Her Son Works for the Man She Destroyed

The day of my baby sister's one-month celebration, my father took her out, and on the road a car ploughed into them.

My mother—the woman worth hundreds of millions—pulled every doctor away to save her first love instead, all because he said the smell of blood made him want to be sick.

That night my father and my month-old sister were left to die where they lay, and I was framed and thrown out of the house.

In the twenty years that followed, I lived on the charity of my father's oldest friend and a drive that left no room for keeping myself alive, until I became Mr. Swanson, the man at the head of a ten-billion-dollar empire.

It was the company's annual conversion review, and my assistant slid five files across the desk.

He tapped the boy on the first page, full of praise.

"Mr. Swanson, this one's named Abner Sullivan—his numbers are excellent. Every supervisor scored him near perfect."

I opened Abner Sullivan's profile, and my eyes stopped on the line listing family members.

Those two names. I could be burned to ash and still never forget them.

A long time passed before I had the assistant bring all five interns in.

The full-time contracts went out, one by one.

When I reached the last person, I lifted my head, met those eyes already certain of victory, and calmly pushed the termination letter across the table.

"Abner Sullivan. You didn't pass."

...

The air in the conference room seemed to freeze on the spot.

The other four interns stood frozen with their contracts in hand, glancing instinctively at Abner.

The assistant froze too. He stood at my side, eyes signaling at me, anxious.

"Mr. Swanson…"

I acted as if I hadn't seen it, my gaze level on the boy in front of me.

He looked so much like his father.

The same good looks, the same cleverness, the same bone-deep sense of superiority.

Of everyone in that room, Abner alone wasn't rattled.

He only blinked, a flicker of surprise, and then was calm again.

Unhurried, he opened the folder he'd brought and spread its contents flat on the table.

"Mr. Swanson, I've interned at your company for three months. I handled four projects, two of them on my own. Client renewal rate, one hundred percent."

His tone was even, neither groveling nor brash, every point in order.

"Two straight quarters of top marks on the reviews. My numbers are the highest of any intern in my cohort."

He finished, paused, then raised his eyes to me.

"That puts me first out of everyone who started when I did. If you're cutting me, you owe me a reason."

His chin tipped up slightly as he said it. No hurt in his eyes—only the held-down composure of someone who'd just been offended.

It was the kind of nerve that came from the bone.

The confidence and pride you only grow when the world has circled you since childhood, when home is happy and whole.

I leaned back in my chair and looked at him, and let a long silence run before I answered.

"There's no reason."

Abner's face stiffened.

"This is my company. I want to let you go. It's that simple."

A crack finally showed in his expression.

His color shifted, but he recovered fast and gave a cold little laugh.

"Mr. Swanson, this is workplace bullying."

He shut the folder, his voice dropping cold.

"If word of this got out, it might do some damage to your company's reputation."

I smiled.

"I'm not bullying you."

I held his eyes, not a trace of expression on my face.

"If this feels like bullying to you, maybe that's your problem. People who are actually good never think they're being targeted. Only the guilty do."

That landed, and Abner's face changed completely.

I'd finally gotten under his skin.

That was when the assistant leaned in close, dropping his voice at my ear.

"Mr. Swanson, why don't you reconsider? This young man really did perform exceptionally during his internship—and the board ran a check on him. His mother runs the Sullivan Group—she's Kay Sull—"