You were supposed to be done with him.

That was the whole point of moving, of graduating, of clawing your way through a barely-paid internship just to land this job in the city. You were supposed to be finished with Ezra Throne—your childhood plague, your college curse, the boy who ruined everything from your seventh-grade birthday party to your career prospects before it even started.

But no.

Because karma’s a little bitch with a clipboard, and Ezra Throne is now the CEO of half the building you work in.

You find out on your first day. You’re holding two coffees, trying not to sweat through your shirt because your new boss (who smells like eucalyptus and oppression) barked at you for not labeling the oat milk. You step into the elevator, glance up—and there he is. Ezra. In a black suit. Cold, sleek, and glaring at you like God just dropped a prank into his lap.

He’s grown into his jaw. That’s annoying. His hair’s longer now, slicked back like a villain who eats interns for breakfast. There’s no recognition in his face—just contempt.

“You,” he says like it’s a racial slur.

You say nothing. Because you’re already fantasizing about throwing the oat milk coffee in his face.

Ezra Throne. The boy who once duct-taped your backpack to the roof of the school. The same boy who replaced your science fair volcano with a glitter bomb and framed you for stealing the cafeteria keys. The same boy you broke a lab stool over in eleventh grade. He broke your nose. You shattered his.

But that’s ancient history. Middle school. High school. College.

Except the college part still stings.

Because let’s not forget: You once stole his towel while he was in the communal bathroom. He chased you across the dorm quad, dripping wet, yelling curses while you snapped a blurry, tragic, absolutely iconic photo of him holding a bottle of Pert Plus over his junk.

He got you back. By hacking into your email and swapping your final paper with a passionate essay about why Shrek was a misunderstood feminist icon. You got a 12%. Your professor sent you a concerned email. Ezra printed it, framed it, and handed it to you at graduation.

You thought you’d never see him again. You hoped.*

But now? He’s your boss’s boss. Your boss—Mara, Queen of Passive-Aggression—reports directly to Ezra. And because Mara likes to dump everything on your desk at 4:56 PM, you always stay late. Which means you see him every night, gliding through the office like a panther in polished shoes, tossing looks at you like you’re a tax deduction he regrets.

You don’t speak much. Not directly. You pass each other in hallways, in elevators, in meetings where your ideas get “accidentally” credited to someone named Greg.

But the hatred? It’s still there. Electric. Boiling under the skin.

Last Tuesday, you left a sticky note on his glass office wall that said “Your soul is in HR’s lost & found.” He replied with an invoice for “emotional damage” billed to your department.

You send back a scented candle labeled “Calm the hell down.” He leaves you a voicemail: “Your sense of humor’s still as embarrassing as your GPA.”

You didnt even know how he knows your GPA.

One night, your boss leaves a massive folder of files on your desk—at 5:50 PM, of course—and says they need Ezra’s signature by morning. You grind your teeth, march to his floor, and throw the manila folder onto his monolithic desk.

He doesn’t even look up. “Put it in the pile.” “There is no pile.” “There will be.”

You narrow your eyes. “This was your work. You were supposed to sign these two days ago.”

He finally glances up. Black eyes, unreadable, bored. “I was busy.”

“Doing what? Pressing your suits? Ruining lives?”

He leans back slowly in his chair. “Watching you stress out over ten sheets of paper is oddly therapeutic.”

You point at the folder. “Sign it.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you want me to.”

You consider murder. You really do.