Chapter 5
ROMEE
He knows.
The words sit like cold metal, and I keep my expression neutral, to not let the panic rising in my throat translate into anything visible on my face.
My fingers tighten fractionally around the clipboard I just set down, and I'm acutely aware that I'm still catching my breath from the encounter with Delray, that my heart is still racing, that I'm not at my best defensive capacity right now and Thrall is looking at me with those predatory amber eyes like he can see straight through the professional armor I'm trying desperately to weld back into place.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I say, and it's a mistake the moment the words leave my mouth because they sound exactly like what someone says when they know precisely what you're talking about and are buying time to figure out how to spin it.
Thrall's expression doesn't change. He just stands there, enormous and immovable in the dappled shadow of the pines, and waits with the specific patience of someone who has all the leverage and knows it.
I hate that he knows it.
"Your boss," he says, and his voice is that same low, deliberate rumble that makes every word feel like it carries extra weight, "has been systematically taking credit for your event concepts for the last eighteen months.
The Nordic wellness corporate summit that won your agency the Stevenson account was your design.
The immersive team-building retreat for Halcyon Industries that landed in Event Planner Magazine was your logistics framework.
The charity gala that brought in three million dollars for the Renton Foundation was your donor outreach strategy. "
My carefully constructed defenses crack under the pressure of hearing it all laid out so plainly, so clinically, like he's reading from a presentation deck that contains my entire professional humiliation formatted in bullet points.
"You went through my personnel file," I say, and my voice comes out sharper than I intended, edged with something that sounds too much like hurt when what I need right now is cold, professional anger.
"I did." He doesn't apologize, doesn't offer justification, just states it like a fact that doesn't require defense. "I was going to fire you for insubordination. I found something else instead."
The bluntness of it steals whatever response I was trying to formulate.
He was going to fire me. Of course he was.
I threatened him with an airhorn and physically blocked his executives from the bar and have spent the last three days treating him like a particularly difficult middle schooler who needs constant supervision, and he's a CEO who probably fires people before breakfast just to set the tone for his morning.
"You can't fire me," I manage, and I'm pulling the professional mask back on even as I say it, reaching for the polished, unshakeable composure that got me through four years of dealing with nightmare clients and impossible logistics.
"I don't work for you. I work for Pinnacle Events, and we have a contract that—"
"I'm not firing you," Thrall interrupts, and there's something in his tone that makes me stop talking and actually look at him, really look, past the sheer overwhelming physicality and the intimidation factor and the fact that he's blocking out half the available sky.
"I'm telling you that you're being exploited, and you're letting it happen. "
The words hit like cold water, and I feel my spine go rigid with defensive anger because how dare he, how dare he stand there and reduce my entire career to letting it happen like I'm some passive participant in my own professional destruction instead of someone who has fought tooth and nail for every single opportunity, who has worked eighteen-hour days and sacrificed weekends and relationships and sleep to be good enough, to be indispensable, to earn the promotion I've been promised for two years that keeps getting pushed back for reasons that are always just vague enough to sound legitimate.
"You don't know anything about my situation," I say, and my voice is shaking slightly now, which I hate, which makes me angrier, which makes the shaking worse in a vicious cycle I can't seem to break.
"You don't know what it's like to work in an industry where one bad reference can end your career, where your boss holds every professional connection you need to advance, where walking away from a bad situation means starting over from nothing with no network and no credibility and—"
"So you're going to keep letting him steal your work.
" It's not a question. Thrall says it flatly, like he's confirming a disappointing but predictable outcome, and something about the way he says it, the complete absence of surprise or sympathy, just this blunt assessment of my cowardice, makes something crack open that I've been keeping carefully sealed for months.
"Yes," I say, and the word comes out raw and furious and honest in a way that makes me feel stripped bare in front of him.
"Yes, I'm going to keep letting him steal my work until I have enough documented evidence and client testimonials to leave on my own terms with my reputation intact, because that's how you survive in this industry when you don't have the luxury of being six-foot-ten and terrifying enough that people do what you want just because you showed up.
Some of us have to be strategic. Some of us have to play the long game. Some of us can't just—"
I cut myself off before I say something I'll regret, before the anger and exhaustion and fear that's been building for two years comes pouring out all over this massive Orc who decided to download my personnel file and appoint himself my unsolicited career counselor.
The silence stretches between us, heavy and complicated, and I'm breathing too hard, my hands clenched into fists at my sides, and Thrall is just standing there watching me with a look I can't read, something that might be respect or pity or calculation or all three layered together in a way that makes my skin prickle with uncomfortable awareness.
"How long," he says finally, and his voice has dropped even lower, gone quieter in a way that somehow makes it more intense, "are you planning to let him do this before you have 'enough evidence'?"
I don't answer, because the honest answer is I don't know, and saying that out loud feels like admitting defeat.
"Six months?" Thrall presses. "A year? Five years? How much of your work are you willing to hand over before you decide you've been strategic enough?"
"Stop," I say, and it comes out sharper than I intended, nearly desperate, because he's asking questions I've been very carefully not asking myself.
"Just stop. You don't get to do this. You don't get to show up and dissect my career choices like they're inefficient code you need to debug.
This is my life, my job, my decision, and I don't need—"
"You're right," Thrall says, and the interruption is so unexpected, so contrary to the direction I thought this conversation was going, that I actually stop mid-sentence and stare at him. "It's your decision. Your career. I have no authority over how you handle your employment situation."
He pauses, as something shifts in his expression, something that looks almost uncomfortable, like he's about to say something that doesn't come naturally to him.
"But you're good at this," he continues, and the bluntness is still there but there's something else underneath it now, something that sounds uncomfortably close to genuine.
"You're exceptionally good at this. You organized a three-day corporate retreat for twenty-three Orcs with forty-eight hours notice and a non-species-specific activity list, and you haven't had a single catastrophic failure.
You redirected a territorial dispute between my CFO and my head of engineering this morning using nothing but strategic seating arrangements and color-coded name tags.
You verbally dismantled Delray three minutes ago with your back against a tree.
You're wasted on someone who steals your work and threatens your job security to keep you compliant. "
The compliments land wrong, all of them, because I don't know how to process praise from someone who ripped my welcome itinerary in half thirty-six hours ago and has spent the entire retreat treating my carefully planned activities like suggestions he can ignore whenever convenient.
I don't know what to do with the fact that he noticed the seating arrangements, that he was paying attention to how I managed the CFO situation, that he apparently thinks I'm good at something other than being an annoying obstacle between him and the open bar.
"I need this job," I say, and my voice has gone quiet, stripped of the defensive anger, just exhausted honesty. "I need the reference. I need the promotion. I need—"
"You need," Thrall interrupts, and there's an edge in his voice now, something sharp and decisive, "to eat. You've been running around in the heat for six hours setting up equipment and managing logistics and you haven't stopped once. You're going to pass out."
The abrupt subject change throws me completely off balance. "I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're strategically avoiding the dining hall because you think taking a break makes you look weak, and you're going to make yourself sick."
"I have to set up the bonfire," I say, gesturing vaguely toward the stack of wood and kindling I've been organizing by the lakeshore, the fire pit I've lined with stones, the seating area I've arranged with military precision. "The evening activity starts at seven, and I still need to—"
"The bonfire can wait," Thrall says, and before I can argue he's turning and walking back up the path toward the main lodge with the clear expectation that I'm going to follow.
I don't follow.