin. He didn't pull away. He groaned, a low, guttural sound, and kissed me back with a desperation that felt like drowning.
He walked me backward until my legs hit the mattress, and we went down in a tangle of limbs. His hands were everywhere, frantic and rough, pulling at the buttons of my blouse until one popped free and skittered across the floor. I didn't care. I wanted him to ruin me the way the world had, to strip away the professional armor until there was nothing left but the raw, bleeding truth of us.
"Julian," I gasped, but it sounded like a curse.
He silenced me with his mouth, his tongue sweeping mine with an aggression that bordered on violence. This wasn't making love; it was a war we were fighting with our bodies. I clawed at his shoulders, digging my nails in, needing to mark him, to leave a physical record of my pain on his skin. He hissed, his hips grinding into mine, hard and insistent through the layers of clothes. I could feel him, thick and demanding, and my body answered with a traitorous, desperate heat that made me hate him even as I arched against him.
He yanked my skirt up, his fingers digging into my thighs, bruising. I hitched my legs around his waist, locking my ankles behind his back, pulling him into the cradle of my hips. The friction was maddening, not enough, too much. I was wet, aching, furious that he could make me feel this when I wanted to scream.
I fumbled with his belt, my hands shaking, my breath coming in ragged sobs against his neck. He didn't help me. He just watched me with dark, hungry eyes, his chest heaving, his jaw set in a line that looked like pain. When I finally freed him, he didn't wait. He shoved his underwear down and thrust into me, deep and unrelenting, filling me with a single, sharp stroke that tore a cry from my throat.
It was too much. It was exactly what I needed.
I threw my head back, my neck arching, as he began to move. There was no rhythm, only a primal, driving need. He pistoned into me, his hands gripping my hips so hard I knew there would be fingerprints tomorrow. I met him thrust for thrust, my anger boiling over, my nails raking down his back. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted him to break. I wanted him to be as destroyed as I was.
"You did this," I snarled in his ear, my voice ragged. "You did this to me."
"I know," he gritted out, his rhythm faltering, becoming erratic. "I know, baby. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Don't be sorry," I spat, bucking my hips up to take him deeper, punishing us both. "Just feel it. Feel what you cost me."
He did. He slammed into me, his control shattering. His face was buried in my neck, his breath hot and ragged against my skin. I could feel the tension in his shoulders, the way his muscles bunched and coiled as he drove into me, again and again, seeking an oblivion that neither of us would find. It was messy and raw, the sound of skin slapping against skin loud in the quiet room, mingling with our harsh gasps and the wet, slick sounds of our joining.
I came suddenly, violently, my orgasm ripping through me like a shockwave. My inner muscles clamped down around him, milking him, and he choked out a sob, his movements turning jerky and uncoordinated. He followed me over the edge, burying himself deep inside me as he pulsed and emptied himself, his body shuddering with the force of his release.
For a long moment, we just lay there, tangled together, the only sound our harsh breathing slowly returning to normal. The anger was still there, humming beneath my skin, but it was different now. Spent. Exhausted.
When he finally lifted his head to look at me, his eyes were red-rimmed. He brushed a strand of hair away from my face, his touch surprisingly gentle.
"I never wanted this for you," he whispered again.
"And yet," I said, my voice hoarse.
We lay there for a while, the silence heavy but not entirely unwelcome. Slowly, the room felt quieter for it. Not solved. Just… held.
For a while, we talked. We talked about her—about Cassandra—in low, bitter murmurs, the kind that spill when defenses are down. He told me how she curated chaos, how she used procedure like a blade. I told him how she smiled when the recusal landed, how she warned me I'd made myself visible.
"She doesn't need to win," he said. "She just needs you to lose."
I nodded. "She likes to make people doubt their own versions of events."
He scoffed. "She's a master at it."
I tucked that away. Every word. Every detail. Not because I was plotting—not yet—but because truth had a way of becoming currency later.
When he left, the apartment felt colder.
---
The next morning, my phone lit up with messages before I could even make coffee. Reactions. Headlines. Threads. And one more thing.
Elaine.
I saw her in the hallway of the building when I returned to clear out the last of my desk. She stood near the elevators, crisp and smug, a badge swinging from her wrist like a trophy.
