The Mentor

The Mentor Evelyn Cho had been retired for exactly six days when the board called her back — not to reclaim her title, but to guide her successor. “One week,” they said. “

Just ease her in.” Her mentee, Lira Patel, was brilliant in that unsettling, meteoric way. She took notes like she was engraving stone, asked questions that sliced to the bone, and absorbed Evelyn’s decades of strategy as if they were simple instructions on a recipe card.

 By Wednesday, Evelyn noticed employees drifting toward Lira with the same quiet deference they once showed her. By Thursday, Lira was issuing directives Evelyn hadn’t yet taught. By Friday morning, Evelyn arrived to find her own access badge politely revoked. Lira met her at the elevator, cheeks glowing.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “They said the transition was complete.” Evelyn expected anger, maybe betrayal. Instead, she felt a strange lightness — as if she had finally done the one thing she never managed during her reign. She smiled, stepping back. “Good.

Then I did my job.” Lira nodded, grateful. And Evelyn walked out, no longer needed — exactly as she’d hoped.