Kenneth shot me a glare but stepped aside to clear the aisle.

I stood and walked into the director's office, every pair of eyes in the department following me like spectators at a show.

Edmund gestured for me to sit. I didn't move.

"Mr. James, just say what you need to say."

He flashed me the same fake smile I'd been looking at for nine years.

"The decision to reassign the Cloudridge project lead was made by senior management after careful consideration."

His fingers tapped the desk in that habitual rhythm of his.

"Kenneth has the credentials and the connections. He's a better fit for this project. You've been in this industry long enough to understand how these things work without me spelling it out."

"But I've been on this for a year!" My eyes burned. "Do you have any idea how many doors got slammed in my face? How many people looked right through me? How many nights I worked until dawn?"

"Not a single person in this department believed in this project. I wrote the proposal alone. I coordinated with every agency alone. I drafted every design and drew every blueprint alone. And now that we're about to sign, you hand it to someone else? How is that fair?"

"Ronnie," he said, switching to that patronizing, fatherly tone. "I'll admit you contributed to this project. But let's be honest, it was the company's platform that made it possible. On your own, you couldn't have gotten past the front gate at Cloudridge."

He looked at me, his eyes carrying the weight of a lecture he clearly enjoyed giving.

"You came here straight out of school. All these years, without the company investing in you, would you even have a salary? A design fee? People shouldn't forget where they came from. Show some gratitude."

"Gratitude?"

I laughed. Not because anything was funny.

"My second year here, the company landed a rush project right before the holidays. Everyone left. On New Year's Eve, I was the only person in this entire building, revising design drafts alone. After the contract was signed, you didn't mention my name once at the meeting. No design fee. No overtime pay."

"Two years ago, when Chen's project blew up, I'd just come out of surgery for appendicitis. You called me in to fix the drafts. The strain tore my stitches open and I had to get re-sutured. Afterward, you told Mr. Delgado it was a 'team effort.'"

"And now you want to lecture me about gratitude? Tell me, which one of us actually has none?"

I held his gaze.

"Everyone in this department, yourself included, takes freelance jobs on the side. Have I ever? Not once. Not even a five-hundred-square-foot apartment renovation for a few hundred bucks. Every single project went through the company's books. You told me not to forget where I came from. Have you remembered any of that?"

Edmund's face cycled through shades of red and white before settling into something dark.

"Ronnie! Watch your tone! You want to know why everyone froze you out? Why you got zero votes? Maybe take a look in the mirror!"

"I'll ask you one last time. The designs. Are you handing them over or not?"

"No."

Not a second of hesitation.

"Then I take it you don't want this job anymore?"

"Take it however you like."

He was visibly seething.

"Fine. Don't come crying to me later."

Without another word, I unclipped my ID badge and set it on his desk.

"Don't worry. I won't."

I walked out of the director's office and headed for the restroom.

At the door, I heard Kenneth inside, on the phone.

"Hello, is this Mr. Delgado's direct line at Cloudridge Corp? This is Kenneth Fletcher, the new project lead from Pinnacle Design. I'll be handling things from here on out. Would it be possible to go over some details with Mr. Delgado?"

He didn't have it on speaker, but the restroom was dead silent, and the voice on the other end came through crystal clear.

I recognized it immediately. Alfred Chavez, Mr. Delgado's assistant.

"I'm sorry, we haven't received any such notification. We only work with the designated point of contact for this project. That would be Ronnie Butler."

The dial tone after the hang-up was piercing.

Like a death knell.

Kenneth stood frozen, phone still pressed to his ear.

I walked in. He looked at me, panic written across his face.

"You heard that?"

I smiled, said nothing, and stepped into a stall.

The moment I walked back into the office, the buzzing chatter died. The room went eerily quiet.

Dozens of contemptuous, gleeful stares pressed into my back like needles.

I sat down at my desk. My inbox had exploded with over a dozen emails, all from recruiting firms. Every single one was a rejection.

The reasons were nearly identical.

Mr. Butler, we regret to inform you that your overall qualifications and professional conduct do not meet our firm's referral standards. Thank you for your understanding.

I stared at those emails in silence, and the hostile looks suddenly made sense.

And I finally understood what Edmund had meant by "don't come crying later." He'd cut off every escape route.

A cold bitterness rose in my chest.

Not for my career.

For this rotten company.

Nine years I'd played it straight. Nine years of integrity. And now I was the one who "didn't meet professional conduct standards."

Meanwhile, the ones who'd poached clients under the company's name climbed the ladder without a scratch.

What a joke.

My phone rang. It was Herbert Delgado.

I didn't move from my seat. Just picked up.

"Mr. Delgado."

"Ronnie, what the hell is going on? Alfred just told me your company swapped out the project lead?"

"Yeah. Got the notice today."

"Whose call was that?"

I paused for a beat.

"The entire design department voted on it."

"That's absurd!"

His tone shifted, sharp and hard. "We're about to sign the contract and they pull you off? They think my forty-million-dollar design fee is some office popularity contest?"

His voice surged loud enough that it punched through the speaker and filled the silent office.

"Have they not read the supplementary agreement? You tell your people that Cloudridge's designated liaison is Ronnie Butler. We work with you and no one else!"

Kenneth shot up from his desk like he'd been spring-loaded and shoved open the door to the director's office.

"Edmund, Delgado from Cloudridge is on the phone. Says the only person he'll deal with is Ronnie."

I watched Edmund hurry to the doorway, steal a glance at me through the gap, then settle back into his chair.

He took a slow, deliberate sip of tea.

"Relax. We'll have Mr. Donaldson make the call. You think some low-level employee gets to hold us hostage? Just let it play out. A client isn't going to blow up a deal over one guy."

Smug certainty was written all over his face.

"A thousand luxury units. A project worth hundreds of millions. Delgado knows which side his bread is buttered on."

I looked away and listened to the sigh on the other end of the line.

"So what's your plan now?"

"I'm going to resign."

"Do it. A company like that is garbage."

I was quiet for two seconds.

"Mr. Delgado, is that supplementary agreement naming me as designated liaison still valid?"

He seemed caught off guard for a moment, then his voice came back firm. "It's valid. I wasn't joking. They swap you out, the contract doesn't get signed. Period."

I let out a quiet breath.

"Thank you, Mr. Delgado."

The second I hung up, I uploaded a photo of that agreement to LinkedIn.

Then I printed a resignation letter.

I pushed open the door to the director's office and set the letter on his desk.

"Mr. James. My resignation. Sign it."

He stared at the paper for a few seconds, then lifted one eyebrow.

"You're sure about this?"

"I'm sure."

He signed it with a dismissive scoff, pen scratching across the page.

"Didn't you get the rejections?"

"I did."

"And you still have the nerve to quit?"

I placed the supplementary agreement on his desk.

My voice was perfectly calm.

"Because I have this."