Chapter 1: The Friday Betrayal

We’d just signed a contract that could pay for everyone’s dreams—and I got fired before the ink dried.

That Friday afternoon, sunlight streaked through the blinds, turning everything gold and thin, when my phone buzzed with the boss’s name. My hands still smelled like the greasy, cheap pizza the team had split to celebrate the deal—pepperoni, cardboard crust, and all. I was tired but proud, thinking of Tara’s laughter when she tossed her crust at Sam, or how Brian had declared, “We did it!” with his mouth full. The room had felt like family. Now, my world tilted hard.

"Alex, your bonus is more than our office rent for the year. I’m not paying it. So, either you walk away from it, or you walk away from the company."

His words landed flat, with that patronizing calm he reserved for moments when he thought he was being magnanimous. I could almost see him spinning his wedding ring, staring out from his glass office at the skyline—probably not even aware of the weekends we’d given up, the birthdays missed, the nights spent hunched over laptops while Chicago’s lights blinked outside.

He offered me two choices: give up my year-end bonus, or get laid off.

The choice was a trap, and he knew it. I stood there, mind racing: the humiliation of letting go of what I’d earned, or the terror of unemployment. I remembered what my dad used to say: "Don’t ever sell your soul cheap." I’d compromised too much before. Not this time. The HVAC hummed, the elevator chimed somewhere down the hall, and my chest tightened. I already knew what I had to do.

"Then lay me off," I said, my voice even. There was a strange relief, like gulping cold air after suffocating. I hung up, stared at the unsigned contract still on my desk, and saw how tiny my name looked beneath the company’s logo. All that hustle—shrunk to a line on a page.

Half a month later, I came back to reclaim the office.

The city had shaken off its winter chill, but my heart hadn’t thawed at all. I parked outside the glass-and-steel tower—same one I used to charge into every morning, Starbucks cup wedged in my dash, phone glued to my ear. This time, rain clung to the sidewalk and the Willis Tower glinted in the sun. I had leverage now.

"If you’re struggling to keep the lights on, maybe it’s time someone else took over the lease."

I caught my reflection in the window—hair a little wild, eyes sharper than they’d been in years. I grinned at my own stubbornness. Some things, money can’t buy. Some people, you can’t bully.