Elena Hayes had exactly one framed photo on her new desk, and it wasn't of Alexander Vance.
It was of her and Leo, twelve years old and eight, grinning gap-toothed outside their father's old office at the university. She'd carried it through three apartments and a breakup, and now it sat on the corner-office desk that used to have Mark's name on the door. She turned it slightly, so it faced the room instead of her.
By eight-fifteen, whispers had already made two laps of the marketing floor. *Did you hear? Mark's out. The new girl is Director now.* Elena let them talk. She'd earned the right to be underestimated one more time before she stopped being underestimated at all.
The first thing she did was pull every campaign file from Mark's tenure. Not to expose anything yet — just to see wh
