I didn't have an umbrella, so I stood under the portico and waited. The rain showed no sign of letting up.

My phone buzzed. A message from Ray Fox, a former colleague.

He'd joined the company a few years after me and quit at the end of last year after getting into a blowout argument with Nelson Lambert. Before he left, he'd said one thing to me: This company's going down sooner or later.

"Steve, heard Lambert got you pushed out?"

I typed back a single word: Yeah.

His reply came instantly:

"Drinks tonight. The usual spot."

The rain eased a little. I hugged the cardboard box to my chest and walked into it.

I got in the car and sat behind the wheel, staring at nothing.

My phone rang again. This time it was a longtime client. Marvin Perry, owner of a metal fabrication business. We'd worked together for six years, with contracts steady at around twenty million dollars a year.

He was calling about a new order. I told him I'd been fired.

"What happened? You were doing great."

"Company restructuring. I got 'optimized' out."

Silence on the other end for a few seconds.

"So what's your plan? My contract with your company expires in two weeks. I'm not renewing."

"If you go independent or land somewhere else, I'll follow you."

I was caught off guard for a moment before I managed to say, "Mr. Perry, thank you."

"Don't thank me. Business runs on trust."

"That new manager of yours, Lambert, came to see me last month. Wanted to talk about some 'strategic partnership.' Spent the whole time throwing around words I couldn't make heads or tails of."

"'Synergy' this, 'leverage' that, 'closed-loop ecosystem.' Talked for two hours straight, and by the end, the man couldn't even tell me the unit price of the product."

"You tell me how I'm supposed to trust someone like that with my business."

I couldn't help but laugh.

After I hung up, I set the phone on the cardboard box in the passenger seat.

It was still raining, but lighter now.

I started the engine, pulled out of the parking garage, and turned onto the main road.

In the rearview mirror, the office building where I'd spent seven years grew smaller and smaller.

Then it vanished into the gray curtain of rain behind me.

That evening, I arrived at the restaurant right on time.

Ray wasn't there yet.

I found a seat by the window and was about to call him when a crowd pushed through the entrance. Nelson Lambert led the pack, trailed by a dozen or so people from the sales department.

Then it hit me. Today was the department dinner.

Lambert spotted me immediately.

He was wearing a navy polo with the collar popped. His gut had grown another size since last month, his belt cinched tight against it.

"Well, well. Steve Dickerson."

"Fancy running into you here."

I ignored him.

He planted himself in front of my table, hands shoved in his pockets, rocking back on his heels as he looked me up and down.

"Grabbing dinner? All by yourself?"

I finally spoke. "Waiting for someone."

"Oh!" He dragged the word out. "Well then, take your time. Sales department dinner tonight. I'd better head over."

He turned to leave, then stopped as if something had just occurred to him. He looked back and added:

"By the way, you finished up your exit paperwork, right? HR mentioned you changed your reason for leaving. Put down 'terminated by company.'"

"Terminated is accurate, sure." His smile didn't reach his eyes. "But have you thought about what happens when your next employer runs a background check? That kind of record isn't exactly a selling point."

I said nothing.

He didn't push it further. He turned and headed toward the private dining room.

The others filed past my table behind him. A few glanced my way. Most looked the other direction.

Miles Chavez stopped.

He and I had started at the company the same year. We used to get along fine. Then Lambert arrived, and Miles became his loyal errand boy.

Every morning meeting, whenever Nelson Lambert singled me out, Miles was right there backing him up.

"Steve, you actually have the nerve to eat at a place like this?"

His voice was pitched just right—loud enough for every table nearby to hear.

"This place isn't cheap. You just lost your job. Might want to watch your spending."

I looked up at him. "Not your concern."

He smiled.

"Let me be real with you. Negative one hundred and eight points. First in company history. Getting fired wasn't exactly unfair, was it?"

"Seven years at the company, so what? You're pushing thirty-five, no degree, no technical skills, and you got terminated."

"Go check the job boards. Tell me which company is hiring salesmen over thirty-five."

"My advice? Start thinking about Plan B. Delivering for DoorDash, driving for Uber—at least you won't starve."

He patted me on the shoulder, turned, and walked into the private dining room.

I sat there, fingers white around my chopsticks.

Took a deep breath. Didn't move.

Firing back wouldn't have been hard. Throwing a punch wouldn't have been hard either.

But then I'd become exactly what they wanted me to be—the disgraced ex-employee causing a scene in a restaurant.

Not worth it.

I picked up the glass of water on the table and took a sip. It was cold, all the way down my throat and into my stomach.

Two minutes later, Ray walked in.

He was dressed casually—gray T-shirt, jeans. Looked exactly the same as when he'd worked at the company.

"Sorry, got stuck in traffic."

He waved over a waiter, flipped through the menu, and rattled off a string of dishes without hesitation. Every single one was something we used to order after finishing client visits together.

He handed the menu back to the waiter, leaned back in his chair, and looked at me.

"Steve, I didn't ask you here to beat around the bush. Let me get straight to it."

He pulled his phone from his pocket, swiped a few times, and turned the screen toward me.

It was a photo of a business license.

Horizon Supply Chain Management Co. The name in the legal representative field was Ray Fox.

"This is my company. Five hundred thousand in registered capital, fully paid in."

"Office space is already leased. Four thousand square feet in the Commerce District."

