Chapter 2

The news of the pay cut spread through the company like wind, reaching every corner in a day.

In the break room, coworkers who used to greet me warmly as "Kent, buddy" now looked away, muttered something, and hurried off.

In the elevator, a few new hires were whispering.

"Did you hear? That Kent Fox in tech, his salary got slashed from almost two million to three hundred grand."

"Seriously? Isn't he supposed to be brilliant? The Blue Ocean project was all him."

"So what if he's good? He outshone the boss, and that's the problem. It's Ms. Harding's company now, and that new guy, Assistant Lambert, he's family. One year in and he's already pulling a million a year."

"Three hundred grand... in L.A., after the mortgage and the car payment, what's even left? That's rough."

The doors opened with a chime and the talk stopped dead. They saw me, went red with awkwardness, and bolted out like they were escaping something.

I walked out with no expression on my face, doing the math in my head.

Twenty-one hundred a month on the mortgage, eight hundred on the car, my daughter's preschool tuition, everyday expenses at home.

Three hundred grand a year, a little over two hundred take-home after taxes, spread across twelve months, barely covered the loans.

This wasn't about dignity anymore. This was about survival.

Jude, on the other hand, was riding high.

He'd bought a new car, dressed head to toe in designer labels, and the watch on his wrist, I looked it up, cost more than my whole new salary for a year.

When he saw me now, it wasn't "Kent, buddy" anymore. He'd picked up Geraldine's tone, drawing my name out slow. "Kent."

"Kent, go copy this file twenty times and take it to the conference room."

"Kent, I'm out of coffee. Make me another one, freshly ground, don't try to pass off instant on me."

He was treating a tech director who'd earned $1.86 million a year like his personal errand boy.

I said nothing. I just did it, quietly.

Everyone assumed I'd caved, that I was swallowing it all to hang on to the job.

Geraldine included.

She sat me down for a talk once, the same manipulation routine as always.

"Kent, I know this is hard on you. But you need to understand, the platform matters more than the individual. Without the company behind you, you're nothing. Jude's young, but he represents the company's future. You put in a little more now, and the company won't shortchange you down the line."

I smiled and nodded. "Thank you, Ms. Harding. I understand."

I understood, all right. My effort was paving a bright golden future for her useless cousin.

I understood that this so-called platform was just the chain she used to wring the last of my worth out of me.