Not This Time, Boys

Brian wraps up his Comeback Week wearing a tie of suitcoat navy with moderately slim stripes of periwinkle.  The last item on their agenda was merely a formality, and not one of the men in the room expected the person to even show up.  Several of them had already turned off their tablets, buttoned their jackets, grabbed a last pastry to take back to their office.  Suddenly, the door opened.  Most of them only saw heels and a pastel blue power suit, but one of them saw her face.  It was not the scared and tearful face they had double-talked out of their offices a year ago.  This woman was steel-eyed and confident; she had the look of a predator who smelled blood, who was hungry, even lustful for it, and who was coming in with no other idea than to win, no matter what the cost.