Chapter 5 Expense Report Gauntlet
FIVE
Expense Report Gauntlet
April
April’s phone buzzed as she stepped into the hallway with Arthur.
Another text. Unknown number.
She glanced back through the reinforced glass. Jax was watching, phone in hand, that wicked smirk back on his face. The second their eyes met, he dropped out of sight.
Then Jax popped back up and gave an awkward little wave.
Her phone buzzed again.
UNKNOWN: Feel free to lay down more rules.
UNKNOWN: I think I’ve proven I’m good at following them.
UNKNOWN: No cryptic poetry this time.
UNKNOWN: I’m learning.
April smiled to herself. Then tapped the number, added a name. JAX
April’s heels clicked an uneven rhythm. She clutched the hardware key Jax had given her, cold and heavy in her palm.
Behind her, Arthur Vance moved like a consequence. Half a step back, half a step beside. A six-foot-seven reminder that some men didn’t perform protection. They simply blocked the doorway.
As they passed the marketing department, Chad tried to pop up from behind a cubicle like a whack-a-mole.
Arthur shifted. The sound of his suit jacket tightening across his back was enough.
Chad slowly sat back down.
April watched it all happen with a lopsided smirk. “I spent years thinking I was the dramatic one. Every time Chad hid my keys or “jokingly” crossed a line, he’d call me Cupcake and say I didn’t have a sense of humor. I started to believe him. I thought I was the glitch.”
“The server room felt like a revelation,” she said. “And Jax... he’s a lot. But he saw it. He saw what Chad was doing, and logged it. He saw what I couldn’t admit.”
For three years, she'd been chosen for—managed, molded, Cupcaked. But in that cold, blue-lit room, she had done the choosing. And it felt like breathing.
Arthur reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his calculator. His thumb tapped the keys. Click. Click-clack. Click.
“Arthur?” she asked, “Are we... friends?”
His thumb hovered over the + key. Then he looked up. He looked like a man who'd been asked to solve a problem and intended to.
“Yes.” His thumb returned to the keys.
“Jax showed me something,” April said. “In the server room. Chad’s been trying to access my accounts.”
She hesitated. “Jax has been tracking him. Policy violations. Security breaches. HR’s been ignoring it.”
Arthur stilled. “What exactly did Jax show you?”
“A dashboard. Logs. Evidence of Chad accessing things he shouldn't. Using other people’s credentials. Jax says he’s reported it. More than once.”
Arthur’s jaw tightened.
“I flagged inconsistencies. I failed to follow up.” He turned the calculator over in his hands. "Now I will. I don’t tolerate corruption.
“So what happens now?”
"Now, the system finally gets to work the way it was designed."
A laugh bubbled up, sharp, bright, and just a little wicked. "If you’re following up," she said, stepping closer, "how do you feel about the audit being... extensive? Exhausting? Methodical?"
Arthur tilted his head. The calculator clicked. “Go on.”
“I want to bury him in effort. I want him to spend every waking hour justifying his existence to a system that doesn’t care.”
Arthur smiled. "Audits," he murmured, like reverence. "Itemized receipts reconciled against mileage logs. Expense ratios flagged for variance. Mandatory resubmission until every decimal matches the record."
"Can you do that?"
Arthur slid the calculator back into his pocket, hand resting briefly over his heart.
"I noticed his Q3 expense reports were... sloppy. I ignored them. He was a rounding error. Now? He’s a non-compliance emergency.
I will find a typo on page four of every form he submits," Arthur said.
"Affidavits for missing five-dollar coffee receipts.
Direct deposit resubmitted until the signature matches the record. "
He didn’t blink.
“By the time I’m done with him, he’ll be too tired to remember your name.”
April beamed. "Arthur Vance, you are the most beautiful wall I’ve ever met."
“I’m an accountant, April,” he said, already turning toward the elevator. “Everything must balance.”
Chad was about to find out how much he owed.
???
The air in the executive suite tasted like lobster and humiliation.
April sat at her desk, perfectly positioned between the glass-walled executive offices like a receptionist in a very expensive terrarium, and opened Excel.
Some people opened wine, April opened spreadsheets.
The grid appeared. Clean lines. Empty cells. A world of possibilities.
Her fingers started moving. Column headers, conditional formatting, the muscle memory of organizing chaos into patterns that made sense. Behind her, Arthur's voice rumbled through Chad's glass office wall: "September 14th. Coffee. Eight dollars. Business justification?"
She added a row. Then another. The rhythm was familiar. Comforting.
She pulled the project data and began building. Gantt chart. Dependency map. Column for "Days waiting," conditional formatting yellow at two days, red at three.
Wait.
She stopped, stared at what she'd built without thinking. A chart. Days waiting. Status columns. This wasn't self-soothing anymore.
"It was coffee, Arthur." Chad's voice cracked through the glass.
"Itemized receipt."
Her fingers moved faster. Pivot tables. VLOOKUP. Format painter.
