Heir to an Indispensable Family

Chapter 15

Without warning, the microphone was suddenly handed over.

But not to James Wesley, to Hector.

The entire scene exploded into stunned silence so complete and so sudden that you could hear the wind moving through the grass beneath everyone's feet. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Every single person standing in that crowd looked like they had been struck by lightning at exactly the same moment.

Then the whispers detonated from every corner simultaneously like a bomb going off in slow motion.

“Wait — what is happening right now?”

“Why is he giving the microphone to Hector?”

“Hector? That Hector? The same one Sarah just destroyed?”

“Is he a special guest? Did I miss something?”

“What kind of privilege is this? Who gave him the right to hold that mic?”

“Someone explain to me what is going on because I am completely lost!”

The confusion was spreading through the crowd like wildfire jumping from tree to tree. People were grabbing each other's arms, pointing, whispering, pulling out their phones. Nobody could make sense of what they were watching unfold in front of them.

But none of that — not the silence, not the whispers, not the confusion — none of that was what truly broke the crowd.

What broke them was the bow.

The announcer, the same commanding, authoritative figure who had been running the entire event with confidence and control all evening, lowered his head a full ninety degrees as he extended the microphone toward Hector with both hands. Not a casual nod. Not a polite tilt. A full, deep, deliberate bow. The kind of bow that carries centuries of meaning behind it. The kind of bow that does not happen unless the person receiving it has earned something far beyond ordinary respect.

The crowd lost their minds completely.

“Did he just — did that man just BOW to Hector?”

“A ninety degree bow? Are you serious right now?”

“Who exactly IS Hector?”

“Something is very wrong here. Something is very, very wrong.”

The energy in the scene had completely transformed. What had started as a lottery celebration had turned into something nobody had prepared themselves for. The air felt different now. Heavier. Charged with something electric and dangerous that nobody could quite name but everybody could feel pressing against their skin.

And then there was Sarah.

Sarah, who had been watching all of this unfold from the middle of the crowd with her eyes growing wider and her breathing growing shorter with every passing second.

“What the HELL is going on here?!”

Her voice cracked through the charged atmosphere like a whip. She didn't wait for an answer. She didn't wait for anything. Her feet were already moving, carrying her toward the podium with long, furious strides, her finger pointed directly at Hector like she was trying to shoot him with it from a distance.

“What do you think you are doing?!” she screamed, splitting her attention between Hector and the announcer as she pushed through the crowd.

“You are handing the microphone to HIM?! Of all the people standing in this entire scene tonight, you are giving it to HIM?!”

She was getting closer now, her voice rising with every step.

“He is going to stand up there and speak absolute rubbish! You know that, right? That is all he is capable of! Take it back! Take the microphone back RIGHT NOW before he embarrasses everyone here tonight!”

People stepped aside as she moved through them, some out of shock, some out of genuine fear of the energy radiating off her body. She looked like a woman who had completely abandoned the last thread of composure she had been holding onto all evening.

But the announcer did not move.

He remained locked in that perfect ninety degree bow, his head lowered, his arms extended, his entire posture radiating something that looked less like submission and more like absolute, unshakeable discipline. He had not been given permission to raise his head. And until that permission came from the only person in this football pitch whose permission actually mattered, he would stay exactly as he was for as long as it took.

Because he knew.

He knew exactly who was standing in front of him.

Young Master Hector.

The boss of Ross Corporation. One of the most powerful and untouchable names in the entire country. A name that made boardroom tables go quiet and made men in expensive suits straighten their backs and choose their words very carefully. A name that this crowd of university students clearly had absolutely no idea they had been disrespecting all evening long.

The announcer's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly beneath his lowered face.

These people. These loud, careless, completely oblivious people standing around him right now acting like they had any idea what was happening. These flies buzzing around something far too powerful for them to comprehend. And this woman this Sarah marching toward the podium with her finger pointed and her mouth running like she had any authority whatsoever in this moment.

Every single instinct in his body was screaming at him to raise his head. To step forward. To open his mouth and reduce Sarah to absolute silence with a single sentence. He had the words ready. He had been holding them back since the moment she first opened her mouth tonight and he knew exactly how to use them.

But he couldn't.

He would not raise his head without the signal, he would not move without the go-ahead.

That was the rule. That was the code. And no amount of provocation from any fly, no matter how loud or how persistent, was going to make him break it.

So he stayed perfectly still in that deep bow, arms extended, head lowered, every muscle in his body coiled tight as a spring, while deep inside his mind a single desperate prayer kept repeating itself over and over and over again.

"Young Master. Please. Just give me the signal. Just say the word. Give me the go-ahead to turn around and face this little fly, and I promise you — I absolutely promise you I will squash her into nothing."