Chapter 6: The Humbling Call

Chapter 6: The Humbling Call

For a month, Elara’s phone had been a source of peace. It brought texts from friends, updates from Sarah whose leg was finally healing, and notifications from the food delivery apps she was now exploring with a guilt-free budget. She was sitting on her small balcony, a gentle breeze rustling the leaves of a potted tomato plant, when the phone buzzed against the ceramic of her coffee mug.

The screen lit up with an unknown number, but the area code was unmistakable. The 860 prefix. The digital signature of the corporate hell she had so recently escaped.

A cold, predatory stillness settled over her. She watched the phone vibrate, the insistent buzzing a frantic, distant plea. She imagined the scene on the other end: the panicked meetings, the frantic calls to IT consultants, the mounting pressure from every direction. She let the call ring, and ring, and ring, until it finally surrendered and diverted to voicemail.

She took a slow sip of her coffee, letting the silence settle again before she checked the message. She pressed play, holding the phone slightly away from her ear, as if handling a venomous snake.

Richard Sterling’s voice filled the air, strained and artificially hearty. “Ellie, uh, Elara. It’s Richard Sterling. Just… calling to check in. See how you are. There seems to be a minor technical issue with one of the systems here, the payroll one. Nothing we can’t handle, of course. But you were the last one to use it, so… give me a call when you get this. Thanks.”

A minor technical issue. The lie was so pathetic it was almost beautiful. She could hear the brittle edge in his voice, the desperate attempt to maintain a shred of his former authority. She saved the message, a little trophy of his first crack in the dam, and went back to reading her book.

An hour later, the 860 number flashed again. This time, she was chopping vegetables for a ratatouille, the rhythmic tap of the knife on the cutting board a soothing mantra. She ignored it. The subsequent voicemail notification dinged moments later.

This time, the voice was tighter, the forced pleasantries gone. “Elara, it’s Sterling again. I really need you to call me back. This… this payroll situation is becoming a bit of a priority. It’s a time-sensitive matter. Call me as soon as you get this. It’s important.” In the background, she could just make out another man’s frantic voice: “—the board just moved the emergency meeting to three o’clock!”

Elara smiled and diced an onion with surgical precision. A bit of a priority. The understatement was delicious.

The third call came two hours after that. Then a fourth, from a different number she recognized as the main corporate line. Then a fifth, from Sterling’s cell phone, a number she knew he only gave out to his golf buddies and executive peers. Each one went to voicemail. Each message was a study in the complete and utter erosion of a man’s ego.

“Elara, for God’s sake, pick up the phone!”

“Listen, I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but the company is in serious trouble!”

“Please, Elara. Just call us. We… we need your help.”

That last one, the word ‘please’ hanging in the air like a surrender, was the one she’d been waiting for. She had let him stew in the chaos she’d created for an entire month. She had let him exhaust every other option. She had let him be stripped bare of his pride and his power until all that was left was raw, sputtering desperation.

When his number flashed on her screen for the sixth time that day, she wiped her hands on a dishtowel, took a deep breath, and answered. She pitched her voice to be perfectly neutral, slightly questioning, as if answering a call from an unknown telemarketer.

“Hello?”

There was a stunned silence on the other end, followed by a choked, sputtering sound. “Elara? Is that you? It’s Richard Sterling!” He sounded both relieved and furious, a volatile cocktail of emotions.

“Oh,” Elara said, feigning a mild, dawning recognition. “Richard. I don’t think I have this number saved. Is everything alright?”

The sheer, breathtaking audacity of her calm question seemed to short-circuit his brain. “Is everything…?” he stammered. “No, nothing is alright! The payroll system is locked! No one has been paid in a month! The company is falling apart! You know this!”

Elara let a beat of silence pass, long enough to be uncomfortable. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, her voice as placid as a frozen lake. “I resigned four weeks ago. I’m not sure why you’re calling me about internal company matters.”

She could hear his heavy, ragged breathing. He was being forced to spell it out, to articulate his own incompetence and her absolute necessity. This was the true humiliation, far worse than just asking for help.

“Because you’re the only one who understands it!” he finally burst out, the words tumbling over each other in a panicked rush. “No one else can get in. The consultants are useless. They say it’s been… customized. We can’t pay our employees. We can’t run our business. We’re facing lawsuits, strikes… it’s a catastrophe.”

“That does sound stressful,” Elara noted, her tone offering all the sympathy of a dictation machine.

This cool detachment was the final blow. Sterling’s rage and arrogance finally, completely crumbled, leaving only the pleading, terrified man he’d become.

“Look,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, desperate plea she had once dreamed of hearing. “We were wrong. I… I was wrong. We underestimated you. We need you to come back.”

“Come back?” Elara asked, allowing a hint of incredulous amusement into her voice. “Richard, why would I possibly do that? You made my position at Golden Years quite clear. I believe your exact words were, ‘Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.’”

The silence on the other end was heavy with shame. “Not as an employee,” he finally managed to say, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. “As a… as a consultant. We’ll pay you. We’ll pay you whatever you want. Just… please. Name your price. Just tell us how to fix this.”

There it was. The white flag. The unconditional surrender. The man who had called her “sweetheart” and tasked her with making coffee for her own replacement was now begging her to name her price. The power dynamic hadn’t just flipped; it had been launched into a new orbit, with her at its gravitational center.

Elara walked back out onto her balcony, looking out at the city skyline, a landscape of endless possibilities. She held the phone to her ear, savoring the sound of Richard Sterling’s labored breathing, the sound of her victory.

“A consultant,” she mused, drawing the word out. “That’s an interesting proposition, Richard. I’ll have to think about what my terms would be.”

“Think about it? Elara, we don’t have time—”

“I will think about it,” she repeated, her voice cutting through his panic with the clean, sharp edge of a scalpel. “And if I decide I’m interested, I’ll be in touch with a proposal. Don’t call me again. I’ll call you.”

Before he could utter another sputtering protest, she ended the call, plunging him back into the silence and chaos he so richly deserved. She placed her phone face down on the table, leaned back in her chair, and smiled. The humbling was complete. Now, it was time for the ransom.