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 motherthe woman worth hundreds of millionspulled 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 Sullivanhis 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 eyesonly 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 internshipand the board ran a check on him. His mother runs the Sullivan Groupshe's Kay Sull"

"Kay Sullivan."

I raised a hand to cut him off and turned to Abner Sullivan.

"That's your mother, isn't she?"

He blinked, then lifted his chin, suddenly proud, as if the name itself made him worth more.

"So Mr. Swanson has heard of my mother."

There was no hiding the confidence in his voice.

"Then you already understand. Keep me on, and someday there could be a partnership between your company and the Sullivan Group."

He said it easily, certain of himself.

After all, twenty years on, the Sullivan Group was a long way from its glory days, but it still stood at a height ordinary companies could only stare up at.

"No need."

His face froze.

"I don't want anything from the Sullivans."

I held the resignation letter out to him.

"Now, you can go."

That broke him completely. His face went red, not from shame but from fury.

He'd been the golden child his whole life. No one had ever turned him down in public.

"Fine."

He glared at me and snatched the letter off the desk.

"Mr. Swanson, I'll remember today. I hope you won't live to regret it."

Once he was gone, I sent the other four interns out too.

My assistant clearly hadn't caught up. He was still trying to talk me out of it.

"Mr. Swanson, why would you do this? The Sullivan Group is past its prime, sure, but a wounded giant still outweighs everyone else. Firing the Sullivan heir in front of everyonethat's not a smart move."

"Are you finished?"

My voice was cold enough to shut his mouth in an instant.

"Go make me a copy of every project file Abner Sullivan touched during his internship. Bring it to my office."

That afternoon, the assistant had barely set the files down when the office door was shoved open from the outside.

I looked up. A man came striding in, contempt in every step.

His suit was bespoke, the watch on his wrist worth a downtown apartment.

Bill James.

Twenty years gone, and he'd done well for himself.

"You're the one who runs this company?"

He sat down across from me and tossed his Maybach key onto the desk like he owned the room.

"Who told you that you could fire my son?"

I ignored him, took my time picking up the cup on my desk, and poured myself some tea.

"Mr. James, still as loud as ever. Looks like the years have been kind to you."

That stopped him.

He stared at my face for several seconds, never placing where he'd seen me before.

He didn't remember me at all.

Twenty years ago I was nothing but a scrawny six-year-old, thrown out of that house on a single word from him.

Now I ran a corporation worth billions. There was no way he'd recognize me.

He assumed I only knew him because he'd married into the Sullivan family.

"Since you know who I am, let's skip the games."

His voice was unhurried, layered with the casual arrogance of a man used to being waited on.

"Abner is my son. Having him work at your company is an honor for you. But a man of his caliber is wasted as a regular employee. Put him straight into a management position."

I smiled a little.

"Is he worthy of one?"

His expression shifted.

"What did you say?"

I set down the cup and looked at him, letting each word land.

"I said, he isn't worthy."

He shot to his feet, his face white with rage.

"Listen here, Swanson, don't push your luck. My son working at your company is doing you a favor. Do you have any idea how many partnership deals the Sullivans close in a single year?"

"One word from my wife and your company walks away with enough to set you up for life!"

I watched the ugly performance of it, and I couldn't help wondering.

When he'd threatened my father into stepping aside all those years ago, had he worn this same face?

"Sorry. A partnership with the Sullivans is beneath me."

I pressed the intercom on my desk.

"Send up two security guards."

They were up fast, and they hauled Bill James back.

His eyes went wide. A man of his standing, and someone had actually dared to lay hands on him.

Then the office door slammed open again.

A tall, lean girl came charging in, early twenties, head to toe in some streetwear label.

She jabbed a finger at my face and started in.

"Who the hell do you think you are, putting your hands on my father? Keep it up and I'll have my mother shut this dump of a company down by tomorrow!"

I looked at the brash young face, and at the brow and eyes that traced the exact line of Bill James's.

And another image cut across my vision.

That rainy night twenty years ago, when I lost two people I loved at once.

The father who'd doted on me, and my baby sister, only a month old.

If she'd lived, she'd be about this age now.

"This is your daughter?"

There was a tremor in my voice I couldn't quite keep down.

"Of course. Yvette Sullivan, my daughter with Kay."

I stared at the two of them. Then I smiled.

"Good."

I stood and looked at Yvette.

"Go home and tell your mother. I'd love to see how she plans to deal with me."

The guards had them out the door soon enough.

I sat back down, picked up the glass of water gone cold, and drained it in one go.

This was only the beginning. I knew that.

After they were gone, I gave my assistant another task.

"Pull everything on Yvette Sullivan. The more detail the better."

The file came quickly.

Yvette Sullivan, twenty-one, college senior, currently interning at the city TV station.

The TV station. What were the odds.

I looked at the file, hesitated a long while, then made the call anyway.

It was answered fast.

"Bas? Why are you calling this late? I thought you said you were swamped today."

Charlotte Joyce's voice, and I went quiet for a few seconds.

She's my girlfriend, and the star producer at the city TV station.

I didn't want to pull her into any of this.

But this was the one thing only she could help me with.

"Do you have an intern over there named Yvette Sullivan?"

She answered right away.

"Yeah. Word is she's the Sullivan Group heiress. How do you know her?"

I wavered, then finally said it.

"I don't want to see her. Can you let her go?"

There was a beat of silence on her end.

She knows me. She knows I'm not the kind of man who makes a fuss over nothing.

