Chapter 405: Execution
No one moved.
Strip. Kneel. Beg.
Three words, and Hector’s brain short-circuited. Twenty minutes earlier he had been sitting at that table like it belonged to him. Now he was on his feet, thrown out of his chair, and they wanted him to crawl in front of everyone, naked.
He scanned the faces one by one, looking for someone who would tell him this was a joke.
Nothing from Lorenzo. His father was watching it with the air of a man waiting to be told the meeting was over.
Flash had lost his smile, but probably only because he wasn’t used to being part of the furniture.
Dahlia didn’t move either, but her shoulders said she had seen the blow coming, and her eyes said she still didn’t believe it.
And then there was Victoria.
His gaze locked on her and didn’t leave.
Fuck, what kind of joke was this? What kind of sedative had they given him so he could sleep this long and still not wake up? Because this had to be a dream. There was no other explanation.
Everything had been perfect. Everything had been going so well. He had been this close to getting her. The woman who had been intoxicating back then, who had become a beauty bomb. More than during her adolescence. More than in the photos Apex’s comms team put out from time to time.
Sixteen years old, on her knees on his tiles, in a uniform no one would have wanted. The kind better suited for midnight roleplay.
He had wanted her so badly back then, and the bastard still wanted her now.
He had her. Just put pressure on Nash, say he would release the baby-booms if Victoria came to him.
Nash would have refused. Victoria would have accepted.
Because she was his rat. His creation. He knew her pride would push her to face him, telling herself she would never give him the pleasure of breaking her, without knowing that was exactly what made the game spicy.
But that was something he would only live when he woke up from this fucking nightmare. The woman in front of him, too radiant, too pleased, was no longer his rat. Tonight she belonged to no one... or actually, she did. Maybe that giant next to her was getting a little too tactile with her.
Nash’s hand, resting on Victoria’s earlier. The thumb tracing a circle over her knuckles. What she had said: her word was his. And she had let that guy speak for her in front of Lorenzo Perez himself.
He thought back to the hospital earlier. His reunion with Victoria nothing like the hundred times he had imagined it. He had thought it was the power, the company, the politicians in his pocket that had made this woman so confident.
But replaying the scene of the hand, of the smile she had given for a word murmured by that guy, Hector understood it was something else.
Something he would never have.
Where the hell had this guy even come from? And because of this asshole she was acting like a queen.
She had walked into this room like she owned the entire building. She had made him give up his chair without even addressing him. She had forced their father, the most terrifying man Hector knew, to apologize to a Breakball player and a secretary.
And now this. This had no name. This was an execution. They were asking him to politely put his own neck under the guillotine.
"Father," he said, his voice breaking. "You can’t be serious. Tell her this is absurd."
Lorenzo didn’t move an inch.
It was Victoria who answered in his place.
"Explain to me what’s absurd about it," she said, finally speaking to him. "You made me scrub your floors on my knees for years, for fun. I’m just returning the favor. Isn’t that your own school?"
He had nothing to say. His eyes were shaking, his fists dancing the rumba.
"What are you doing?"
His eyes went to the voice that had pulled him out of his daze. Monique.
She was looking at him with wide eyes, certainly terrified of... wait... no... that look... that look wasn’t that. Ah no, it was anything but terror or even compassion.
She wasn’t laughing, she wasn’t trembling, she seemed... intrigued? Curious?
Hands clasped on the table, she tilted her head slightly.
"Come on, this is an important moment for the future of the company," she said. "I thought you were more professional than that. We’re in the middle of a war, we don’t have time for this bullshit."
Hector held his breath. Ah no... ah no, she wouldn’t dare. Ah no, she wasn’t going to play that fucking game. Those words he remembered perfectly, those words he had said to her at the hospital before Victoria gave him a wet nightmare.
And Monique... she definitely knew, because she was laughing. She laughed, not with her mouth like an animal, but with her eyes like a monster.
"Are you doing it, yes or no?"
Hector took it like a slap.
Flash sighed, long and theatrical, looking at an imaginary watch.
"This is boring," he said, to no one in particular. "Nothing went as planned tonight. You didn’t need to waste my time on this bullshit."
Hector turned to his father one last time, almost begging.
"Father, please."
