The portfolio case sat on Sloan's kitchen table like a time capsule from another life. I hadn't opened it in seven years. The leather was dusty, the brass clasps tarnished. I ran my fingers over the Columbia insignia embossed on the corner and felt something shift in my chest—not quite nostalgia, not quite grief. Something sharper.

"You sure about this?" Sloan asked. She was leaning against the counter with her coffee, watching me with that careful lawyer's gaze that meant she was already three steps ahead in the conversation.

"No," I said. I popped the clasps. The sound echoed in the quiet apartment. "But I'm doing it anyway."

Inside, my thesis project stared back at me. The drawings were still crisp, the models photographed from every angle. A mixed-use waterfront development that had won a national student prize. My professor had written in the margin of the final review: *This is the work of someone who will reshape skylines.* I'd believed him then. I'd stopped believing somewhere around year three with Sebastian, when he'd glanced at this same portfolio over breakfast and said, "Cute hobby," before returning to his emails.

I spent the next two days updating my resume, reaching out to old Columbia contacts, and submitting applications. It felt like learning to use muscles I'd forgotten I had. My hands remembered how to draft. My mind remembered how to think in elevations and sections. By the third day, a SoHo studio called. They wanted to meet.

The interview lasted an hour. The senior partner—a woman named Diane Chen who'd been profiled in Architectural Digest—spread my portfolio across her desk and asked sharp, specific questions about load-bearing walls and zoning variances. I answered without hesitation. When she offered me the associate position, I shook her hand and felt, for the first time since the Plaza, like I could breathe all the way down.

That evening, I sat at Sloan's kitchen table sketching on napkins—ideas that had been locked in my head for years, finally allowed out. Sloan ordered Thai food and didn't interrupt. She just refilled my water glass and let me work. The old current of creative excitement hummed through me, electric and unfamiliar, like rediscovering a language I used to speak fluently.

Six days later, Diane Chen called again. Her voice was different this time. Careful. Apologetic.

"Ivory, I'm so sorry. There's been a budget issue. We're going to have to rescind the offer."

I sat very still. "A budget issue."

"Yes. I really am sorry. You're incredibly talented. I hope you'll keep us in mind for future opportunities."

She hung up before I could respond.

The second firm went dark after an enthusiastic initial call. The third scheduled an interview and canceled the morning of with a terse email about "shifting priorities." By the fourth rejection, I wasn't surprised anymore. I was something else entirely.

Sloan made calls. She had contacts everywhere—litigators, corporate counsels, people who knew people who knew things. It took her two days to confirm what I already knew in my bones.

"Sebastian's blacklisting you," she said. We were in her living room. Rain streaked the windows. "The Lawrence Group has partnerships with half the commercial real estate in Manhattan. He's leveraging them. Quietly. No firm that wants to work with his properties is going to hire you."

I absorbed this information the way you absorb a diagnosis you've been expecting. With a stillness that felt like ice forming over deep water.

"He's trying to starve you back," Sloan continued. Her voice was tight with fury. "Force you into dependence. Make you come crawling back because you have no other options."

I looked at her. "He miscalculated."

She studied my face. Then she got up, went to the kitchen, and returned with the good whiskey—the bottle she kept for emergencies. She poured two glasses. This was only the second time in our friendship she'd opened it.

"Missing him doesn't mean you were wrong to leave," she said, handing me a glass.

I took it. The whiskey burned clean and sharp. I didn't cry. I didn't waver. I sat there until midnight, turning something over in my mind, examining it from every angle the way I used to examine design problems at Columbia. When I finally spoke, my voice was calm.

"I need one afternoon and a courier service."

Sloan's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "What are we doing?"

"Returning everything," I said. "Every gift he ever gave me. Every piece of jewelry, every designer bag, every watch. All of it. Catalogued, boxed, and delivered to the Lawrence Group's front desk with a note."

"What's the note going to say?"

I met her eyes. "'We're even. Don't look for me.'"

Sloan raised her glass. "I'll get the boxes."