Chapter 37: The Guillotine Question
The air in the boardroom thickened after Non’s outburst, a palpable fog of rage and procedure. Ken watched the man seethe, his expression one of detached, clinical observation, like a scientist noting the final thrashings of a specimen.
“Sit down, Non,” Ken said, his voice not loud, but layered with an authority that brooked no argument. “This is not an inquiry into their conduct. It is a review of yours. You will compose yourself, or you will be removed.”
Marcus’s hand, still resting on Non’s shoulder, exerted the slightest pressure downwards. Non collapsed into the empty chair next to Miriam, his body rigid, his breath coming in ragged huffs. He stared at the polished table as if it were a portal to hell.
Ken leaned forward, his fingers interlaced. “Bell,” he began, shifting his gaze. His tone softened, became almost conversational. “You worked directly under Non for… nearly two years, was it? As his assistant manager for Team One.”
Bell, still reeling from the directive that his perspective was ‘conflicted,’ nodded. “Yes, sir. Until last month.”
“In your professional opinion, based on that experience,” Ken continued, “how would you characterize Non’s managerial methodology? His planning, his oversight, his handling of the team workflow?”
Bell’s instinct was to soften, to protect. He glanced at Non, who was staring at him with undisguised loathing, and felt a familiar, habitual pang of sympathy. He wanted to make things better, to find a bridge. He took a breath, his mind cycling through memories of late nights and frantic emails.
“Well,” Bell started, his voice earnest, “Non always had… big-picture ideas. He was very good at presenting the vision to clients.” He saw Ken’s eyes remain steady, waiting for more. “The actual planning, though… the day-to-day project maps and resource allocation… that usually fell to me to draft. I’d run them by him, of course. He’d sometimes… reprioritize tasks on the fly, which could cause some confusion with the timelines Mike and I had set up.”
He said it lightly, as if describing a minor quirk, a funny habit. He didn’t see Maya’s faint, rueful smile, or David’s slow blink of disbelief. He was just explaining how things were.
“So, you handled the operational planning,” Ken clarified, his voice neutral.
“David and Mike were instrumental,” Bell added quickly, gesturing to them. “Mike’s architecture frameworks were our bedrock, and David’s coding efficiency saved us more than once when… when last-minute changes from stakeholders came in.” He was trying to share credit, to be fair. He didn’t notice how he’d framed ‘last-minute changes’ as an external factor, not the direct result of Non’s disorganization. “And Maya and Anne were lifesavers. They managed the budget and client communications, and they always kept me from drowning in the admin side. Honestly, without all of them, Team One wouldn’t have hit any of its deadlines.”
He beamed at his friends, a sincere, grateful smile. He was painting a picture of a team that succeeded despite its manager, not because of him, and was utterly oblivious to the portrait he was creating.
Non made a strangled sound. “You ungrateful little—”
“Quiet,” Marcus rumbled from behind him, the single word a stone wall.
Ken pressed on, his gaze locked on Bell. “And his management of the team itself? His interpersonal approach?”
Bell considered this. This was safer ground, he thought. Non had been difficult, sure, but not cruel. Not to them. “He could be… demanding,” Bell chose the word carefully. “Very focused on outcomes. But he wasn’t aggressive. Not to us, in Team One.” He nodded, convincing himself as he spoke. “He was often in other meetings, or focusing on high-level stakeholder stuff, so the team usually reported to me directly on project progress. Maybe that’s why. He wasn’t… around for the stressful crunch periods most of the time. So, we didn’t see that side, I guess. At least, not until the last month before the reorganization, when he was… more present.”
He finished with a slight shrug, as if to say see, not so bad. He had, with utter innocence, delivered the final blade: Non’s managerial absence was the reason for their peace.
He had, with utter innocence, delivered the final blade: Non’s managerial absence was the reason for their peace.
Bell sat back, a small, hopeful sigh escaping him. He believed he had painted a balanced picture, one that highlighted the team’s hard work while giving Non a veneer of strategic leadership. He thought he’d thrown him a lifeline.
