THE BOSS BEAST

 The boardroom was already loud when Ethan Blackwood walked in. Not loud with voices, loud with ego. “I’m telling you, the problem is marketing,”

Richard Hale snapped, slamming his palm on the polished table. “We don’t need another internal review. We need a bigger budget.”

“That’s the third budget increase this quarter,” a woman at the far end said. “Sales are still down.”

“Because you don’t push hard enough,”

Richard shot back. “You wait for permission.”

Ethan paused at the door. Twenty-two years old. Fresh suit. Cheap tie. A graduate degree that meant nothing in this room. No one noticed him. He took the empty seat at the edge of the table, opened his notebook, and listened.

Richard Hale, CEO, founder, self-declared genius, paced like a general who hadn’t realized the war was already lost.

“The numbers will turn,”

Richard said. “They always do.”

“They haven’t,” the CFO replied carefully.

“Production costs are bleeding us. Logistics”

“Temporary,”

Richard cut in. “Everything is temporary if you’re patient.”

Ethan’s pen stopped. No, he thought. Some things are terminal. He flipped to the first page of his notebook. On it were three columns he’d drawn the night before. Waste. Delay. Pride.

He raised his hand. The room went quiet, not because they were listening, but because they were surprised someone like him would interrupt. Richard looked at him as if noticing a stain on the wall. “…Yes?”

Richard said, irritation wrapped in politeness. “You are?”

“Ethan Blackwood,”

he said calmly. “Junior analyst.”

Richard blinked. “Right. And?”

Ethan felt the eyes now, curious, dismissive, bored. He swallowed once. Not from fear. From calculation. “With respect,”

Ethan said, “marketing isn’t the problem.”

A beat. Then laughter. Not loud. Not cruel. Just… indulgent. “Marketing isn’t the problem,”

Richard repeated, amused. “Alright. Enlighten us.”

“The problem is cash flow illusion,”

Ethan said. “You’re profitable on paper and bankrupt in reality.”

The CFO frowned. “What does that mean?”

Ethan leaned forward slightly. “It means you’re celebrating revenue while ignoring leakage. Your supply chain loses money at three points before a product reaches the shelf. You’re discounting to compensate for delays you refuse to admit exist.”

Richard’s smile thinned. “You’re saying we don’t understand our own business?”

“I’m saying you’re looking at it too high-level,”

Ethan replied. “Details matter. Especially when margins are thin.”

Silence pressed down. Richard’s jaw tightened. “How long have you worked here, Mr. Blackwood?”

“Four months.”

“And you think four months qualifies you to challenge decisions made over twenty years?”

Ethan didn’t look away. “Experience doesn’t protect against blind spots.”

The CFO shifted uncomfortably. Someone coughed. Richard chuckled, slow and dangerous. “This is cute. Really. Initiative is good. But confidence without perspective is arrogance.”

Ethan nodded. “That’s true.”

Richard raised an eyebrow. “And perspective without adaptation,”

Ethan added, “is how companies die quietly.”

The room froze. That was the moment. The exact second Ethan felt it, the line crossed.

Richard straightened. “You’re done.”

“With respect,”

Ethan said again, evenly, “if you let me finish”

“No,”

Richard snapped. “You’re not here to lecture my board.”

“I’m here to prevent failure.”

“Failure?”

Richard laughed. “We’re down twelve percent, not bankrupt.”

“You will be,” Ethan said.

The word landed like a dropped glass. “You have six months,”

Ethan continued, voice steady. “Nine if suppliers don’t panic. After that, your debt structure eats you alive.”

The CFO stared at his screen. “…That’s not”

“It is,”

Ethan said. “You’re refinancing losses as growth.”

Richard’s face reddened. “Enough.”

Ethan closed his notebook slowly. “I mapped it out. I have solutions.”

“I don’t care,”

Richard said coldly. “I didn’t ask for solutions from a graduate who still smells like textbooks.”

A few people avoided Ethan’s eyes. He stood. “Let me be clear,”

Richard continued. “You were hired to observe, not to speak. Sit down.”

Ethan remained standing. “This company,”

he said quietly, “is sick. And you’re treating symptoms because admitting the disease would mean admitting you missed it.”

Richard stepped closer. “You’re crossing a line.”

“I crossed it the moment I chose honesty.”

Richard exhaled sharply, then smiled, a smile that meant decisions had already been made. “You know what your problem is, Ethan?”

he said. “You’re smart. And you think that’s enough.”

Ethan nodded once. “It usually is.”

The room inhaled collectively. Richard pointed toward the door. “Get out.”

No shout. No drama. Just dismissal.

Ethan looked around the table, at the people who knew something was wrong, at the ones too afraid to say it. He said nothing. He walked out. Three weeks later, profits spiked. No one thanked Ethan. Six weeks later, operations stabilized.

Richard took credit. Three months later, Ethan was called into HR. “Your position is being… restructured,”

the woman said, not meeting his eyes. “Am I being fired?”

Ethan asked. She hesitated. “You’re being… let go.”

“For performance?”

“For fit.”

Ethan nodded. “Understood.”

He packed his desk in silence. As he left the building for the last time, he looked back at the glass tower rising into the city sky. You won’t survive without me, he thought. Not with anger. With certainty.

Four months after Ethan left, the delays returned. Six months after, suppliers demanded cash. Nine months after, the board called an emergency meeting. Richard Hale stared at the same table, the same chairs.

“This doesn’t make sense,”

he muttered. “We fixed this.”

The CFO swallowed. “No. Someone did.”

Richard looked up slowly. “…What was the name of that analyst?”

The silence answered him. And somewhere across the city, Ethan Blackwood’s phone rang for the first time.

He answered it calmly. “Mr. Blackwood,”

a voice said. “We’ve heard you’re very good at fixing broken companies.”

Ethan looked out at the city. “Yes,” he said. “I am.”

And just like that.