Natasha's POV
Natasha watches the first person get fired at 9 AM.
Robert Chen from accounting. He's been with Stone Global for six years. He has a wife. Two kids. A mortgage in the suburbs. And Gabriel Stone just called him into a glass-walled conference room with Ryan from security and terminated him on the spot.
The reason? He made a comment in the break room.
Natasha knows because she heard it herself. Robert said something crude about Lily. About how Gabriel must be getting something special to keep her on the executive floor. It was mean and inappropriate and exactly the kind of thing that gets said in corporate offices every day.
Except Gabriel heard about it.
And Gabriel decided it was worth destroying a man's career.
By noon, three people are gone. Not just fired. Escorted out by security. Humiliated in front of their colleagues. Their severance packages already being processed.
All because of Lily Hart.
Natasha sits at her desk and watches the chaos unfold and wants to scream.
She's been Gabriel's executive assistant for four years.
Four years of waking up at 5 AM to review his schedule. Four years of knowing his preferences, his triggers, his patterns better than anyone alive. Four years of being perfect. Of being efficient. Of being indispensable.
She thought eventually he'd see her.
Not as an assistant. As a woman. As someone beautiful and capable and right there. She thought four years of perfect service would mean something. She thought eventually he'd realize that she understood him in ways no one else could.
Instead, he's obsessed with a foster kid in a thrift store blazer.
Natasha started the rumors herself.
She'd done it so carefully. A whisper here. A comment there. Suggesting that Lily was sleeping with Gabriel. That she didn't belong on the executive floor. That she was using him.
Natasha thought it would work. Thought Gabriel would distance himself from Lily to protect his professional reputation. Thought Lily would leave in humiliation and Natasha could go back to being the only woman in Gabriel's world.
She was wrong.
Gabriel didn't distance himself. He protected Lily.
He protected her so publicly and so violently that now everyone knows he cares deeply about her. And Natasha's plan didn't destroy Lily.
It destroyed Natasha's last chance.
She sits at her desk with her perfect manicure and her perfect makeup and her perfect everything and realizes none of it matters. Gabriel looks through her like she's furniture.
But he looks at Lily like she's oxygen.
Around 2 PM, Natasha makes a decision.
She opens her desk drawer and pulls out the notebook she's been keeping. The one where she started documenting Gabriel's behavior with Lily weeks ago. Just casual observations at first. But now the observations have become evidence.
Late night meetings. Chinese food ordered for two. Gabriel leaving the office early because Lily left early. The way he touches the back of his chair where Lily sits. The requests for her transfer. The policy changes just to take care of her. The way his entire personality shifts when she's in the room.
Natasha has been cataloging his obsession like a scientist studying a disease.
She starts adding new entries. Notes about this morning's fires. The way Gabriel's eyes looked when he was protecting her. The conversation Natasha overheard where Gabriel told Lily she means something to him.
It's a portrait of a man losing control.
And Natasha is going to use it.
She can't compete with Lily. Can't make Gabriel see her the way he sees that broken foster kid. But maybe she can make Gabriel see Lily as a problem instead of a solution.
Maybe she can make him understand that his obsession is dangerous.
Maybe she can destroy them both.
Natasha finishes documenting the day and closes her notebook. She pulls out her phone and scrolls through her contacts until she finds Marcus Webb's number.
Marcus has been on the board for fifteen years. He's old money. Inherited wealth. He's never liked Gabriel because Gabriel built something real while Marcus just managed his family's leftovers. There's been tension between them for years. Tension that Natasha has always noticed.
She dials.
"Marcus, it's Natasha Crane," she says when he answers. "Gabriel's assistant."
"Of course. How can I help you?"
"I need to meet with you in private," Natasha says quietly. "There's something you need to know about Gabriel's behavior. Something that affects his fitness to lead."
Marcus's interest is immediate. She can hear it in how his voice sharpens.
"What kind of behavior?"
"Not over the phone," Natasha says. "But I have documentation. Photos. Timestamps. Evidence that Gabriel is making decisions based on personal obsession rather than business logic."
"Personal obsession with whom?"
Natasha smiles even though Marcus can't see it. This is the moment. This is where she takes back control.
"An intern named Lily Hart," she says. "And I think you should know that Gabriel Stone might be mentally unstable."
The line goes quiet for a moment.
"I'll arrange a meeting," Marcus finally says. "Tomorrow. Somewhere private."
After Natasha hangs up, she feels something loosen in her chest.
It's not happiness. It's not relief. It's something darker. Something that tastes like revenge.
She thought she wanted Gabriel.
But what she really wants is for him to hurt the way she's hurting.
What she really wants is for him to lose something precious.
And if that something is Lily Hart, then Natasha can live with being alone.
As long as Gabriel is alone too.
She gathers her notebook and her photos and her carefully documented evidence and realizes she's about to change everything.
Gabriel Stone is about to learn what happens when you choose a nobody over the woman who's been holding your entire life together.
And by the time Natasha is finished, he won't just lose Lily.
He'll lose everything.