A low, almost inaudible whisper cut through the dense silence to his left. “Oh, sweet summer child,” Maya murmured under her breath, not looking at him.
David leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking. He rubbed his temple, a faint, pained smile on his lips. “He just cataloged every single failure,” he whispered to Mike, his voice a dry rustle of paper. “And framed it as a personality quirk.”
Mike gave a single, slow nod, his placid face unreadable. “The ‘big-picture ideas’ were incoherent rambles. The ‘reprioritizing’ was panic.”
“And saying he ‘wasn’t around for the stressful crunch periods’,” Anne whispered, her maternal voice thick with a strange blend of affection and exasperation. She shot a glance at Bell’s relieved profile. “He just told them Non was entirely absent during every critical project moment. He thinks he helped.”
Ken’s face betrayed nothing. He gave a slow, thoughtful nod, as if Bell had simply confirmed a known fact. “I see. Thank you, Bell. That provides helpful context.” He then turned his attention to the tablet before him, his fingers tapping the screen with deliberate calm. “The complaints from the new trainees were, as I said, documented. Some of that documentation is… illustrative.”
The giant screen at the end of the boardroom, which had just recently displayed the Neptune Project’s sleek roadmap, flickered to life again. Instead of clean slides, it showed a grainy, timestamped video feed. The angle was from the corner of a room—Non’s new, smaller office in the trainees’ wing.
The sound crackled, then cleared. Non’s face, flushed and contorted, filled a portion of the frame. A young woman, her trainee badge visible, stood before his desk, her shoulders hunched.
“What is this garbage?” Non’s voice snarled from the speakers, tinny and sharp. He wasn’t shouting, yet. It was worse—a vicious, seething condescension. “Do you have a brain? Or did you leave it at home with your dignity?”
Bell’s spine went rigid. The hope drained from his face, replaced by sheer, uncomprehending shock.
The video cut to another timestamp, three days later. A different trainee, a young man this time, was receiving a torrent of abuse about a formatting error in a preliminary report. “You are an embarrassment to this company,” Non spat, his finger jabbing the air. “A stain. I should have you cleaning the bathrooms instead of wasting my oxygen.”
Clip after clip played. A week’s worth of tyranny compressed into two relentless minutes. The language grew coarser, more personal. The trainees’ faces—pale, tear-streaked, crumbling—were lit by the cold glow of Non’s computer screen.
Bell felt the room tilt. His hands gripped the edge of the table, knuckles bone-white. This was the ‘more present’ Non from the last month. This was the man he’d just tried to defend. A cold nausea washed over him.
He opened his mouth, a choked sound forming in his throat. He needed to say something, anything.
“Bell.” Ken’s voice was a steel cable, snapping his attention. The CEO wasn’t looking at the screen; he was looking directly at him. His gaze was flat, final. “You are here to answer questions if asked. You are not to speak otherwise. Do you understand?”
The command was absolute. Bell’s jaw clamped shut. He gave a tiny, helpless nod.
Anya, from her post near the door, shifted her chair an inch to the right, subtly blocking Bell’s direct line of sight to Non. Marcus, still a silent monolith behind Non’s chair, caught Bell’s eye and gave a minute, warning shake of his head.
The screen went dark. The sudden silence was a physical weight.
Ken steepled his fingers again, his eyes moving past the ashen-faced Bell. He looked at David, then Mike, then Maya, then Anne. His question was quiet, surgical. “You four worked under Non, in the trenches, as it were. Based on your direct experience, and on the evidence you’ve just seen… does Non possess the core competencies required to manage people at Starlight?”
Non made a guttural sound. “This is a stacked deck! You’re asking my enemies!”
“They are former subordinates who delivered exceptional results despite you,” Ken corrected, his voice devoid of all warmth. “Their professional assessment is the one I require.” He tilted his head. “David?”
