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It sounded to Becca like Ryan was about to get chewed out for being sloppy. She’d warned him about it before, but he never listened.
“What do you have to say to that, Becca?” the partner continued.
“Wait, what?” Becca said. “Me?”
“According to your supervisor, you were the one who approved those changes in the Rayak deal.”
“That is not… Ryan! Tell them!”
Ryan shook his head, shrugged his shoulders. “I tried to cover for you as best I could.”
“What?” she said.
It was suddenly all clear to her. Ryan hadn’t done his job, he hadn’t briefed the partners fully on the deal, and when the partners found a problem with it, he was trying to lay it all on her.
“Listen,” Becca said. “Whatever he’s told you, is a lie. I brought that deal to him, he approved everything. If there were any issues…”
“Trying to shift the blame is unprofessional,” another one of the partners said.
“Shift the blame?” she said. “I brought this firm a successful deal. One that made everyone in this room a boatload of money, I’d like to point out.”
“That’s being overly generous to yourself,” the first partner said. “Especially when we find out that many millions of dollars were lost due to poor judgement.”
“Poor judgement?” she said.Just keep quiet and maybe it won’t be so bad, Ryan had said, but this was outrageous. “Wearetalking about the Rayak deal, right? The one thatIbrought toyou? The one that didn’t even exist without me?”
“We have allowed you to cultivate some relationships by leveraging our considerable network of resources, that’s true,” another one of the partners said. “We expect nothing less.”
God. Now the partners were trying to take credit for her work. She’d busted her butt for years, years of hard work, to create her own network of contacts throughout her industry, and now, they were trying to act like it was all just handed to her. By them.
She looked around the room at the partners and saw a never-ending field of crusty old entitled men. It looked like the locker room of a country club that required a seven figure bank account and a withered old penis to join.
And that was when she realized. There was no talking her way out of this. They didn’t care what the real situation was. Ryan had been whispering in their ears and the ungrateful old bastards had swallowed down every word.
“Oh, I see what’s going on here,” she said. “Those guys at Rayak were right, Ryan, youarea little weasel.”
“Becca…” Ryan said.
“You’re throwing me under the bus so that you can make partner,” Becca said.
“That is not what’s happening here.”
“That is exactly what’s happening here. I can’t believe you. You’ve been screwing me for months in your apartment and now, you’re screwing me at the office.”
I really should shut up now, she thought.Shut up, put my head down and walk out with some dignity.
But she just couldn’t do it. Something was churning inside of her, burning its way out, refusing to be denied. It was rising up like flood water and couldn’t be stopped. This son of a bitch Ryan, who’d been sleeping with her for months, was throwing her under the bus all to save his incompetent ass, and the rest of them were letting him do it.
This was insane. This was impossible. She’d left her family to come out here to Denver and spent years and years busting her butt to make a life here. All those late nights, the six and seven day work weeks, the countless phone calls and dinners and events to build up her list of contacts, and these greedy rich assholes were going to pull it all out from under her.
Well, the hell with it, she thought.If I’m going to go out, I’m going out in a blaze of glory. They think they can get rid of me? They’re never going to forget me.
“You guys don’t even care, do you?” Becca said, looking around at the crusty old partners. “You made up your minds long before you ever stepped foot in here, to believe Ryan and his lies rather than hear my side. Well, let me tell you a little something about your new partner.”
“Don’t,” Ryan said.
“You guys were worried about inadequate performance? This noodle dick knows all about that. And I don’t just mean on the job.”
“You should stop, Becca,” Ryan said.
