Every muscle in your back goes rigid.
Rogelio is the kind of man who makes authority look like a cheap cologne he overuses. He has a round face, clipped mustache, and the permanent irritation of someone who enjoys catching mistakes more than fixing them. He stands at the end of the aisle holding a clipboard and gives you the expression supervisors use when they have already decided something unpleasant.
“HR wants you upstairs,” he says.
Your pulse drops.
Marisol glances over with silent sympathy. Nobody gets called to HR before lunch for anything good. You hand off your scanner, wipe your palms on your pants, and walk the long corridor to the administrative offices feeling like each step is taking you farther from the version of your life that still included a paycheck by sundown.
The conference room is glass-walled and freezing.
Alejandro is there.
So is a woman in a navy suit you recognize from the annual safety meeting as Deborah Klein, head of Human Resources. She has silver-framed glasses, careful posture, and the expression of someone who has spent twenty years trying to keep companies from embarrassing themselves in court. A coffee cup sits untouched in front of her.
Alejandro gestures toward the empty chair across from them. “Please sit.”
Please.
That alone almost unnerves you more than if he had been cold.
You sit carefully, backpack still slung over one shoulder because some part of you thinks if they’re going to fire you, you may as well be ready to disappear immediately. Deborah folds her hands and looks at you with professional calm.
“Camila,” she says, “Mr. Ibarra told me about the situation this morning.”
Heat crawls up your neck. “So I’m terminated.”
“No,” Alejandro says.
The word lands too fast.
Too clean.
You look at him. He is out of the gray suit now, jacket off, tie loosened, sleeves rolled once at the forearms. He still looks expensive, but less like a framed photograph and more like a person whose day has been interrupted by something he can’t shake.w
Deborah slides a folder toward you. “We’re creating an emergency housing and transportation support process for any employee facing unsafe domestic conditions. Effective immediately. You are the first case because yours is the first one we know about.”
You don’t touch the folder.
You stare at it as if it might explode.
