Page 114 of Alien War Daddy's Got Rizz
By the time I finish, the room feels smaller. Warmer. Less hostile. But not comfortable. Not yet.
That’s fine.
I don’t need comfort.
I need compliance.
When the meeting adjourns, a few board members linger. They want to speak—to offer congratulations or cautious praise. I offer polite nods and nothing more. Let them squirm. Let them wonder if I’m the same woman they once manipulated into silence with careful words and power suits and patriarchal nostalgia.
I’m not.
I’mdonebeing their legacy.
Now, Iamthe future.
And they’d do well to keep up. But you know something?
Power is quieter than I expected.
Not the loud, chest-thumping version people imagine—the kind that announces itself with applause and headlines and champagne flutes raised too high. Real power hums. It settles. It waits. It watches you back.
I feel it the moment I close the door to my office and the noise of the floor dulls to a distant murmur. The glass walls throw my reflection back at me—composed, centered, unflinching. This room used to intimidate me. It felt cavernous, too large for the girl who walked into it carrying grief like a second spine.
Now it feels… manageable.
Like something I can rearrange if I want.
I shrug out of my jacket and drape it over the back of the chair, roll my sleeves to the elbow, and pull up the next stack of files. My name sits at the top of every authorization screen. My biometric clearance opens doors without hesitation. My signature—mysignature—sets the tone for an entire corporation.
I’m not surviving anymore.
I’m shaping.
And that realization hits harder than the takeover ever did.
The intercom buzzes. “Chairwoman Greenfield, Legal is asking for confirmation on the South Arc reversal.”
“Approve it,” I say without looking up. “Effective immediately.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I pause. Smile faintly. The wordma’amstill feels strange. Earned. Weighted.
The city beyond the glass is a lattice of light and movement, alive and relentless. Somewhere in that sprawl, people are working, scheming, loving, destroying. Somewhere, consequences are rippling outward from decisions I’ve made today.
I don’t flinch from that anymore.
I welcome it.
The door opens without warning.
No chime. No polite knock.
Just the quiet, deliberate sound of presence.
I don’t turn right away. I don’t need to.
“Tell me they tried to stop you,” I say, dry.