"Rehired," she said, leaning in. "Turns out loyalty matters."
I smiled at her, slow and deliberate. "Careful," I said. "Loyalty is expensive."
She laughed as I walked past, the sound following me down the hall. Behind me, Margaret's voice carried—something about *standards* and *lessons learned*—but I didn't turn around. I didn't give them the satisfaction of watching me fold.
Outside, XMZ was still there. So was I.
I set the box in the trunk, closed it gently, and sat in the driver's seat until my pulse steadied. The city went on around me, indifferent and loud. They thought this was the end of the story.
I wiped my eyes, started the engine, and pulled into traffic.
It wasn't.
Chapter Twenty-Eight — Part Two
Terms and Conditions
(Amira Rivera — first person)
By evening, the adrenaline wore off.
That was the dangerous part.
The quiet after chaos has teeth—it lets the fear catch up, lets the math creep back in. I sat at my kitchen table with my laptop open, bank app glowing like an accusation. Numbers didn't lie. They didn't soften things either.
Two months. Maybe three if I stopped buying anything that wasn't strictly necessary. Rent. Utilities. Food. One consultation with a decent attorney if I was careful—and then what?
I closed the laptop before panic could settle in too deep.
My phone buzzed.
Julian:
Can I come back? Just to talk.
I stared at the message longer than I should have.
He came anyway.
He always did.
This time he looked angrier—not explosive anger, but the cold, focused kind. The kind that meant something had already gone wrong somewhere else.
"They reinstated Elaine," he said without preamble.
"I know," I replied. "She made sure I knew."
His mouth tightened. "Cassandra's flexing."
"Cassandra always flexes."
He paced the living room, rubbing a hand over his jaw. "She's telling people you were reckless. That you forced my hand."
I laughed softly, without humor. "That's rich."
He stopped pacing. Looked at me. "She's preparing something."
I felt it then—that instinctive chill. "What kind of something?"
"The kind with letterhead."
The knock came less than an hour later.
Not dramatic. Not violent. Just official.
A courier stood in the hallway, expression neutral, clipboard ready. I signed without reading, fingers numb. The envelope felt heavier than it should have.
Julian watched from the couch, jaw set.
I opened it slowly.
The words blurred together at first—legal phrasing polished to a mirror shine—but the headline cut clean:
ALIENATION OF AFFECTION
I sank into the chair.
"She's suing me," I whispered.
Julian swore under his breath. "I'll pay for your attorney."
I shook my head immediately. "No."
"Amira—"
"No," I repeated, firmer. "If I take your money, she owns the narrative. She'll say I slept my way into a legal defense."
"She'll say it anyway."
"Then I don't give her proof."
Silence stretched between us. He looked torn—protective instinct at war with the reality he lived in.
"She's not stopping," he said quietly. "This is escalation."
"So is firing me," I replied. "So is putting cameras outside the firm. So is rehiring Elaine like nothing happened."
He nodded. "She wants you isolated."
"Too late," I said. "I already am."
Later—after the paperwork lay spread across the table like a threat we couldn't unsee—he stayed. Not because it was safe. Because neither of us knew how to let go when everything else was already gone.
We talked in low voices, stripped of performance. He told me how Cassandra tracked patterns, how she baited people into mistakes and then documented them like trophies. I told him about the texts, the way she liked to remind me she was watching.
"She doesn't rage," he said. "She records."
I listened. Filed it away.
When he finally slept, I moved quietly.
Not to plot—at least that's what I told myself. Just to prepare. I slipped the small tracker from my drawer, the one Eli had insisted I keep "just in case." My hands shook as I attached it inside the lining of Julian's jacket, my chest tight with the knowledge that this crossed a line.
I hated that I felt justified.
In the morning, Julian kissed my forehead, soft and lingering. "I'll fix this," he promised.
I watched him leave, knowing promises were currency Cassandra had already devalued.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
Papers look good on you, Ms. Rivera.
Court is where we finish this.
I sat down hard, the weight of it pressing in from all sides.
Fired.
Broke.
Sued.
And still standing.
I opened my laptop again—not the bank app this time, but my notes. Names. Dates. Patterns. Every careless word, every quiet threat, every smile that hid a blade.
They thought I was done.
They were wrong.