The scarred guard, despite his broken arm and obvious agony, managed to sit up slightly and add his own voice to the threats."You hear me?" he spat, his voice shaking with a combination of pain and fury. "You're finished! Harvey Spencer is going to hunt you down! He's going to make sure you spend the rest of your pathetic life in prison!"Another guard, the one who'd been so gleeful about breaking Ethan's legs, managed to rasp out through gritted teeth, "Harvey will destroy everything you love! He'll take everything from you! He doesn't forgive people who disrespect his resort!"The threats continued, building in intensity, each guard seeming to try to outdo the others in describing the terrible things Harvey Spencer would supposedly do to Ethan. It was pathetic in a way that might have been funny if it wasn't so sad. These men thought they were invoking some kind of devastating power by mentioning Harvey Spencer's name.They had no idea they were threatening his own son.Ethan looke

Frank's voice rose with growing confidence. "So let me make you a promise of my own. If what you're saying is true, if you genuinely have some kind of legitimate connection to Harvey Spencer and this resort, then I'll quit my job today. Right now. I'll walk out of here and live on the street for the rest of my life."He smiled, the expression vicious and absolutely certain. "That's how confident I am that you're lying. That's how completely sure I am that you're nothing but a delusional fraud who somehow managed to beat up a few security guards and now thinks he can intimidate an entire resort staff with empty threats."The crowd's tension broke slightly, some people nodding in agreement with Frank's confident assessment. Here was authority. Here was someone who knew the situation and was certain about his conclusion. The deputy general manager himself was vouching for the fact that Ethan was nobody."You're a nobody who got lucky with a few punches," Frank continued, pressing his adv

He struggled to sit up further, his broken arm cradled against his chest, his face contorted with pain and something darker. Rage, maybe. Or desperation. Or the last gasping attempt of someone trying to maintain a narrative that was collapsing around him."We've worked here for years!" another guard added from his position on the ground, his voice also taking on that desperate quality. "We've seen people try to fake their identities. We've seen con artists pretend to have connections they don't have. We know what fakes look like!"The scarred guard pushed himself higher, ignoring the agony radiating from his injured arm. "This man beats us up and suddenly Harvey's bodyguards show up and treat him like royalty? That's not how things work! That's a setup! That's a con!"Marcus, still frozen in place, looked like he wanted to speak but was too terrified to actually form words.The third guard, the one whose leg had been injured by one of Ethan's kicks, added his voice to the chorus of de

The bodyguards exchanged glances, and something almost like confusion flickered across their faces. They'd been positioned to protect Ethan, and suddenly this man in the expensive suit was giving them orders and making threats as if he had any actual authority over the situation.The lead bodyguard opened his mouth, clearly preparing to respond to Frank's ultimatum, when a voice suddenly cut through the plaza like a blade through silk."Who dares threaten to send the most prestigious person in the Spencer family to the worst prison in this city?"The voice was quiet, measured, and absolutely lethal in its implications.Every single person in the plaza froze.Harvey Spencer emerged from the resort's main entrance with the kind of presence that made all his wealth and power visible without him saying a single additional word. He moved with the ease of someone who'd never questioned his own authority, who'd built an empire through decades of absolute certainty in his own judgment and cap

"Your HR department hired these people," Ethan said, his voice carrying the patient tone of someone explaining something obvious. "Your HR department follows your organizational directives. Which means the standards applied to hiring decisions ultimately reflect standards you set, whether directly or through the people you appointed to set them."Harvey opened his mouth."Which means," Ethan continued before his father could respond, "that technically, one way or another, the caliber of this security team is a direct reflection of your leadership decisions."Harvey closed his mouth again. He looked at his son with an expression that was caught somewhere between being impressed by the logic and being exasperated by it."I don't hire the security staff personally," Harvey said."You hired the person who hired the person who hired the security staff," Ethan replied. "The chain of responsibility still ends with you.""That's not how organizational hierarchy works.""That's exactly how org