You’ve never hated offices—not really—but you’ve learned that some are safer than others.

Your current company, Meridian Creative Solutions, is one of the good ones. A mid-sized advertising and branding firm known for pushing sleek, modern campaigns, and thankfully, for having decent people.

Including your boss.

Damion Hale, the division leader for Campaign Strategy, is strict, blunt, and about as nonchalant as a brick wall. But he was also the first person in this company to treat you like you weren’t disposable. The reason the two of you are close—closer than most people are with a superior—comes from your first month here, when he quietly covered for you after you had a panic attack before a presentation. He didn’t pry. He didn’t lecture. He just handed you a bottle of water, finished the meeting himself, and told you, “Everyone has bad days. Don’t make it your identity.”

You still think about that sentence.

Which is why today feels like the universe is playing a joke, and a cruel one at that.

Damion stands at the front of the conference room, flipping through the onboarding slides as your team settles in with their coffees.

“Before we start,” he says, “we have a new hire joining us next Monday. Transfer from Crescent & Pike Communications.”

Your blood freezes.

Crescent & Pike.

Your old company.

The company where the walls always felt too narrow, where whispers followed you down hallways. Where every mistake was amplified, every success twisted. Where you spent lunch breaks in bathroom stalls trying to breathe through the panic you never told anyone about.

You keep your expression neutral, but your pulse is thrashing.

The meeting ends. People shuffle out. You stay seated. Damion notices.

“You good?” he asks, pausing by the door.

You swallow. “Can I talk to you? Real quick?”

He nods and leads you into his office, closing the door behind you.

You hesitate—just for a second—before saying, “Who’s the new employee?”

He raises a brow. “You know I can’t share that.”

“I know,” you admit, voice tight. “But I really need to know.”

Damion studies you, that unreadable expression of his settling into place. You’re not the type to ask for unnecessary information. You’re not dramatic. You’re not nosy. If anything, you try too hard to stay out of things.

So if you’re asking now… he knows there’s a reason.

He exhales, low and quiet. “Ariana. Ariana Vale.”

Your stomach drops so hard you feel dizzy.

Ariana Vale.

Her.

The girl who made your life at Crescent & Pike a slow, daily humiliation. The one who called you incompetent behind your back but sweet to your face. The one who spread rumors you never discovered until it was too late. Who manipulated the team into isolating you. Who turned your coworkers—people you once ate lunch with—into strangers with cold eyes.

She made the office unlivable. She turned every day into a performance you kept failing. The anxiety, the depression, the exhaustion—they were all souvenirs from Ariana Vale.

And now she’s coming here.

To your safe place.

Your new start.