******The captain’s face contorted in disbelief. He looked at the three men before him… his own team, who currently resembled nothing but strangers.These were the men who had once looked to him for direction. Now, they were rising against him. Mutinying.He opened his mouth once. Then closed it. Opened it again… still no words came.Then he sighed, shaking his head before finally, like something inside him cracked… he growled low and hard.“Apprehend him.”The word echoed across the restaurant like a gunshot.It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a command.Hearing this, the crowd didn’t cheer this time. No applause. No triumphant fist pumps. No celebratory chants.Just silence.A wary, hesitant silence.They remembered what had happened just minutes ago. They remembered Stanley’s airborne humiliation. And none of them wanted to be the next casualty of confidence.The guards, however, were moving now… slowly and carefully, but with intent. Their eyes were sharp, and their bodie

******The diner beside the one who had muttered just now, saying that Glenn was finished, nodded his head slowly, unconsciously, his mouth still hanging open as though words had abandoned him entirely. Then, his voice low and hollow with disbelief, he mumbled, “Let’s see how long he feigns calm and unconcerned after this.”Even Bianca... so full of fury and venom moments ago, found herself momentarily stunned, frozen in place.She had never expected this. Of all times, of all places, today would be the day she would cross paths with the one person she had been dying to meet... her supposed future father-in-law. And not just casually, but right after the love of her life had been publicly brutalized.Her head swam with the weight of it.The clamor in the restaurant had quieted into a tense hush once more, every eye riveted on the sudden presence of the old man... the Manager, who radiated so much authority and barely contained rage that even the air seemed to stiffen around him.

****** Badly startled by the voice that had just echoed through the tense atmosphere like a gunshot in a funeral hall, everyone instinctively froze. Their actions, their thoughts… every fiber of their being halted in that exact moment, and as though pulled by an invisible string, all heads turned slowly toward the source. The voice had come from the restaurant’s grand entrance. And standing there, silent and composed, was a man no one recognized… yet no one could ignore. A middle-aged man, perhaps in his late fifties, with a tall, commanding frame and a presence that radiated refined gravitas. On the surface, he appeared simple… no garish jewelry or flashy designer brands, but if one looked closely, the elegance of his posture, the tailored subtlety of his suit, and the glint of practiced calm in his eyes spoke volumes louder than diamonds ever could. This was no ordinary man. This was someone used to power. Someone who didn’t need to raise his voice to comma

******“Welcome, Sir President. I had no idea you were already here before me.”The words, though calmly spoken, seemed to echo endlessly… bouncing off every wall, rattling the air like a tuning fork struck too hard.The middle-aged man’s reverent voice continued reverberating through the restaurant like the lingering quake of an aftershock… long after the words themselves had been uttered.And then… nothing.A void. A suffocating, paralyzing, eerie void.Time itself seemed to halt.No one blinked. No one swallowed. No one dared to even breathe. It was as though the laws of reality had been suspended, the entire room held in the fist of disbelief.‘Sir… President?’The words spun like a mantra through every person’s mind, looping and looping until sense became nonsense, and nonsense began to terrify.They didn’t speak. They couldn’t. Every brain had momentarily blue-screened.What they had heard didn’t align with anything they thought they knew… about Glenn, about the world

******Glenn doesn’t appear in any way confused.He wasn’t even a tiny bit surprised.Instead, he still sat there, calm, casual, and expressionless.He even appeared almost… underwhelmed.He scratched lazily at his temple, as though he had just been told he owned a vending machine on the third floor, not a multi-million-dollar franchise.There was no triumph. No smugness. No shock. No correction.Just silence. And a subtle trace of disinterest.If only the diners knew what Glenn was actually thinking.'When did I buy this place again?’That lone thought spiraled through his mind with mild confusion… but none of that showed on his face.He appeared completely and utterly unaffected.Eventually, Glenn tilted his head slightly and turned his gaze to the middle-aged man. Then, with a slowness that felt almost theatrical in its indifference, he gave a single nod of his head.A bored nod. One that said… Sure. It sounds plausible. You can proceed.And that was all.The entire