Chapter 7
Ross
I step out, my shoes sinking into the plush charcoal carpet.
I keep my head down, shielding my face; I can’t let anyone see the wreckage in my eyes.
I just need to reach my office, seal the door, and finish the text to Margot.
She doesn’t understand yet. She can’t. The denial sits heavy in my chest, a physical bruise pressing against my heart with every step.
I round the corner to my office, and the floor drops out from under me.
Tabitha is already there.
She’s standing by my desk, organizing a stack of files. She’s wearing a navy sheath dress, her hair pulled back in a severe, efficient bun. She looks professional. She looks capable. She looks exactly like the reason my wife isn’t speaking to me.
“Welcome back,” she says, not looking up from the documents. “I pulled the Dubai blueprints you asked for. And I got you the dark roast from the place on 5th, not the breakroom sludge. You looked like you needed the caffeine boost.” She’d be right, if I hadn’t already just gotten coffee myself.
Still, she places the steaming cup on my coaster. It’s exactly how I take it: black, two sugars. She knows my order better than she knows her own boyfriend’s.
A wave of nausea rolls through me, hot and sudden.
Yesterday, this would have been efficiency. Yesterday, this would have been the seamless teamwork that made us the firm’s golden duo. Today, it's invasive. It feels intimate in a way that makes my skin crawl.
I hear my own voice from the darkness of the bedroom: Tabitha.
I stare at the coffee cup like it’s filled with poison.
“Ross?” She turns, finally looking at me. Her brow furrows. “You okay? You look… off.”
“I’m fine,” I say, the lie tasting like copper. I walk past her, putting the desk between us. I don’t sit down. “Just a rough night.”
“Well, shake it off,” she says, tapping the file. “Miller moved the strategy meeting up. He’s in the War Room. He wants us in there in five minutes.”
“Five minutes?” I check my watch. “I need to make a call first.”
“You don’t have time,” she says, already moving toward the door. She pauses, looking back at me with a concern that feels like an indictment. “Ross, seriously. This is the Prescott case. If we nail this motion, the partnership vote is a formality. Focus.”
She walks out.
I stand there, my hand hovering over my phone. Focus. That’s the word they use to justify the erasure of everything else. Focus on the client. Focus on the structure. Focus until you forget the woman waiting for you at home.
I grab the phone. I have three minutes. I tap out the message, my thumbs clumsy.
“Margot. Please. I’m at the office, but I’m leaving at six. Don’t leave. I need to hear your voice. I love you.”
I hit send.
Delivered.
I wait. The seconds tick by on the wall clock, each one a hammer blow. The three dots appear. My heart leaps into my throat. She’s typing. She’s there.
“Ross!”
Arthur's voice booms from the hallway. “Let’s go. Time is money, and we’re burning both.”
The dots disappear. She stops typing.
“Coming,” I yell back.
I shove the phone into my pocket and grab the file. I can check it under the table. I just need to be in the room.
The War Room is a glass-walled aquarium designed to intimidate. A long mahogany table dominates the space, surrounded by chairs that cost more than my first car.
Miller sits at the head, a silver-haired shark in a three-piece suit. He doesn’t look up when Tabitha and I enter. He’s dissecting the elevations, his red pen slashing through our skyline.
“Sit,” he commands.
I take the seat to his right. Tabitha sits opposite me.
“The wind shear analysis is weak,” Miller says, tossing the rendering onto the polished wood. “The structural integrity at that altitude is shaky. Ross, I need you to walk me through the logic here. Why did we propose the cantilever?”
Not again. This could have been an email. I’d gotten off the phone half an hour ago with Dubai’s engineer and already explained. As the client, they approved.
I reach for the schematics, but my hand brushes my pocket.
Bzzzt.
A vibration against my thigh. Long. Sustained.
A call.
It’s not a text. Someone is calling me. Margot never calls during work hours unless it’s an emergency.
My heart hammers against my ribs. I reach for my pocket.
“Phones on the credenza,” Arthur says. He doesn’t even look up. “You know the rules in the War Room. No distractions. We have four hours to perfect this, and I want your brains here, not on your emails.”
I freeze. “I,”
“Credenza, Ross,” he snaps, his eyes finally lifting. They are cold, dead chips of flint. “Now. Unless you want to explain why we missed a filing deadline because you were checking your fantasy football scores.”
“It might be my wife,” I say. The words feel fragile in the heavy air of the room.
“Is she in the hospital?” Miller asks.
“I… I don’t know.”
“If she’s not bleeding out, it can wait.” Arthur points to the wooden cabinet against the far wall. “Phone. Now.”
Across the table, Tabitha watches me. She gives a small, encouraging nod, as if to say, Just play the game, Ross. It’s almost over.
I look from Miller to the credenza.
The vibration stops.
I missed it.
There’s a physical rip in my chest, like a muscle tearing. I pull the phone out of my pocket. The screen is dark. I walk over to the credenza and set it down, face up.
1 Missed Call: Margot.
I stare at the name. It glows for a second, then fades to black.
“The cantilever,” Miller repeats, tapping the table. “Ross. I’m waiting.”
I turn back to the table. I sit down. I open the schematics. The lines of the Silver Thorn Tower swim before my eyes, load paths, shear forces, tensile strength. It’s a language I’ve spent a decade mastering, and suddenly, it looks like gibberish.
“The offset works because it breaks the wind load,” I say, annoyed. “It reduces the vortex shedding at the peak.”
“Good,” Miller says. “But we need to prove the dampening. Tabitha, pull the results from the wind tunnel test.”
The meeting grinds on.
Ten minutes pass. Twenty.
My phone lights up again on the credenza. Silent this time. Just a soft, white glow in the periphery of my vision.
I can’t see the name from here. Is it her again? Is she leaving a voicemail? Is she telling me she filed for divorce? Is she telling me she’s leaving town?
Ten feet away, I might as well be on the moon. In an agonizing pinch, my heart is choking me.
“Ross, pay attention,” Arthur barks. “You’re drifting.”
“I’m here,” I lie.
I’m not. I’m staring at that piece of glass and metal across the room. I am watching my life dissolve in silent, glowing pulses while I argue about wind velocity.
This isn’t a job. Margot’s right, it’s a cage. And I just locked myself inside.
The screen goes dark again.
“Okay,” Miller says, leaning back. “Let’s run the numbers.”
Tabitha types furiously, completely absorbed. She is thriving in this tank. She breathes this water.
But my hands are shaking.
I need to get out of this room. But I don’t. I sit there, a good soldier, a future partner, while the silence on the other side of the room grows louder than the shouting in my head.