Chapter 1: Thirty-One Hundred a Month
Three hundred thousand a year. That was the number Bright Harbor put on the table.
I wanted it. Baines Group didn't fight to keep me. So I jumped.
First paycheck: thirty-one hundred.
Dana Cross slid the pay stub across her desk like she was doing me a favor.
"Rennie, you just got here and you're already talking money?"
"The boss says new hires need time to settle in. What's the rush?"
"We've got plenty of people who can do what you do."
I smiled. Didn't argue. Wrote a resignation email instead.
Dana came charging up to my desk. "What, the money's too small? You think you're actually worth three hundred grand? One of you walks out, there's a line around the block waiting to take your chair."
I didn't answer her.
Everyone was waiting for me to fold. They figured the big project was already locked up.
But those clients never signed because of Bright Harbor. They signed because of me.
The next day, Bright Harbor's biggest project fell apart. Every anchor brand pulled their letter of intent. The leasing plan came down overnight.
Charles Whitfield's phone didn't stop ringing. An investor screamed at him: "You pushed out the one person the clients actually trust. How are we supposed to build this now?"
Dana cried at my desk and begged me to come back.
I didn't look at her.
---
Bright Harbor offered three hundred thousand a year.
The number got my attention. Baines Group didn't counter. I packed my desk, signed what they gave me, and moved over.
Onboarding was fast. Almost too fast.
Dana Cross ran HR. She had a smile on her face and nothing warm behind it.
"We move quickly here. New people jump in on their own."
"If you don't understand something, ask a colleague."
"Don't be afraid of hard work. You're young."
I nodded. Said nothing.
The office took up the seventeenth floor. My desk was in the corner.
The computer was old. There was a coffee stain on the desk from whoever sat there before me.
I spent half a day learning the system.
Access to the client management platform didn't come through until the next afternoon. When it did, it was read-only. The lowest tier they had.
Nobody walked me through the accounts. Nobody introduced me to a project.
I sat alone and read through old leasing files.
A month went by.
Payday. My phone buzzed with a bank notification.
Deposit: $3,100.
I stared at the number for a long time.
I went to accounting.
The accountant was a young woman in round glasses. She didn't look up.
"Can I help you?"
I held out my phone.
"My pay is wrong."
She glanced at it. Pushed her glasses up.
"Take that up with Dana."
I walked to the HR office.
Dana was dropping a tea bag into a mug of hot water. She lifted her eyes when I came in.
"What is it?"
"Dana. My paycheck."
I kept my voice level.
"It went out. What's the problem?"
"The offer letter says three hundred thousand a year. Twenty-five thousand a month."
"I got thirty-one hundred."
Dana laughed. It was a sharp little sound in a quiet office.
"Rennie, you're new. You need an adjustment period."
"The boss says settle in first. Don't be so eager."
"A company this size, a project as important as Harbor Point — don't you think we need to see what you can do first?"
Every word came out like it was obvious.
I looked at her. Then I smiled too.
"I understand."
I didn't argue. I went back to my desk.
I opened my laptop and wrote an email.
Subject line: Resignation.
Body: one sentence. Due to personal reasons, I am resigning effective immediately.
Sent to Dana. Cc'd Charles Whitfield, company president.
Under a minute later, Dana was at my desk on her half-worn heels. Her voice was low and shaking.
"Rennie. What do you think you're doing?"
I started packing. A leasing binder. A thermos. That was it.
"What it says. I'm leaving."
"So the money's too small?"
She crossed her arms. Her mouth pulled down at the corners.
"You think you're actually worth three hundred grand?"
"Don't flatter yourself. There are hundreds of people in this industry who do what you do."
"One of you leaves, there's a line at the door."
I didn't answer her.
I put the thermos in my bag. Closed the laptop.
The whole floor was unnaturally quiet. The people in the next two rows stared at their monitors like their lives depended on it. Listening.
I stood up to leave.
Dana blocked me.
"Resignation has a process. Handoff form. Department head signature."
"Charles hasn't approved it. You can't just walk."
I looked at her.
"Move."
She blinked. Stepped back without meaning to.
I walked past her and didn't turn around.
---
I went straight home.
The apartment was rented. One bedroom. I dropped my bag on the couch, lay down, and stared at the ceiling.
My phone wouldn't stop.
Bright Harbor numbers, one after another. Dana. Sam Reyes. A number I didn't recognize. I didn't pick up. I blocked every one.
That evening the buzzer went.
I thought it was delivery. I opened the door.
Two men.
The one in front I recognized. Sam Reyes, leasing director. I'd seen him once from across the room on my first day. We'd never spoken.
Behind him, a younger guy carrying a manila folder.
"Rennie. Sorry to bother you."
Sam's tone was polite, but his face was all business.
"Can we come in for a minute?"
I leaned against the doorframe and didn't move.
"Say what you came to say."
Sam cleared his throat.
"You've been working with several brand contacts. Their communication records and phone numbers need to be handed over."