Chad swallowed, "I don't—I don't have that—"
Arthur's pen clicked, the sound somehow worse than yelling. "Form 7B. Missing documentation."
April added dependency arrows. Made Chad look like exactly what he was: a single point of failure.
"Can we do this later?" Chad's voice pitched up. "I'm getting all these—"
"No."
Chad's computer pinged.
Then pinged again.
Then pinged again, louder, like a digital scream for help.
April kept her eyes on her spreadsheet. In corporate life, you did not make eye contact with a disaster unless you were prepared to take ownership of it.
Her laptop chimed. April glanced at it reflexively.
NEW INVITE from Public Relations
Event: Blackwood Engagement Press Release
Time: 8:30 AM Wednesday (Tomorrow)
Required Attendees: April Fueller, Killian Blackwood
She probably should have considered the practical implications of fake-marrying a man as rich and famous as Killian Blackwood before she started wearing his grandmother’s diamond ring.
Killian was in that board meeting that went until five. She couldn't exactly interrupt with "hey, your PR department just scheduled us to lie to the media tomorrow morning," so April opened her Calendar and created her own meeting instead.
NEW INVITE from April Fueller
Event: URGENT: Press Release Tomorrow???
Time: 5:30 PM Tuesday (Today)
Required Attendees: Killian Blackwood
Then closed the notification and returned to her spreadsheet with focused intensity, channeling the nervousness into conditional formatting. When she finished, the whole thing fit on one screen. Instant executive comprehension: This man is a bottleneck.
She built the summary box:
Items waiting on Chad: 12
Oldest wait: 9 days
Client-facing delays: 4
Revenue risk: $847K
A new popup appeared on Chad's screen: "Access Denied: Please Submit IT Request."
Chad closed it.
Two more appeared.
He clicked one.
His email signature updated itself at the bottom of the screen, visible to April even from her desk:
Sent from my tiny car.
Chad stared at it. Blinked. Tried to change it back.
It refreshed.
Sent from my tiny car.
His browser redirected to his LinkedIn profile. Suddenly displaying his actual title next to Chad's preferred one: Marketing Associate II instead of VP of Marketing.
"Not my LinkedIn!" Chad yelped, clicking desperately.
The profile refreshed. His custom headline now read: Aspiring Professional | Currently Learning.
A calendar notification popped up:
Practice Apologizing—2:00 PM.
Chad's face went red. He dismissed it.
Another appeared:
Apologize to April—2:30 PM.
From across the bullpen, April heard a snort. Jessica from Finance was pretending to read a report, her shoulders shaking.
April reviewed her work. Red cells everywhere. Three days waiting, four days, nine days. A visual map of every project Chad had strangled.
Chad looked up, wild-eyed. "Hey, is anyone else's system acting weird today? Can we reschedule IT maintenance or—"
No one answered.
Chad stood, tried to move toward the door.
Arthur shifted, occupying space the way a mountain does.
"October 3rd," Arthur continued, flipping a page on his clipboard. "Rideshare. Forty-two dollars. Client meeting or personal use?"
"I don't remember—"
"Then you'll need to submit an affidavit."
"A what?"
"Manager confirmation. Resubmission queue."
Another compliance training popup layered itself over the retraining module on Chad's screen, this one with an unskippable quiz every three minutes.
Chad sat back down.
Gripped his piece of wilted kale like it was proof he still belonged to the world.
April saved the file: Chad_Bottleneck_Map_Final.xlsx
Chad sat in his glass office, door open, visibility mandatory, staring miserably at that kale.
April felt it rising in her chest: glee, bright and sharp. It felt wrong for half a second. Like she was supposed to be sad, supposed to be processing. Supposed to be the bigger person.
But this was the universe returning his energy with interest, so she let the grin free.
Ten minutes later, her phone buzzed. She glanced at it while Arthur catalogued Chad's October rideshare receipts.
Laura: I have a bad feeling.
Laura: You've been radio silent for two hours.
Laura: This means you're either: (a) fine and forgot to text, or (b) doing something stupid.
Laura: Please confirm (a).
April typed quickly under the desk.
April: might do something stupid
Laura: Define "stupid."
Laura: 1) haircut
Laura: 2) email reply-all
Laura: 3) quit your job mid-sentence
Laura: 4) felony
Laura: 5) Marry your boss
April: ...
Laura: I notice you did not say "haircut."
Laura: April.
Laura: Please confirm you are not about to do 5.
Laura: Or 4. But mostly 5.
April: the engagement is FAKE
April: for REVENGE
April: totally normal
Laura: Nothing about that sentence is normal.
Laura: Nothing about this DAY is normal.
Laura: Are you having a breakdown.
Laura: Is this a breakdown.
Laura: Should I call someone.
April: im fine
April: better than fine
April: IM THRIVING
Laura: People who are thriving do not type in all caps about fake engagements.
Laura: Call me when you're done thriving.
Laura: I'll be here.
Laura: Worried.