It began with a shift in the air. One that didn't come with an email or a warning. Just a subtle change in how people looked at her.
Too long.
Too short.
Like they were recalibrating where she belonged.
Anna noticed it the moment she stepped onto the main floor of VAST. The buzz didn't stop, but the flow changed. Conversations hiccuped when she passed. Jokes softened mid-punchline. Compliments came a little too late, or not at all.
There was no accusation.
Just hesitation.
The kind that preceded a narrative being built without your permission.
She walked through it like it didn't cling to her ankles.
Because Anna Valeria had learned: when people start whispering, the worst move you can make is flinching.
__
Leah arrived six minutes late, earbuds in, iced coffee sweating in her hand.
She entered like a hurricane in jeans and eyeliner. "Okay, okay… I swear I ran, but the elevator got hijacked by someone who wanted to pitch a deodorant rebrand to the intern coordinator. I'm not kidding."
Anna raised a brow. "Are you?"
"Okay, I might be."
Leah slumped into the extra chair, opened her tablet, and muttered, "There's weird energy in the bullpen today."
Anna didn't look up. "That's not energy. That's pre-collapse consensus-building."
Leah blinked. "You mean gossip?"
"I mean choreography. People are syncing their story before someone gets blamed."
Leah set down her coffee. "And I'm guessing you're the story?"
Anna nodded once. "We're in the part of the timeline where everyone gets nervous I might actually win."
They worked in silence for a while.
The good kind of silence. The kind filled with typing, muttering, and the occasional deep exhale from Leah as she fought a formatting grid that wouldn't align.
Anna reviewed the final rollout strategy deck for the Royal Lux campaign, sharpening the transitions between scent-memory testimonials and digital engagement triggers. Every sentence mattered. Every slide had to hold.
If it faltered, the blame would point to her, even if the work had been communal.
That's how the math worked here.
If it succeeded, Ben had guided it.
If it failed, Anna had led it.
She didn't say that aloud.
Not yet.
But she knew Leah saw it. Because Leah paused and said softly, "You don't breathe while you type. Did you know that?"
Anna glanced up.
"You do this thing," Leah said, mimicking locked shoulders and tight fingers, "like you're loading a weapon."
"I am," Anna said. "And the next meeting is the field test."
At 10:17 a.m., Jules from social stopped by.
He had two mugs of coffee, neither of which belonged to them.
"I was just… making the rounds," he said awkwardly, setting them on the wrong table.
Anna narrowed her eyes. "Do you need something?"
"Just wanted to say, uh, someone upstairs mentioned Ben fixed some things in your deck yesterday. In a good way, I mean."
Leah's head shot up.
Anna didn't blink. "Which things?"
"I don't know. It was just, like, a passing comment. Someone in planning."
Leah opened her mouth.
Anna blinked twice.
Then turned to Jules, voice even. "Next time you bring me someone else's narrative, bring the name too."
Jules flushed, nodded, and left.
Anna stared at her screen for a beat.
Leah looked like she might combust. "He knows you wrote that entire deck. You've literally got the time stamped files."
Anna exhaled slowly. "Facts don't survive without framing. And right now, they're writing their own."
__
By 11:00, the war room was ready.
The internal pitch review would begin in an hour. It was meant to be "safe", a soft review before leadership. But Anna knew better.
Nothing was soft at VAST.
Especially not before Sydney.
Ben entered first. He looked rested. Tailored. At ease.
He gave her a small nod. "Slide 14 made it back in. Leah's backup saved the deck."
Anna didn't smile. "That slide was never missing. Just moved."
Ben tilted his head. "By who?"
She didn't answer.
Because she knew how this worked.
You didn't accuse without proof.
You documented. You absorbed. And you outperformed until the lie couldn't hold itself together.
Sydney arrived next.
She didn't say anything, but her eyes moved like they were taking inventory. Her heels were red. Her expression was unreadable.
Anna didn't greet her.
She had nothing to say that wouldn't sharpen a blade.
Leah took a spot behind her, quiet, watching, processing.
The pitch began at noon.
Anna stood.
No dramatic lead-in. No posturing.
Just a firm tone, crisp pacing, and clear rationale.
The campaign was framed not as a story, but a mirror: scent as memory, identity as discovery, branding as a personal reclamation.
She didn't sell it.
She revealed it.
By the time she landed the final point: user behavior + emotional retargeting + narrative scarcity.
There wasn't a sound in the room.
No applause.
But no questions.
Which was better.
Because silence meant they were considering it.
And consideration was dangerous.
Ben leaned back.
Sydney tilted her head.
Anna exited without waiting for feedback.
In the hallway, Leah caught up.
"That was..." she paused. "That was tactical murder."
Anna raised a brow.
"You took every assumption and quietly set it on fire," Leah continued. "And then walked away like it was weather."
Anna exhaled. "We're not done."
"No?"
"Not until someone else tries to take credit for my match."
Then they returned to their corner room. The one no one claimed, so they had.
Leah pulled up her notes, then hesitated.
"What's the worst-case scenario here?"
Anna didn't look up. "They loop Ben into the front again. Say he was guiding all along."
"But he wasn't."
"Doesn't matter."
Leah nodded slowly. "So what's our move?"
Anna turned, met her eyes. "We don't panic. We build louder. We force proof. We leave no room for ghostwriting."
Leah smirked. "You're terrifying in the best way."
Anna allowed herself a breath of pride. "You're not bad yourself."
__
Later that afternoon, the agency's rhythm slowed.
Anna stayed behind while Leah ran downstairs for a meeting with a print vendor.
The light in the corner office turned golden. Sunset reflecting off a glass skyline.
She was rewriting a caption set when Ben appeared again.
This time, he knocked.
She didn't look up. "If it's another missing slide, I'll start charging for recovery."
Ben chuckled. "No slides. Just…" He paused. "You were good today."
"You already said that."
"I mean it differently this time."
Anna looked at him now.
"Does it ever bother you?" she asked.
"What?"
"That people assume you're the architect, even when you barely lay the bricks?"
Ben was silent.
Then: "Sometimes. But not enough to change the framing."
Anna stood, crossed her arms.
"That's the difference. You learned to play within the narrative. I'm rewriting it."
Ben stepped closer.
"You're changing the rhythm," he said. "I keep thinking I know the next beat, and then…"
"You don't."
"No."
Anna held his gaze.
"Don't get comfortable," she said.
He smiled. "Wouldn't dream of it."
When he left, she didn't sit.
She moved to the window, and looked at the city from her new vantage point.
It didn't feel like hers yet.
But it didn't feel foreign either.
She pulled her notebook from the desk drawer.
Day Four.
Let them whisper.
Let them frame and spin and bait.
I'll build louder.
I'll walk straighter.
And I'll make it impossible to write me out of my own story.