I allowed myself a small , tight smile . I looked straight at her and silently mouthed two words : You deserved it . Then I turned , swiped my key card , and stepped into the elevator that would take me down to the parking garage . The desperate , fading screams of the family and the stern warnings of the guard were cut off as the heavy steel doors slid shut . A few months later , on a busy afternoon , our company completed its upgrade and moved into a sleek new office in a prime busine- ss district . I was sipping a coffee when a colleague showed me a video someone had taken near our old building . There , at a street corner , a familiar figure was huddled against the cold concrete pillar of an overpass . She was dressed in bulky , ragged clothes , clutching what looked like a stale piece of bread . Her gaze was empty as she stared up at the floor where our old office used to be . It was Lillian . The same Lillian who had once been so arrogant , so calculating , so certain she could bleed value from everyone aro- und her . I looked away and went back to my work . You have to cut toxic people out to move forward . My only way was up .