"Harbor Point kicks off its leasing conference next quarter. Those materials are company assets."
I almost laughed.
"One: I've been here a month, and my platform access was read-only. I haven't exported a single phone number."
"Two: which brands was I working with? Go ahead, name them."
Sam opened his mouth and nothing came out.
He probably didn't know whether anyone had assigned me a single account in that month.
"What about your personal client contacts?"
The kid behind him cut in.
"The brand relationships you brought in before you joined. Charles said if you contacted them under the Bright Harbor name, they count as ours."
I looked at him.
"Who did I contact under the Bright Harbor name? Which email? Which call log? Show me."
That shut him up.
Sam tried to smooth it over. "Rennie, come on. Let's part on good terms. Once the handoff is clean, this month's pay clears too."
"The thirty-one hundred?"
I said.
"Keep it."
I closed the door.
Outside I could hear the kid muttering. Something about "arrogant." Sam said something lower, and the footsteps faded.
Ten minutes later my phone buzzed.
A text from Dana.
"Rennie, this industry is small. Walk out like this and I'll make sure you never work in it again."
I read it. Deleted it. Opened my music app and picked a track and turned the volume all the way up.
---
The next morning I slept in.
There was a message waiting.
From Howard Baines, my old boss at Baines Group.
"Rennie. Heard you went to Bright Harbor. How's it going, settling in?"
I typed back two words.
"Left already."
Howard called immediately.
"What happened?"
"Difference of philosophy."
I didn't want to get into it.
"Alright. Take a few days. You're always welcome back here."
"But one thing I want to put on your radar."
His voice went serious.
"Bright Harbor's Harbor Point project. The brand list they gave their investors — several of those names are clients you personally brought in when you were here."
"Watch your back."
I ran my thumb along the strap of my old watch.
"I know. Thank you, Howard."
I hung up. Then I pulled up a number I hadn't called in six months.
Saved under a single name: Kessler.
He picked up on the second ring. His voice was loud, warm, a man used to shouting across a room.
"Well, look who it is. Rennie Voss. Haven't heard from you in a while."
"Walt, there's something I want to confirm with you."
"Go ahead."
I talked for five minutes.
He was quiet for a beat. Then he laughed once.
"I get it. You're covered."
I hung up and set the phone on the table.
---
I stayed home for a week.
I went out for groceries and that was it.
Nobody from Bright Harbor showed up at my door again.
Probably Dana and Sam figured a new hire who'd been scared once would come around.
One afternoon I was on the balcony getting some sun when my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I picked up.
"Hello, is this Rennie Voss?"
The voice was strained and trying to sound pleasant.
"This is she."
"Hi, this is Sam Reyes, leasing director at Bright Harbor. We met at your door."
"Sam. What do you want?"
"Rennie, are you free right now? I'd like to talk to you about Harbor Point."
His voice dropped low.
"I'm not free."
"Don't hang up —"
He was getting desperate.
"I know the company did you wrong."
"Dana is just like that. Don't take it personally."
"The pay issue — Charles knows about it. He talked to HR."
"He said they'd make it up to you. Every cent."
I listened.
I didn't believe a word.
If they meant it, Charles would be the one calling. Not Sam.
"Sam, I don't work for Bright Harbor anymore. Harbor Point is something your current employees should handle."
"Sorry, I'm busy."
I moved to hang up.
"Wait —"
He was almost pleading now.
"Rennie, I'm asking you a favor."
"Harbor Point's leasing conference is next quarter, and we can't reach three of our anchor brands. They won't take calls. They won't answer emails."
"My team's been chasing them for two weeks. Not one callback."
"If this project blows up, my whole department is gone."
There was begging in his voice.
I could picture him — a leasing director, reduced to calling a woman who'd quit a month ago.
I felt nothing.
"That's your problem. Not mine."
"When you recruited me, it was clear. I'd be responsible for anchor brand placement at Harbor Point."
"And what happened? I didn't even have edit access to the client database."
"A month in, nobody gave me a single account. Nobody took me to meet a single brand."
"And now that they won't pick up, you remember I exist?"
"Sam, we're both adults. Don't be naive."
The line was quiet for a long moment.
He sighed.
"I understand."
"Rennie, I know you're angry."
"Tell me what you want. If you come back, we can talk numbers."
"Numbers."
I ran my thumb along the watch strap.
"Sam, do you think I need you to talk numbers with me?"
"Bright Harbor offered me three hundred grand. That's why I came. You decided I wasn't worth it and paid me thirty-one hundred."
"So now. What do you think I'm worth?"
He had nothing.
"I'm not coming back to Bright Harbor. Not if Charles asks me himself."
"Good luck."
I hung up.
I set the phone on the arm of the couch and went back to the sun.
---
Another week went by.
At three in the afternoon a courier brought a certified letter.
A law firm's name was printed on the envelope.
I opened it. A legal notice.
From: Bright Harbor.
