Monday morning arrived with a crispness that signaled a shift. Tiana was at her desk by 7:30 AM, determined to be so efficient that Henderson wouldn't even have a reason to clear his throat in her direction.
The office was buzzing with more energy than usual. Her desk mate, Sarah, leaned over the partition with wide eyes.
"Have you heard?" Sarah whispered. "Mr. Armani, the big boss, went on a hiring spree over the weekend. Apparently, the workload has been so 'inhumane' lately that he's brought in a wave of fresh interns to support the departments."
Tiana felt a flicker of hope, but she quickly suppressed it. "That's great for the legal teams, Sarah, but I'm just Accounts and Filing. Armani probably thinks I can handle the mountain of paperwork with my bare hands."
"Don't be so sure," Sarah said. "I saw a list on Henderson's desk. There are six of them."
Tiana sighed and turned back to her monitor. The idea of an assistant, someone to help cross-reference the thousands of invoices and filing receipts—felt like a luxury she didn't deserve. She spent the next hour buried in a sea of red-inked corrections, the weight of the office once again pressing down on her shoulders.
Then, there was a soft knock on the side of her cubicle.
Tiana looked up, expecting Henderson with another lecture. Instead, she saw a young woman with bright, intelligent eyes and a notebook clutched to her chest. She looked no older than twenty, dressed in a sharp but modest blazer.
"Excuse me? Are you Ms. Tiana Longman?"
Tiana blinked, surprised. "Yes. Can I help you?"
The girl beamed, a look of genuine relief washing over her face. "I'm Chloe. I'm the new intern assigned to the Accounts and Filing department. Mr. Armani said you were the best person to learn from."
Tiana sat frozen for a second. Assigned to her? She looked at the stack of folders that had been threatening to swallow her whole, then back at Chloe's eager face.
"You're... you're here to help me?" Tiana asked, her voice small.
"If you'll have me," Chloe said with a shy smile.
"I'm great with organization, and I've been told I'm a bit of a wizard with spreadsheets."
A genuine, radiant smile broke across Tiana's face—the first real one she'd had in the office in months. "Chloe, you have no idea how glad I am to meet you. Grab a chair. We have a lot of work to do."
As Tiana began to explain the filing system, she felt a strange sense of momentum. For the first time, she wasn't just surviving the day; she was building something.
But across the street, in the glass tower of the Lahman Group, a pair of eyes were watching the entrance of Lincoln Willow Legal.
Amir Lahman stood by his floor-to-ceiling window, a tablet in his hand showing the daily employee logs of the firms in his building.
He didn't know why he was looking for her name. He didn't know why he felt the need to ensure she had made it to work on time. He just knew that the "peace" of the family dinner had worn off, and the mystery of Tiana Longman was calling him back into the shadows.
The atmosphere at Lincoln Willow Legal had shifted from its usual high-tension hum to a suffocating, clinical silence. When Tiana stepped off the elevator on Tuesday morning, she didn't hear the usual frantic clicking of heels or the muffled roar of the communal printer. Instead, she saw a row of black-suited security guards standing by the mahogany doors of the executive wing.
Every single Founding Partner was in the building. This was unheard of. Mr. Armani, the elusive Managing Partner who usually managed the firm from a villa in Tuscany, was spotted in the breakroom staring at the espresso machine as if it were a hostile witness.
"What's happening?" Tiana whispered as she reached her desk, where Chloe was already perched, her eyes wide.
"Audit," Chloe mouthed, her voice barely a breath. "Not just a standard one. A 'Deep Dive' requested by the primary landlord of the building complex. They're checking every ledger, every filing cabinet, and every cent that's moved through this floor in the last five years."
Tiana felt a cold shiver. The "landlord" of this gleaming glass monolith was none other than the Lahman Group.
In the midst of the corporate storm, Tiana and Chloe became a two-woman fortress. While the lawyers upstairs were sweating through their bespoke shirts, Tiana and Chloe were knee-deep in the "dungeon" the lower-level filing room where the air was thick with the scent of old paper and dust.
Over the last few days, their partnership had blossomed into something more than just a mentor-mentee dynamic. Chloe wasn't just a "wizard with spreadsheets"; she was a ray of sunshine in Tiana's grey world.
"You know," Chloe said, expertly color-coding a stack of 2023 invoices, "I realized last night when I saw you walking your dog that we literally live three blocks apart. I'm in that brick building with the blue flower boxes."
Tiana paused, a folder halfway into a drawer. "The one near the deli? I pass that every morning! How have we never run into each other?"
"I usually leave at 6:00 AM to hit the gym," Chloe laughed, "And you usually look like you're running a marathon just to get to the subway. We're like ships in the night, Miss Tiana."
The discovery of their proximity changed everything. They began walking home together, the miles of pavement between the office and their affordable neighborhood serving as a confessional. Tiana told Chloe about the weight of her family name, though she kept the details of the "ruin" vague. Chloe, in turn, talked about her dream of becoming the first person in her family to pass the CPA exam.
They were two girls fighting the same uphill battle, tucked away in the pockets of the city that the billionaires ignored. Their bond was the only thing making the "Deep Dive" audit bearable.