Nikhil had been promoted to lead a team of engineers twice his age, and every single day, he waited for someone to realize it had been a mistake. He kept a mental list of everything he didn't know, certain it outweighed everything he did.

In meetings, he rehearsed his sentences three times before speaking, terrified of sounding unqualified. He worked twelve-hour days, not out of ambition, but out of a quiet, exhausting fear of being exposed as a fraud.