David didn’t hesitate. He looked straight at Ken, his earlier playful defiance gone, replaced by a chilling matter-of-factness. “No. He doesn’t. He can’t plan, can’t delegate, and can’t communicate without abuse. The only thing he managed to do was take credit for Bell’s work and the team’s labor.”
“Mike?”
“He lacks all technical understanding required to assess workflow,” Mike stated, his placid voice somehow carrying more finality than a shout. “His interventions created chaos. Our successes occurred when we ignored him and followed Bell.”
“Maya?”
“He is a liability to timelines and budgets,” she said, her sharp eyes like gimlets. “Every client satisfaction metric improved the moment he was removed from the communication chain. He is incapable of professional leadership.”
“Anne?”
She sighed, a sound of profound disappointment. “You cannot build a team with fear and spite. He only knows how to break things, not build them. What we just watched…” she gestured to the dark screen, “…that wasn’t an aberration. It was his only tool.”
The finality in Anne’s gentle voice seemed to hang in the air, a verdict delivered not with malice, but with sorrowful fact. The boardroom felt vacuum-sealed, every molecule of oxygen claimed by the tension.
Ken let the silence stretch for a three-count, his eyes finally settling on Non. The man looked shrunken in his chair, his earlier bluster replaced by a defiant, cornered glare, his knuckles white where they gripped the armrests.
“Non,” Ken began, his tone shifting into something almost conversational, which was somehow worse. “Setting aside their testimonies, and the video evidence, for just a moment. Look at me.” Non’s eyes flicked up, burning. “Do you yourself, honestly, believe you possess the core competencies required to manage a team at this company?”
Non’s chest swelled. He leaned forward, the dam of his rage breaking. “What competency?” he hissed, saliva spotting the polished table. “They are all my enemies! They have always talked about me behind my back, sabotaged me, because they are jealous! I have the qualifications! The experience! They are nothing but Bell’s little fan club, and you’re letting them run this… this farce!”
His voice rose to a shout, echoing off the glass. “Even he,” he jabbed a finger toward Bell, who flinched, “with his humble act, he’s the worst of them! Everything he said was a carefully crafted knife! ‘Wasn’t around for the stressful periods’? He makes me sound like a ghost!”
Ken listened, his expression not changing. He waited until Non’s breathing became ragged again in the sudden quiet.
“I see,” Ken said softly. Then he tilted his head, just a degree. “So, your defense is that your documented harassment, your strategic absence, and your entire team’s unanimous professional condemnation are all the result of a grand, envious conspiracy led by a man you claim is too naive to tie his own shoes.”
He paused, letting the absurdity crystallize. “It appears, Non, that the only qualification you’ve demonstrated today is a profound, unshakeable belief in your own infallibility.” Ken’s lips pressed into a thin line. “And in this business, that isn’t a qualification at all.” He let the words sink in, their cold precision a stark contrast to Non’s sputtering heat. “Only if incompetence is a qualification.”
The phrase landed. It didn’t echo. It simply settled over Non like a shroud, its truth too sharp to make a sound.
Non’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. The fury in his eyes flickered, diluted by a sudden, icy trickle of dread.
Ken tapped his tablet again. “There is one more piece of evidence. Audio, from your office phone. The internal log shows you made this call to a personal contact last month, after hours.” He didn’t look at anyone as the speakers emitted a soft, digital hum.
Then Non’s own voice filled the room, tinny through the phone line but unmistakable, thick with frustration and cheap scotch.
“—a complete mutiny, I’m telling you! David, Mike, the old hags Maya and Anne, they look at him like he’s… I don’t know, their puppy. Their golden boy. It’s disgusting. Bell just stands there, smiling, being all capable and they eat it up.”
There was a muffled pause, the clink of a glass.
