I held my breath, walked to my desk.
Picked up the glass "Outstanding Contribution Award" trophy, and hurled it into the aisle.
CRASH.
Glass shattered everywhere, the sound ripping through the entire office.
Every whisper died instantly.
The whole floor went dead silent.
The conference room door flew open. Kenneth still had a cigarette pinched between his fingers, not even bothered to put it out.
He spotted the shattered trophy on the floor and strolled toward me with a smirk.
"Ronnie, come on, no need for all that. If you've got a problem with how things were decided, I can step aside for you."
I sat in my chair, chin tilted up to meet his eyes.
Same face from three months ago when he first walked in as an intern. But the humble act had long been replaced by the gloating mask of a man who'd lucked into something he didn't earn.
"Sure."
I said it calmly.
"Go tell Mr. James right now. I'll wait."
The smirk on his face froze solid. His eyes shifted from shock to irritation, then landed on pure embarrassment.
He forced out a stiff laugh. "Bro, I was kidding. That's above my pay grade."
I ignored him and turned to my computer, sorting through my files.
Kenneth draped one arm over the glass partition of my cubicle.
The other arm planted itself on my desk. He leaned in, watching my face with that lazy, entitled look.
"Ronnie, Edmund wants you to hand over all the Cloudridge client files. Everything."
"Everything?"
"Yeah. Proposals, material quotes, contact agreements, and the design drafts."
He blew a lazy smoke ring, watching me like he had all the time in the world.
Last month, Cloudridge had requested a lighting design package. Kenneth submitted over a dozen proposals. Every single one got rejected.
On the last day before the deadline, he called me at midnight begging for help.
I pulled an all-nighter to finish it.
The next morning, he walked in with my designs and took full credit.
When Edmund reported to the boss, he said the entire design department had worked overtime to get it done.
I nodded.
"Fine. I'll organize them and send them over."
He smiled, satisfied, and turned to leave.
The stench of cigarette smoke lingered over my workstation long after he was gone.
I opened my hidden files and clicked on a folder labeled "IMPORTANT — DO NOT DELETE."
Inside were eight floor plans for Cloudridge, 108 design proposals, and 2,888 design sketches.