I held up a hand, smiling gently. “Leave it, Nina. Gravity will sort it out.”
She hurried over, her eyes shining with a mixture of terror and fierce, unadulterated triumph. “Clara. The legal department is downstairs. The bank representatives are waiting in Conference Room B. They brought the red leather signature folders.”
“I know,” I said, walking slowly across the carpet. I stopped by my old desk. The cardboard box was gone—someone had nervously hidden it in the supply closet. In its place was my silver pen, resting neatly on a clean sheet of heavy-stock paper.
“Are you going to evict us?” Nina asked, her voice barely a squeak. “The warehouses… are we shutting down?”
I picked up the silver pen, feeling the familiar, cool weight of it against my fingers. It was the same pen my grandfather had handed me nineteen years ago when I sat across from him in this very room, fresh out of university, wearing an oversized blazer and terrified of my own shadow.
