Linda stepped into the space between her children, her presence like a physical weight. She looked at Bernard with a coldness that seemed to strip the very silk from his back."This is the last time I will allow you to interrupt me, Bernard," she whispered. "The very last time. You are currently a guest in this house by the grace of my patience. If you question the menu, the hours, or the sleep schedule one more time, you will find yourself on the other side of that gate with your resume and your science. Do you understand me?"Bernard opened his mouth to retort, but he saw Robert sitting at the end of the table. Robert was not looking at him. Robert was staring at the mahogany surface, his hands gripped so tight they were white. There was a vibration of silent, explosive rage coming off the former CEO, a man who was being broken and reshaped in real time. Bernard realised, in a rare flash of self-preservation, that if his mother didn't throw him out, Robert might actually snap and

TIME TO REST; THE WORK LAY AHEADThe room went silent. Even Bernard, the king of interruptions, remained quiet, his mouth half-open as he looked from his mother to the sink full of soaking pots. There was no argument left to be had. The math was absolute, and the reality was a wall they could not climb over.Robert looked away, his jaw working as he stared at the floor. He felt a soul-crushing weight settle over him. He was being stripped of his last defence, the anonymity of the backroom. He was being forced onto the stage of his own funeral."One hour," Linda said, her tone returning to a flat, businesslike cadence as she checked her watch. "The rest period is halfway over. Eat your rice. Drink your water. Because from 7:00 PM tonight until 3:00 AM tomorrow morning, you will not sit down. You will prep, you will pack, and you will prepare your uniforms. I want the shirts bleached and the shoes polished. If we are to be the help, we will be the most impeccable help that Rothwell

THE WAITING STAFFAt 8:00 AM, the city outside was roaring to life, but inside this windowless bunker of stainless steel and white tile, time felt like it had frozen.The Smith family, along with the two weary women Linda had hired to support their thinning ranks, stood in a jagged line amidst a fortress of thermal coolers and gleaming buffet pans. The air inside the service pantry of the Rothwell Tower was clinical, smelling of industrial-grade disinfectant and the faint, lingering scent of the seared proteins they had spent the last twelve hours perfecting. They were the invisible architecture of the day’s prestige, tucked away in the insides of the building where the CEOs and heirs would never have to see the sweat that went into their "New Beginning".They were broken. There was no other word for it.The night had been a descent into a specific kind of hell that none of them, aside from perhaps the two hired labourers, had ever navigated. From 7:00 PM until the early hours of t

ORDER FROM THE APEXBelow him, in the conference room, the most powerful men and women in the country were waiting to meet the mystery heir. They were expecting a Rothwell, someone polished, someone elite, someone born into the purple. They were not expecting the man who used to open their car doors.And in the cafeteria, the Smiths were waiting. They were waiting for a New Beginning, praying for a paycheque, clutching their silver trays like shields. They didn't know that the Heir was the man they had kicked while he was down. They didn't know that the hand that would feed them was the hand they had refused to shake."Let's go, Harnes," Jack said, heading for the private elevator that led straight to the executive suites. "It is time to show the world how the hierarchy has shifted."As the elevator doors closed with a silent, expensive hiss, Jack was still grinning. The meeting was an hour away. The gala was two hours away. But for the Smiths, the nightmare they had been living

THE ECHO OF THE FALLEN CEOThe movement from the sterile, windowless pantry to the Main Cafeteria was a journey through the abrupt contrast of the Rothwell empire. Escorted by two silent security guards whose earpieces hummed with encrypted chatter, the Smiths moved their thermal units and silver chafing dishes through the wide, polished corridors. The cafeteria was a misleading term; it was a cathedral of glass and steel, designed to feed a thousand employees in a setting that would make most five-star restaurants look like fast-food joints.As they entered the space, the scale of the task hit them. The room was vast, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the skyline. To their left, long buffet lines waited to be dressed; to the right, a series of live-action cooking stations stood ready for the chefs."Stations. Now," Linda hissed, her voice a whip-crack that mobilised the group. "Robert, move the beef to the carving island. Leslie, start the arrangement of the cold appetiser