"Organizational structure is mostly set. The one thing I'm missing is someone to run the sales operation."

"I want you to be my Business Director."

I froze.

"Ray, you—"

"Don't answer yet. Hear me out." He held up three fingers. "First, your old base salary was twelve hundred a month. I'm giving you twenty-four hundred."

"Second, commission is fifteen percent of gross margin. Any deal you personally close gets an extra five percent on top."

"Third, equity. Ten percent of the company. Registered with the state, written into the articles of incorporation."

"Not options. Not profit-sharing rights. Actual shares."

I didn't speak.

A good ten seconds passed before I finally opened my mouth. "Where did you get this kind of money?"

Ray smiled.

"My dad's in real estate. Foxworth Holdings. Ever heard of it?"

Of course I'd heard of it.

Foxworth Holdings was one of the largest private real estate developers in the state.

Back when Ray worked at the company, he'd driven a beat-up Volkswagen every day, ate in the cafeteria at lunch.

Who would have guessed he was the heir to Foxworth Holdings.

I laughed. "You son of a gun. You really kept that under wraps."

"I wasn't hiding anything." He shrugged. "My dad wanted me to get some real-world experience. Start from the ground up."

"You saw what Nelson Lambert's system was like. His reviews graded attendance, not performance. His management tracked process, not results."

"I brought it up to Mr. Finch. Didn't make a difference."

"Then I got into it with Lambert, and he made my life hell after that."

"I took one look at the place and figured, forget it. No point wasting my time there."

"Went home, told my dad about it, and he just handed me the capital to start my own thing."

The food arrived.

The broth in the sour cabbage fish stew was still bubbling, steam curling off the surface.

I picked up my chopsticks, then set them down.

"Ray, you're offering too much."

He set his chopsticks down too and looked at me.

"Steve, we didn't work together for long, but I know exactly what kind of person you are."

"Mr. Mason's contract. Fifteen million dollars. You drank yourself into a stomach hemorrhage to close that deal."

"And then there's Mr. Perry, and all those other major accounts. Every single one of them took everything you had to land."

"Those clients aren't loyal to the company. They're loyal to you."

"Whether you're worth this offer? I already know the answer."

I raised my glass and clinked it against his.

That was when the door to one of the private dining rooms swung open.

Nelson Lambert stumbled out, his oily face flushed crimson, his steps unsteady.

Probably needed some air.

He spotted Ray and froze for a second. Then a grin spread across his face.

"Well, well. If it isn't Ray Fox."

"Heard you started your own little company?"

His eyes slid down to Ray's gray T-shirt, and his lip curled.

"Entrepreneurship's rough, huh."

"And Steve, you and Ray are... what, talking business?"

"Actually, that makes sense. You're unemployed now. If Ray needs someone to run errands, you'd be a perfect fit."

"After all, you're old colleagues. Gotta help each other out."

He turned back to Ray.

"Word of advice, though, Ray. Be careful who you hire."

"Steve worked at our company for seven years and scored negative one hundred and eight on his performance review. You really want to bring on someone like that?"

"You just started out. Your foundation's thin. Don't let a guy like him drag you under."

Ray set down his glass and looked up.

"You done? Then go back to your drinks and stop being an eyesore."

The grin on Nelson's face locked in place.

The alcohol was hitting him now. His flush deepened from red to a mottled, liver-colored purple.

"What's with the attitude, Ray? I was your manager. The fact that I'm even talking to you is a courtesy."

"That rinky-dink company of yours might not even last six months. What are you so cocky about?"

"Hiring people? Maybe figure out how to survive first."

He swung his finger toward me. "And you, Steve."

"You think switching companies is going to turn things around? A salesman with a negative score is a negative-score salesman wherever he goes."

"If you don't have the ability, you don't have the ability. Don't blame the system."

I'd had enough. I stood up.

The chair scraped back hard across the floor.

"Nelson, there's something about your system I've been wanting to ask you for a long time."

"When you were at that big corporation, were you actually managing sales, or were you managing attendance?"

The corner of his mouth twitched. He didn't answer.

"Ever since you showed up, it's been morning meetings, daily reports, clocking in, training exams. Twenty pages of performance criteria, and actual sales metrics accounted for fifteen percent."

"I kept asking myself, what kind of person designs a system like that?"

"Then it hit me. When you were at that big company, you were never in sales at all."

"You've never closed a deal. Never visited a client. Never carried a revenue target in your life."

"That's why the only things in your evaluation system are attendance, daily reports, and morning meetings."

"Because those things don't require a single original thought. All you have to do is hover over people and grind them down."

"You have no idea why a client signs a contract. No idea that factory owners care about delivery timelines and payment terms. No clue how to lock down a deal over dinner."

Lambert's face cycled between red and white, flustered to the point of sputtering. "What the hell are you talking about? I was a regional director at a Fortune 500 company! How could I not understand the business?"

"Regional director?" I scoffed. "Director of what region? The break room? The hallway outside your office?"

"You've been here almost a year. How many clients have you actually met? How many deals have you closed? How many factories have you set foot in?"

"You can't even get Mr. Perry's unit pricing straight, and you want to talk to me about being a regional director?"

"Your only real talent is building a system that welds your own chair to the floor in a company that never needed you."

"Mark my words. Sooner or later, people like you will run this company straight into the ground."