Two Versions of the Truth

I spent that night at my kitchen table with two laptops open, one company-issued, one personal, cross-referencing shipment records against the Adjusted tab. By midnight I had a timeline: over eleven weeks, at least $2.3 million in revenue that didn't exist yet, or existed and had already come back as returns, had been folded into the Growth Team's numbers.

In the morning, I did what the employee handbook said to do. I wrote it up — three pages, dates, screenshots, dollar figures — and sent it through the proper channel: my direct manager, Priscilla Hume, cc'ing compliance the way policy required for anything above a materiality threshold.

Priscilla called me into a conference room forty minutes later, her face unreadable.

"You cc'd compliance," she said.

"That's the policy. Anything over five hundred thousand—"

"I know the policy, Naomi." She rubbed her temple. "I forwarded your email to Gregory directly. Compliance will see it eventually. He should see it first."

That wasn't the policy. But before I could say so, my phone buzzed. An email, subject line blank, from Voss's assistant.

Mr. Voss would like to see you. Now, if possible.

I looked at Priscilla. She wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Now?" I said out loud, mostly to myself.

"Now," she confirmed, already gathering her things to leave, like she didn't want to be in the room for whatever came next.

I walked to the elevator alone, my three-page memo tucked under my arm like something I might need to defend myself with. The Growth Team's floor buzzed past me — laughter, a whiteboard covered in balloons for someone's promotion — before the doors opened onto the executive level, quiet as a held breath.

Voss's assistant didn't smile when she saw me. "Go on in," she said. "He's waiting."

I hadn't even sat down at my desk that morning without wondering if it would still be mine by Friday. Now, standing outside a closed door with my own memo suddenly feeling very small in my hands, I wondered if I'd even make it that far.