Off limits

Chapter one New York City does not ease you in. It simply opens up loud, relentless, indifferent and you either keep moving or you get swallowed whole. I kept moving. It was seven forty-three on a Monday morning in June when I stepped out of the subway at Rockefeller Center and stood on the sidewalk like someone who had absolutely no idea what she was doing. The city moved in every direction at once. Cabs pressed bumper to bumper down Sixth Avenue, horns stacking on top of each other until they became something like music, aggressive, tuneless, alive. A man in a pressed suit pushed past me without a glance, a woman in impossible heels power-walked at a speed that felt like a personal insult. I adjusted the strap of my bag, a leather tote I'd spent two weekends restoring from a thrift store and looked up. Above me, the buildings rose so high they narrowed the sky into a thin luminous strip. Somewhere in that steel grid was the forty-first floor of Meridian Tower. And on the forty-first floor was Nexus Media. And in ten minutes, I was supposed to walk in there like I belonged. The lobby was designed to make you feel small. White marble floors and ceilings stretching twenty feet. Dark walnut walls that managed to look both expensive and effortless. Two receptionists behind a curved desk who looked specifically cast for the role. I gave my name and was given a lanyard. I was told to wait. I smoothed the front of my navy blazer, fitted, ironed twice this morning and once last night. The kind of piece meant to say I am serious and capable, and I know exactly where I am going. I was terrified there were six of us starting that day. A glass-walled conference room on the forty-first floor, the city sprawling endlessly below. A woman named Claire from HR walked us through the internship program with the warmth of someone who had delivered this speech a hundred times and would deliver it a hundred more. I sat at the far end and tried to absorb everything without looking like I was absorbing everything. The other interns were readable two reliable finance graduates in matching charcoal suits already exchanging LinkedIn handles. A design student named Felix drawing in the margins of his orientation packet. And then the girl across the table with natural hair and a smile that arrived before she even opened her mouth. She caught me staring and leaned in. "Maya," she whispered. "Don't worry. I'm terrified too." I liked her immediately. Zara, I mouthed back. She nodded like we'd just signed something. The sixth intern was already on his phone. That told me everything. Claire was midway through explaining the mentorship structure each intern paired with a senior team member for the summer when the conference room door opened. No knock, just the door swinging inward with a quiet authority that pulled every head in the room. He didn't rush, that was the first thing I noticed. Everyone else in this building moved at a controlled sprint, the particular velocity of people who believed their time was worth more than yours. But this man walked as like the room would wait for him. Like it always had. Tall. Dark hair pushed back, like he'd run a hand through it somewhere between his office and here and hadn't thought about it since. His suit was charcoal and fitted, he carried a single folder and a coffee cup, sitting both on the table without looking at them, his eyes already moving across the room, reading to us the way people who are very good at their jobs read a room. Quickly, thoroughly, without expression. He landed on each face for exactly one second. When he reached mine, he stopped . Then he moved on, exactly like the others, and I told myself I had imagined the pause entirely. "Sorry I'm late," he said to Claire, who waved her hand like lateness was a concept that simply didn't apply to him. "Interns," Claire said, "this is Ethan Cole. Vice President of Brand Strategy and one of your senior mentors for the summer." Ethan Cole looked at us again, this time with the faint, professional shape of a smile. It didn't reach his eyes. I wasn't sure anything did. "Welcome to Nexus," he said. Low and even. The kind of voice that didn't need volume to fill a room. "Try to keep up." He picked up his folder and walked out. Claire cleared her throat. "Right. Mentorship assignments. I was still looking at the door. Maya found me in the hallway afterward, both of us staring at the printed assignment sheets we'd just been handed. Please tell me you got someone normal," she said. I looked down at my sheet. Intern: Zara Collins. Senior Mentor: Ethan Cole, VP Brand Strategy. Floor 43, Office 12.bI folded the paper once. Carefully. “Define normal," I said. Maya looked at my sheet, then at me. The expression on her face was the one people make when they watch someone board the wrong train and debate whether it's too late to say something." Good luck," she said, she meant it. I looked back down at his name on the page. Crisp black letters. Completely unaware of the chaos they were causing. Ethan Cole. I had three rules coming into this internship:work hard, stay focused, don't do anything stupid. Standing in that hallway on the first morning of everything, assignment sheet in hand, I told myself I was still very much in control. I told myself that for eleven more days before I stopped believing it.