Chapter 5 - The Rain Outside the LobbyThe heavy glass doors of Whitmore Dynamics headquarters were locked tight against the torrential downpour outside.
Standing on the wet marble steps, soaked to the skin, was Vanessa Whitmore.
Her designer evening gown clung heavily to her frame, ruined by the pouring rain. Her expertly styled hair was plastered to her cheeks, and the expensive makeup she had spent two hours applying was washing down her face in streaks of black and red.
Passersby on the sidewalk walked past under umbrellas, casting quick, curious glances at the weeping woman standing shivering in the storm, but no one stopped. No one offered help. In this city, people who looked like they belonged in the gutter were treated like the gutter.
Vanessa’s fingers trembled as she hammered her fist against the thick glass doors of the lobby.
"Let me in!" she screamed, her voice cracking over the sound of the thunder. "Security! Open the door! Do you know who I am? I am Vanessa Whitmore! I run this building!"
Inside the warm, brightly lit lobby, the night security guard—the same young man my mother had stopped to thank earlier that evening—slowly walked up to the glass. He didn't look angry; he looked profoundly indifferent.
He raised his hand and pointed to a small laminated sign taped to the inside of the door: “Unauthorized personnel are not permitted on company property after hours.”
"You're trespassing, ma'am," the guard said through the intercom speaker by the door. "Please step away from the entrance, or I will be forced to call the police."
"You can't do this to me!" Vanessa shrieked, tears mixing with the rain streaming down her face. "I am your superior! I signed your employment contract!"
"Not anymore," the guard replied calmly. "Mr. Vance sent out the company-wide termination memo five minutes ago. You don't work here. None of us work for you anymore."
The speaker clicked off, plunging the intercom back into silence.
Vanessa staggered backward, her high heel catching in a crack between the stone steps. She fell hard against the wet concrete, scraping her knee and tearing the delicate fabric of her dress.
For the first time in her thirty-two years of life, Vanessa knew what it felt like to be completely, utterly powerless.
She pulled her sodden phone from her clutch. The screen flickered, flashed a low-battery warning, and then went completely black. She was stranded in the middle of downtown without cash, without credit cards, without a car, and without a single friend in the world who would answer her calls.
Because every single person she had called her 'friend' was a social climber who only associated with her because of her last name and her corporate status. Now that the name was mud and the status was gone, she didn't exist.
As she sat there in the freezing rain, shivering on the concrete steps of the very building she had lorded over for years, a dark black Maybach glided silently up to the curb.
The tinted rear window rolled down smoothly.
Inside, sitting comfortably in the leather-lined interior away from the storm, was me.
Through the clear glass of the car window, our eyes met.
Vanessa scrambled up from the pavement, rushing toward the car like a drowning person grabbing for a lifeline. She pressed her hands against the tinted glass of the rear door, sobbing uncontrollably.
"Daniel! Daniel, please!" she cried out, her voice muffled through the glass. "I was wrong! I'm so sorry! Please take me home! We can start over! Please!"
I didn't flinch. I didn't roll down the window.
I simply reached out, pressed the button on the armrest, and watched as the tinted glass rolled up silently, shutting her out completely.
May you like
"Drive," I said quietly to the chauffeur.
The Maybach pulled away from the curb, leaving Vanessa alone in the freezing rain, swallowed by the dark city night.
