Paige swung her hand back and slapped Chloe completely across the face. She hit the younger woman so hard the sharp, violent sound echoed through the massive room like a gunshot.Chloe gasped, stumbling backward and dropping her tablet on the floor. She held her bright red, stinging cheek. Hot tears instantly welled up in her eyes, spilling over her lashes."Don't bother coming in tomorrow," Paige ordered fiercely, her voice shaking with rage at the deep betrayal. "You are completely fired. Pack your desk right now and get out of my building before I have security throw you out onto the street."Without waiting for a response, Paige quickly turned around to face Dane. She lowered her head respectfully, her voice dropping into a tone filled with deep, genuine regret."I am so incredibly sorry for this display. There are major internal security issues at the company today that I need to handle immediately.""It's fine," Dane said softly.He honestly didn't care about these annoying peop

Mara looked down at his hand covering hers. The warmth of his skin sent a comforting shiver down her spine. "It was hard," she whispered. "But I survived."Just as the moment between them settled into a comfortable, intimate silence, Mara's cell phone violently shattered the peace. It vibrated harshly against the wooden table.Mara glanced at the caller ID. The warmth in her eyes instantly vanished, replaced by a cold, defensive wall of ice. It was Lana.Mara answered the phone, keeping her voice strictly professional. "What do you want, Lana?"Even without the phone on speaker, Dane could hear Lana’s shrill, vicious voice bleeding through the receiver."You listen to me, you little bitch," Lana spat, her voice trembling with absolute rage from being humiliated at Mercer Group. "I don't know what kind of dirty tricks you pulled today, but you are going to call President Paige right now and formally give up the Horizon Corp contract. You are going to step aside and let my company take

The doctor took a deep, shaky breath, bracing himself for the explosion. "Young Master, your medical history already showed significant signs of kidney damage and extreme physical weakness in that specific area, primarily due to years of excessive indulgence, heavy drinking, and a highly active lifestyle. Your body was already severely compromised before the attack even happened.""Get to the damn point right now!" his father roared, taking a massive, threatening step toward the doctor.The doctor flinched violently, stepping backward toward the safety of the heavy wooden door. "The trauma inflicted during the brutal beating completely severed the primary nerve clusters. The blood vessels have been irreparably crushed beyond any hope of surgical repair. His manhood has completely lost all physical sensation. It is entirely, permanently unresponsive."The room went completely, deathly silent. The only sound was the steady, mocking beep of the expensive heart monitor tracking Vaughn's r

"Well, well, well. Look what the stray dogs dragged in from the garbage."Dane didn't even need to turn around. His jaw instantly clenched so tight a muscle ticked violently in his cheek.Joshua strolled casually into the room, wearing a flashy, obnoxiously tailored imported silk suit that cost more than most working-class families made in a decade. He was the son of Dane’s uncle.His grandfather had only two sons. The eldest was Dane’s father—a brilliant, visionary, beloved man who had been tragically assassinated when Dane was just a boy. The second son was Joshua’s father, a completely useless, pathetic leech of a man who was entirely well-versed in heavy drinking, underground gambling, and chasing women. Because of his uncle's absolute incompetence, the grandfather had rightfully chosen to bypass the second son entirely, choosing instead to groom Dane from a very young age to take over the family business.Joshua deeply, passionately resented this fact. He genuinely believed he wa

Meanwhile, all the way across the city in the bustling commercial district, things had taken a catastrophic, terrifying turn for the worse.Mara stepped out of the elevator onto the top executive floor of Horizon Corp. She was physically and mentally exhausted from the intense drama at Mercer Group earlier that morning, but she was fully prepared to dive back into her financial spreadsheets and salvage her company's bleeding cash flow. However, the exact second the heavy metal doors slid open, she noticed something was horribly, deeply wrong.The normally frantic, noisy bullpen of the corporate office was dead silent.Dozens of her employees were sitting rigidly at their desks, aggressively staring at their blank computer screens. Nobody was typing. Nobody was on the phone. As Mara walked down the central aisle, they actively refused to make eye contact with her. Their eyes were evasive, wide, and filled with sheer, unadulterated terror. They looked at her as if she were a walking gho