The Corner Office
Three Weeks Short

Don't

August 25, 2026 · Part 8 of 10 · 2 min

Gerald called at 6 a.m., which was how Naomi knew before he said a word that something had shifted.

"I need you to not run this," he said.

She sat up in bed, phone against her ear, the memo with Warren's signature still open on her laptop screen across the room. "Dad—"

"I signed papers, Naomi. When they let me go — severance, two months' pay. There's a clause. I'm not supposed to talk to press about the terms of my departure."

"You didn't sign anything before you called me."

"I signed it after. Last week. I needed the two months, Naomi. I've got the mortgage, I've got—" He stopped himself. "It doesn't matter what I've got. If this runs and they connect it to me, I lose the severance. Maybe they come after me for breach."

"They laid off a hundred and forty-two people right before paying them what they were owed. That's the story, Dad. That's not about you signing a form under pressure eleven days after they blindsided you."

"I'm asking you. As your father."

The word landed strange in her chest — a word he hadn't gotten to use with her in six years, deployed now like a key to a door she wasn't sure was still his to open.

"You don't get to disappear for six years and then use that word to make me kill a story that's true," she said, quieter than she meant to.

Silence on the line, long enough that she checked to see if the call had dropped.

"You're right," he finally said. "I don't. I'm sorry. Do what you have to do."

He hung up before she could decide whether that had been forgiveness or surrender.

At 8 a.m., Imogen called with different news, delivered fast, the way she always delivered bad news. "The Ledger's business desk just requested comment from Castellan's PR team. Someone's sniffing around the same numbers."

"How close are they?"

"Close enough that if we don't run by tomorrow morning, we're the paper that had it second."

Naomi looked at her laptop — the memo, the spreadsheet, Frances Adeyemi's statement, her father's voice still ringing in her ear asking her to bury all of it.

"Tomorrow morning," she said. "Okay."

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