As soon as Sera Lin left my office her stride tight, her jaw set, but her eyes just a little less stormy than the night before I did something I hadn't done in two days.
I smiled.
Only a flicker, the kind you catch in your own reflection and almost don't recognize. A micro-victory. The world's not changed, but maybe its axis had shifted one degree in my favor.
One problem down, twenty-eight to go.
Still, work didn't vanish just because I'd avoided another HR disaster. My desk was littered with reports, messages, budget requests, and contracts to comb through before noon. I could almost hear the ghost of Corporate Alessia cackling at my naïve belief that power ever brought less paperwork.
I picked up the next folder. Revenue analysis, artist growth projections, the kind of thing that used to send me for a third coffee run and an existential crisis. But the system's skill package worked like magic numbers lined up, patterns clicked, and I even found myself jotting a suggestion for an up-and-coming artist's social campaign. Who was I? Someone competent, apparently.
Then my phone rang.
Not the internal office line. The personal one expensive, black, unbreakable, and with a contact list that read like a police interrogation transcript. My eyes narrowed as the screen lit up with a name I recognized from last night's memory dump:
"MICKY (VIP NIGHTLIFE)"
I let it ring once. Twice. A third time. The world's worst déjà vu.
Micky: one of Alessia's "friends," in the way piranhas are "friends" with bleeding meat. Professional hanger-on. Last seen draining Alessia's credit line at some private club and leaking company secrets for sport.
I debated tossing the phone out the window.
Instead, I answered mostly to see how much self-loathing I could pack into a single "Hello."
"Alessia!" Micky's voice was too loud, too familiar, already a headache. "Babe, you ghosted last night! You missed the party Leandro brought a model from Spain, and oh my god, you would not believe "
"I was working."
He laughed, the sound sharp and false. "Come on, Allie, since when do you let work kill your nightlife? I'm texting the group, we'll hit that new rooftop tonight get a little messy, let those omega groupies "
"No."
A sharp silence. On his end, shock on mine, relief.
"Uh… what?"
"I said no," I repeated, calm as the grave. "I'm busy, and I'm not interested."
He tried for laughter again. "You can't be serious. Allie, babe look, you know everyone's waiting on you to "
"Find someone else to pay for your drinks, Micky."
Another silence, this one uglier.
"Are you pissed at me? Look, if it's about that thing with the Black Card "
"You mean the three bottles of Dom you charged to my tab?"
He snorted. "It was for the table. Your usual, right? You know I'll get you back, I always do "
I hung up.
No drama. No explanation. Just… done.
A moment later, the phone buzzed again a series of texts.MICKY:Allie, you okay?You're not mad, right?I'll bring the good stuff next time, promise.Don't freeze me out, babe. You're my #1.
Block. Block. Block.
I scrolled through the rest of Alessia's contacts, each one a carbon copy of the last: VIP access. Designer drugs. Models with NDAs. "Friends" who remembered your birthday because you hired their favorite DJ.
My old world my real world had its social leeches, too, but at least you could tell the difference between a friend and a parasite. Here, the lines blurred. Especially if you were rich, dangerous, and too powerful for your own good.
I could almost taste the hangover I never had.
The system chimed in politely, of course, because it was always listening.[That was a good decision. The previous Alessia rarely set boundaries with her associates.]
"I noticed. Feels like half of these people only text when there's a yacht party."
[Or a financial bailout.]
"I'm not running a charity for lost club kids and social climbers."
[Progress acknowledged.]
I shook my head, slightly amused, mostly exhausted. For the first time since I'd landed in this body, I felt… cleaner. Not pure, not innocent—just a little less contaminated by someone else's bad habits.
The real challenge, though, wasn't who I let into my contact list.
It was who I let into my life.
Or, more pressingly, who I kept out.
I turned back to my work, already feeling the faint buzz of accomplishment. There was a meeting with the CFO in an hour, notes to prepare for the legal team, a line of emails about a crisis involving a diva and a wardrobe malfunction. I handled it all, methodical and merciless, the way I imagined a proper CEO should.
No one stormed into my office this time. No betas tried to offer "surprises." The air felt clearer, the office brighter. Even the plant Sera had side-eyed earlier seemed to stand a little taller on her desk, as if sensing its own upgrade from dungeon décor to executive sunlight.
At lunchtime, I took a rare pause, leaning back and letting my gaze sweep over the city through glass so clean it felt like staring through water. Down below, people rushed, oblivious, chasing dreams or disasters. I felt both above and separate from them still an outsider in this world, but less of a prisoner.
The phone vibrated again. This time, a message from an unknown number:Hey. New number. Elise
I scrolled the memory banks. Elise. Another of Alessia's so-called inner circle. A lawyer with sharp heels and sharper teeth. Once tried to convince Alessia to invest in "ethical blockchain real estate" over sake bombs and mutual blackmail.
I ignored the message.
The past, it seemed, was full of people who thrived on the worst of you. I had no intention of letting them starve, but I wasn't feeding them anymore, either.
Instead, I texted my assistant:Cancel all my social appointments this week. No exceptions.
A reply came back instantly:Yes, Miss Ryvenhart.
Professional boundaries: one. Parasites: zero.
As the afternoon wore on, I found my thoughts drifting not to the vultures, but to Sera Lin, with her stubborn dignity and cautious fury. Someone who saw straight through me (or at least, through the mask I wore) and kept her distance.
Someone who didn't want anything from me except for me to leave her alone.
For once, I wanted to respect that.