The content was simple. I was accused of violating a non-compete agreement, of stealing confidential client information during my employment. I was to appear at the company within seven business days to cooperate with an investigation, or formal proceedings would begin.
I read it. I laughed.
Out loud.
Non-compete? There was no non-compete clause in my employment contract. On my first day Dana rushed the paperwork. Half the forms were never signed.
Stealing client info? I never even had edit access to the client database. Read access leaves a log. Check it.
I folded the letter and put it in a drawer.
Then I texted Lauren Ainsley. "Coffee?"
Lauren was a former colleague from Baines Group. Three years as a leasing assistant before she moved on. We weren't close, but we could talk.
At four-thirty we met at the café downstairs.
Lauren pushed her thin-rimmed glasses up. Her face was all worry.
"Rennie. I heard. Bright Harbor is telling everyone."
"Telling them what?"
"That you quit less than a month in and took the company's core client list."
She kept her voice down, like the next table might hear.
"That you're difficult to work with. That you aim high and deliver nothing."
"It's all over the group chat."
"Which group?"
"The regional commercial leasing network. Dana is very active in there. She's posted a few things in the past two days. She doesn't name you, but everyone knows."
Lauren frowned at me.
"What actually happened? Three hundred grand a year. Why would you walk?"
"They paid me thirty-one hundred the first month."
Lauren's hand stopped on her coffee cup.
"How much?"
"Thirty-one hundred."
"Are they insane?"
"So I left. Now they're turning it around and saying I stole clients."
Lauren made a face. Then she hesitated.
"Rennie, do you want to get a lawyer? If they actually file —"
"No."
I pulled the legal notice out and pointed at the date at the bottom.
"Look at the date on this."
Lauren leaned in.
"September eighth? But you left September first."
"Right. The letter accuses me of violating a non-compete period. But there's no non-compete clause in my contract, and my onboarding file was never complete. They didn't even bother to get their own logic straight before they sent this."
Lauren relaxed a little.
"Okay. So legally they don't have a leg to stand on."
I sipped my coffee and didn't answer.
What I didn't tell her was that I'd seen the flaw in the letter's wording the second I opened it.
Bright Harbor didn't want a lawsuit.
They wanted to scare me. Make me keep my mouth shut about the ugly truth in this industry.
---
Walking out of the café, my phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number.
"Ms. Voss, I heard you've left Bright Harbor. If you're open to it, I'd like to meet and talk. My name is Grant."
I looked at the message. Didn't reply.
But I didn't delete it either.
---
That month there was a semi-private industry mixer, in the ballroom of a downtown hotel.
Most people in leasing went. It was a place to keep up contacts and trade information.
I went back and forth on it for a day. Then I went.
Not many people there when I arrived. Scattered in twos and threes across the room, drinks in hand, talking.
I'd put on a plain dark jacket. Took a glass of juice at the door.
Two steps in, I felt it.
A few people I'd met before glanced over, then looked away fast and muttered to whoever was next to them.
I nodded at one of them.
He looked through me.
I carried my glass to an empty table and sat down.
Across the room was a table with a few people at it. One of them I knew — Neil Ashby, a leasing VP at another commercial firm.
When I was at Baines Group, I'd connected him with a brand and saved him a lot of legwork. He'd told me to my face he owed me one.
Ashby looked over.
He held it for two seconds. Then he turned and clinked glasses with the man beside him.
Like he'd never seen me.
Fine.
I drank my juice.
Someone was coming.
A tall man in a gray suit, hair cropped short.
I didn't know him.
He sat down across from me and set his glass on the table.
"Rennie Voss? The one from Baines Group?"
"That's me."
"I heard."
He turned his glass a slow circle. His voice carried just enough for the next two tables to hear.
"You had some trouble at Bright Harbor, took their clients, now you've got a legal notice?"
He said it casually, like he was confirming a piece of gossip.
But I noticed the next two tables went quiet.
Everyone listening.
"Your information's wrong."
I looked at him.
"I didn't take any clients. I couldn't even access Bright Harbor's client database."
"Oh? That's not the version I heard."
He leaned back, enjoying it.
"Dana Cross at Bright Harbor says the minute you walked in, you started working the anchor brands. And when you left you didn't even say goodbye."
"She says people like you bounce from firm to firm, strip a round of contacts, and walk off whistling."
"What do you say to that?"
He was waiting for me to explain myself.
The whole room was waiting for me to explain myself.
I set the juice glass down on the table. Ran two fingers along its rim.
"Believe whatever you want."
I didn't go on.
The silence made him uncomfortable. He smirked and stood and walked off.
I sat there alone.
The room filled with more people. The light went warm and a little fake. Nobody came over to talk to me.
Until a shadow fell across my table.
A pair of black canvas shoes. Gray slacks. A navy jacket that didn't quite fit.
Author's Note
Rennie smiles, says "I understand," then writes a one-sentence resignation email. That quiet pivot stayed with me. What would you have done at that desk?
Want to read ahead right now? Get early access to many more chapters on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/fengma