“But you know what? Fine. Let them. Bell’s useful. He’s soft. He does what he’s told if you phrase it like a favor.” Non’s recorded voice dropped, becoming conspiratorial and ugly. “The others won’t listen to me directly, but they’ll listen to him. So I use him. I get him to manage them, to get the work out of them, and he thinks we’re a team. He’s my lever. My little shiny tool. Their whole purpose is to be of use to me, to get me promoted. Not to oppose me. And Bell? He’s the handle.”
Another pause.
“Relieved? Damn right I’m relieved he’s on my floor. I couldn’t control the others, but I can control him. And through him, I get everything.”
Ken stopped the playback. The emptiness it left behind was absolute.
Anya’s voice cut through it, clean and technical. “The digital forensics team has verified the recording. It is a clean, uncompressed log from the company’s internal VOIP system. No edits, no splicing, no manipulation of any kind. The voiceprint is a 99.8% match. The content is as recorded.”
All color drained from Non’s face. The furious red vanished, leaving a pallid, waxy yellow. He looked like a man watching his own ghost testify against him. The humiliation was no longer something being done to him; it was a fact, embedded in a digital log, spoken in his own drunken sneer.
His eyes, wide and unblinking, swept the table—past Miriam’s disdain, past the frozen pity on Bell’s face, past the cold satisfaction on David’s and Maya’s. He saw no allies. Only witnesses to his obliteration.
A tremble started in his hands, climbing his arms to his shoulders. The fury was still there, a nuclear core of it, but it was now encased in a glacier of utter, undeniable exposure. He had been stripped not just of his position, but of his narrative. His own voice had done it.
He opened his mouth. A dry, rasping click came out. Nothing more.
The words “my little shiny tool” seemed to hang in the air, a toxic vapor. They didn’t fade. They congealed.
Bell heard a high, thin ringing in his ears, a sound like a dying television channel. The polished tabletop swam before his eyes. His chest felt like it was lined with fractured glass, each breath a sharp, slicing pull. Betrayal wasn’t a strong enough word. This was a violation, a private, ugly truth about his own usefulness spat into a public space.
He had built bridges where there were chasms. He had stayed late, smoothed tensions, believed in a shared goal. All of it, every single headache and compromised weekend, had been neatly filed under “useful” in Non’s mind. A tool. A lever. A handle.
His own loyalty, his earnest effort to be a good teammate, was the joke. The air grew thin, insufficient. A cold sweat prickled across the back of his neck, his perfectly pressed shirt suddenly feeling like a suffocating membrane.
Ken’s gaze, sharp and observant, shifted from Non’s ruined face to Bell. He saw the color draining, the fine tremor in the hands still gripping the table edge, the uncontrolled, shallow rhythm of Bell’s breathing.
“Bell,” Ken said, his voice cutting through the fog. It wasn’t a question.
Bell tried to focus. His vision blurred at the edges. He managed a weak, strangled sound that was meant to be “yes.” It came out as a gasp.
Ken’s decision was instantaneous. “David, Mike,” he commanded, his tone leaving no room for discussion. He then glanced at Maya and Anne. “Get him out of here. Now. The medic room. Go.”
The reaction was immediate and seamless. Anne was already out of her chair, her maternal instincts overriding everything else. She was at Bell’s side, her hand on his back, solid and warm. “Up, sweetheart,” she murmured, her voice low and firm. “Come on.”
David didn’t hesitate. He stood, walked around the table, and slid a strong arm under Bell’s shoulder, lifting him gently but decisively from his chair. “Got you,” he said, his earlier sharpness gone, replaced by pure focus. “Just stand up, man. Lean on me.”
Mike was already at the boardroom door, holding it open, his placid face a mask of concentration. Maya collected Bell’s tablet and jacket, her movements efficient and quick, clearing a path.
Bell stumbled, his legs uncooperative. The world tilted, the gleaming boardroom walls telescoping away. He felt David’s solid weight taking his, felt Anne’s guiding pressure on his back. Their concern was a tangible cocoon, pulling him away from the source of the poison.
They moved as a unit, a protective phalanx, past Miriam’s wide eyes, past the silent executives, past Anya, who gave them a brief, curt nod.
