𝓣𝓦𝓘𝓢𝓣𝓔𝓓 𝓛𝓞𝓥𝓔

(⁠.⁠⁠❛⁠⁠ᴗ⁠⁠❛⁠.⁠) 7

𝘼𝙡𝙚𝙭

“Don’t do this.”

I poured myself a cup of coffee, leaned against the counter, and took a leisurely sip before responding. “I’m not sure why you’re calling me, Andrew. I’m the COO. You should talk to Ivan.”

“That’s bullshit,” Andrew spat. “You pull the strings behind the scenes, and everyone knows it.”

“Then everyone is wrong, which wouldn’t be the first time.” I checked my Patek Philippe watch. Limited edition, hermetically sealed and waterproof, the stainless-steel timepiece had set me back a cool twenty grand. I’d bought it after I sold my financial modeling software for eight figures, one month after my fourteenth birthday. “Ah, it’s almost time for my nightly meditation session.” I didn’t meditate, and we both knew it. “I wish you the best. I’m sure you’ll have a flourishing second career as a busker. You took band in high school, didn’t you?”

“Alex, please.” Andrew’s voice turned pleading. “I have a family. Kids. My oldest daughter is starting college soon. Whatever you have against me, don’t drag them or my employees into it.”

“But I don’t have anything against you, Andrew,” I said conversationally, taking another sip of coffee. Most people didn’t drink espresso this late for fear of not being able to sleep, but I didn’t have that problem. I could never sleep. “This is business. Nothing personal.”

It baffled me that people still didn’t get it. Personal appeals had no place in the corporate world. It was eat or get eaten, and I for one had no grand aspirations of becoming prey.

Only the strongest survived, and I had every intention of remaining at the top of the food chain.

“Alex—”

I tired of hearing my name. It was always Alex this, Alex that. People begging for time, money, attention or, worst of all, affection. It was a fucking chore. It really was.

“Good night.” I hung up before he could make another plea for mercy. There was nothing sadder than seeing—or, in this case, hearing—a CEO reduced to a beggar.

The hostile takeover of Gruppmann Enterprises would go ahead as planned. I wouldn’t have cared about the company, except it was a useful pawn in the grand scheme of things.

Archer Group was a real estate development company, but in five, ten, twenty years, it’d be so much more. Telecommunications, e-commerce, finance, energy…the world was ripe for my taking. Gruppmann was a small fish in the finance industry, but it was a stepping stone toward my bigger ambitions. I wanted to iron out all the kinks before I took on the sharks.

Besides, Andrew was an asshole. I knew for a fact that he’d quietly settled with several of his past secretaries out of court over sexual harassment charges.

I blocked Andrew’s number for good measure and made a mental note to fire my assistant for allowing my personal cell information to slip into the hands of someone outside my tightly controlled contacts list. She’d already fucked up several times—paperwork with errors, appointments scheduled for the wrong times, missed calls from VIPs—and this was the last straw. I’d only kept her on so long as a favor to her father, a congressman who wanted his daughter to get “real work experience,” but her experience was over as of eight a.m. tomorrow morning.

I’d deal with her father later.

Silence hummed in the air as I placed my coffee cup in the sink and walked toward the living room. I sank onto the couch and closed my eyes, letting my chosen images play through my mind. I didn’t meditate, but this was my own fucked-up form of therapy.