"Bas. What happened?"

"Nothing."

I didn't want her anywhere near my past, so I kept my voice low.

"I just don't like that Sullivan family."

She didn't push. She just gave a quick, clean answer.

"Okay. I'll handle it."

I let out a breath. Something in my chest eased, and I was grateful for her.

"I'll come by the station tonight and pick you up."

After work I drove to the city TV station, and I'd barely stepped out of the car when I saw Yvette, two security guards holding her back, still spitting curses.

"On what grounds are you firing me? Because I cursed a few people out on the clock? Let me tell you, my mother is Kay Sullivan. You cross me, you cross the entire Sullivan Group!"

A man stood beside her, trying to reason with her, helplessness all over his face.

"Ms. Sullivan, please calm down. You struck a colleague first. We're only following procedure"

"Procedure? I am the procedure! I'm telling you, if that little bitch isn't fired today and on her knees apologizing to me, this isn't over!"

That was when Charlotte came out of the building.

She spotted me at once and walked straight over, slipping her arm through mine.

"Wait long?"

"No. Just got here."

I smiled at her, and Yvette caught the whole thing.

The sight of how easy we were together told her everything she needed to know.

"You. It really was you behind all this, Swanson! Getting my brother fired wasn't enough, so you sent someone after me too!"

She tore loose from the guards and came at me with her hand raised.

Charlotte's expression hardened. She stepped in front of me and called the guards over.

"Get her out of here."

The two of them grabbed Yvette and hauled her off.

"Swanson, you think you can come after the Sullivan family? My mother will never let this go. Just you wait!"

Yvette's screaming faded into the distance. Charlotte turned to me, worried.

"Kay Sullivan's been one of the most respected names in this city for years. What actually happened, that you'd do something like this?"

I shook my head. I didn't want to get into it.

That night, I got a call from a number I didn't know and a voice I did.

Kay Sullivan.

Twenty years.

The voice landed before I was ready for it, and something in me clenched, sharp and against my will, the way an old wound does when you forget and then remember.

"So you're the Swanson who runs Bedrock Technologies?"

On the other end, there was a thread of condescension in her tone, like she was sizing me up.

"That's me."

"Who gave you the nerve to go after my children?"

I let out a short, cold laugh and didn't spare her.

"Ms. Sullivan, I think you've got this backwards. The Sullivan Group these days has already been pushed out by the market. Bedrock's in another league. Why would I waste my time targeting a failure?"

"You"

That tipped her over the edge. In all her life, she'd probably never had someone half her age provoke her like that.

A cold laugh came down the line.

"Fine. Very good. Young and reckless, no idea who you're dealing with."

"You think Bedrock is so untouchable? Let's see how many days you last."

"I'll be waiting."

I said it flatly and hung up.

Kay moved fast.

By early the next morning my assistant came rushing in, phone in hand, his face grim.

"Mr. Swanson, you need to see this."

Number three on the trending list, in plain sight: Bedrock Technologies President Leads a Sordid Private Life.

I scrolled down.

A handful of paid accounts had posted long write-ups, saying a man barely past twenty doesn't land a president's chair without a backer.

Then came post after post, all of it hinting that our core tech didn't hold up, that the whole company ran on marketing and tricked the market.

"Mr. Swanson, several of our partners have already called asking about it." His voice was shaking. "If we don't get ahead of this, they may pull their investments."

Before I could answer, there was a knock at the office door.

An assistant from PR hurried in with a laptop.

"It's bad, Mr. Swanson. Abner Sullivan's posted a video online too."

I took it and looked.

In the video, Abner sat in front of the camera in a sharp suit, walking through the project reports he'd done during his internship one by one.

"These are all the projects I completed during my internship at Bedrock Technologies. Every one of them was my own work. I had the top performance numbers of my intern class, and yet Mr. Swanson fired me in front of everyone, with no reason at all."

He paused, his eyes going faintly red.

"It was only later that I found out two of the female interns had been in private contact with Mr. Swanson. I don't want to assume the worst, but the facts speak for themselves."

The video ended with a side-by-side comparison of Abner and one of those interns.

The caption read: Where did I fall short?

My assistant slammed his hand on the desk.

"This is garbage. That intern handled back-office work. She didn't have a single project metric to her name!"

The head of PR stood there wringing his hands.

"Mr. Swanson, public opinion has turned completely against us. They're all calling it workplace bullying. Maybe you should put out a statement to clear things up?"

I nodded.

"A statement is definitely in order."

But what I put out wasn't a clarification. I filed suit against Abner Sullivan for defamation and damage to the company's reputation.

The move set the Sullivans off all over again.

It didn't take long. Kay Sullivan contacted the TV station and arranged a fully live televised confrontation, then asked whether I had the nerve to show up.

I was about to agree when Charlotte hurried over and stopped me.

"Bas, don't go. Kay's pulled in a whole crowd of media. She's bought off the host and every guest on the panel. They've even scripted the whole thing. The second you walk in, the hit pieces will be everywhere."

I listened to all of it in silence, then asked her one thing.

"Can you get me control-room access for the broadcast?"

She nodded without thinking.

"That part's doable, but"

"Then that's enough."

I sent Kay a single message.

"I'll be there."

I set the phone down, walked into the bathroom, and looked at myself in the mirror.

The man looking back wore a dark gray suit, standing perfectly straight.

Twenty years. From the night my father died to this moment, I had been waiting for this broadcast.

I spoke softly to my reflection.

"Dad. I finally made it here."