As they passed the threshold, Bell heard Ken’s voice, cold and clear, aimed at the ruin of a man still frozen in his seat. “Marcus,” Ken said, the word flat and final. “Escort Mr. Non back to his office in the separated wing. Secure the door. He is to remain there until I arrive.”
The last thing Bell saw before the door swung shut was Marcus’s large hand closing around Non’s upper arm, not with violence, but with an inescapable, terrible finality. The door clicked, sealing away the sound of whatever happened next.
The hallway was a different universe. Quieter, brighter. The silence was a relief.
“Keep walking,” David encouraged softly, adjusting his grip as Bell’s steps faltered. “Just to the elevator.”
“Breathe, Bell,” Anne instructed from his other side, her hand rubbing slow circles on his back. “In through your nose. Out through your mouth. That’s it.”
He tried. The air hit the glass in his chest. He choked.
“He called me a handle,” Bell rasped, the words raw and shredded. They burst out of him, involuntary. He wasn’t even talking to them. He was just giving voice to the wound.
Maya, walking briskly ahead with Mike to call the elevator, glanced back. Her sharp eyes softened, just for a moment. “We know,” she said, her voice surprisingly gentle. “We heard. Forget about him. Just breathe.”
The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime. Mike blocked the door with his arm. David and Anne guided Bell inside. The small, mirrored space felt safe, enclosed.
As the doors closed, cutting them off from the boardroom floor completely, the careful professionalism of his friends dissolved. David let out a long, slow whistle. “Okay,” he said, shifting to fully support Bell, who was leaning heavily against him now. “Okay, that was… intense.”
“Medic room,” Mike stated, pressing the button for the second floor. “No arguments.”
Bell shook his head, a feeble motion. “I’m… I’m okay. Just… dizzy.”
Anne cupped his cheek, turning his face toward hers. His skin was clammy. His eyes were glazed, unfocused. “You are not okay,” she said, her voice brooking no nonsense. “You’re in shock. Your body doesn’t know if it’s been punched or abandoned. So we’re going to sit you down, get you some water, and let you process.” She smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “Just let us handle it.”
The elevator descended. The silence was no longer tense, but thick with shared understanding. Maya looked at Bell’s pale face in the mirror. “He was always a small man,” she said quietly, not to Bell, but to the others. “Small men need handles to feel big. They need tools because they can’t build anything themselves.” She met Bell’s reflected gaze. “It was never about you. It was always about his own emptiness.”
The doors opened onto the sterile, quiet hallway leading to the company’s small medical suite. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. The smell of antiseptic and clean linen filled the air.
Mike led the way, speaking to the nurse at the desk with quiet authority. David and Anne guided Bell into a simple, curtained-off bay with a padded examination table. They helped him sit, his legs dangling over the side.
“Here,” David said, grabbing a paper cup from a dispenser and filling it with cool water from a sink. He pressed it into Bell’s hands. “Small sips.”
Bell’s hands trembled. Water sloshed over the rim, spotting his trousers. He didn’t seem to notice. He was staring at the speckled white floor tiles, his mind replaying the sneering, drunken voice. My little shiny tool.
Anne pulled a chair close and sat, taking one of his shaking hands in both of hers. She didn’t say anything. She just held it, her warmth seeping into his cold skin.
Maya stood guard at the curtain entrance, her arms crossed, a sentinel against the outside world. Mike spoke in low tones with the nurse, explaining it was a stress reaction, that they would monitor him.
Safe. They were safe. The thought pierced the fog. These people, their hands on his back, their voices in his ear, their presence forming a wall around him—they were real. The loyalty in this curtained space was a solid, unmovable thing.
The tightness in his chest fractured, not into panic, but into a deep, shuddering ache. A single, hot tear traced a path down his cheek, followed by another. He didn’t sob. He just sat there, water cup shaking in one hand, the other held firmly by Anne, and let the quiet, profound disappointment wash out of him.