"That’s enough," Lorenzo spat, louder this time. The first real burst of anger of the evening. "Do it, Hector. So we can move on."
Complete silence.
Hector was trembling. He understood there was no one left in this room to save him. Not his father. Not Monique. Not even the ghost of the authority he had thought he carried.
He looked at Victoria. She held his gaze without blinking, patient, without pity.
He looked at Nash, the guilty one. Nash wasn’t even acknowledging him. No hate, no pity. Just nothing. At least act like you’re satisfied, you dirty bastard.
His fists clenched until they went white.
Victoria delivered the final blow, without hurrying.
"You’ve always needed someone to hold your hand through every failure," she said. "Nothing’s changed. Even on the ground, you’re still the same. But take your name, let your father and his slaves see if you wiped your ass properly."
Ouch.
Something gave inside him.
This wasn’t the drop that made the vase overflow. This was the entire river.
Hector stayed still for a moment, then...
"Fuck," he muttered, shaking his head. "Fucking hell."
He clenched his fists.
"Go fuck yourselves..."
Then he screamed.
"ALL OF YOU GO FUCK YOURSELVES!"
He grabbed the tablecloth and yanked it with all his strength. Cutlery and glasses flew. Wine spread in a dark stain across the white fabric still clenched in his fist.
Real chaos at his feet, still smaller than the one in his head. And without waiting any longer, he charged at Victoria.
It only lasted a few instants.
Victoria didn’t move. Arms crossed, she watched him come with the same calm as the entire evening, without flinching, because she knew she had nothing to fear.
Nash stood in an instant, cutting the distance before Hector could get close and intercepting him. He held him by the neck, lifting him easily to his height while Hector choked.
"Why are you doing this to yourself?" he said.
He lifted him higher, no visible strain in it at all, and slammed him down onto the table below. Wood splintered under the weight, Hector’s back hitting the cloth and the silverware that hadn’t already fallen, the sound echoing off the glass walls.
No one moved for a moment.
Flash’s jaw tightened, all his calm gone in an instant. Dahlia brought a hand to her mouth. Monique looked shocked, then held back a smile she clearly hadn’t planned.
Victoria still hadn’t moved. She watched the scene with satisfaction, as if she had been waiting for this since the start of the evening.
Nash straightened, adjusting his sleeve as if he had just finished a chore of no interest. He looked down at Hector, who was coughing, one hand on his throat, trying to get up in the wreckage.
"You should have knelt nicely," Nash said. "Now you also owe a table."
Hector’s cough turned into rage as soon as his lungs agreed to work again. He straightened, staggering, murder written in capital red M across his entire face, and launched himself again.
"HECTOR."
Lorenzo’s voice shook the walls, freezing Hector mid-motion.
He stayed there, chest heaving, one hand still on his throat. The pain was nothing compared to the weight that had just fallen on him: every gaze in the room, all at once.
Flash’s, hard. Dahlia’s, neutral, which was worse. Monique’s, unreadable, but with that held-back smile still carved there. His father’s, cold, furious, disappointed, not just by tonight, but by every year that had led here.
And Victoria’s.
He forced himself to look at her one last time, to save what dignity he had left.
She didn’t blink. She smiled at him. The cruelest, most triumphant, most disgusting smile. The most beautiful and most devastating expression he had ever seen on her face.
He said nothing. There was nothing left to say that wouldn’t cost him the last scraps of dignity he had. He straightened as best he could and walked toward the door, a low growl escaping his throat, the only sound he allowed himself.
The door closed without another word.
Two staff members entered almost immediately through a side door. Fast, silent, picking up the broken glass and cutlery without a glance at the disaster. As if it were an ordinary Tuesday in this dining room.
Victoria picked up the water glass, miraculously still standing in the middle of the chaos, took a slow sip, and set it back down in the middle of the chaos.
Lorenzo was the first to move, smoothing his jacket as if he could iron out the last five minutes.
"Well," he said, his voice finding again the even tone from the start of the evening. "That was regrettable."
"Truly," Victoria said.
Her gaze lingered on the door Hector had just gone through, then came back to her father, amused.
"I suppose throwing a tantrum like a child the moment he doesn’t get what he wants is mandatory on your employees’ CVs," she said. "I wonder if you have that in you."
Lorenzo’s jaw tightened barely. He said nothing.
"Anyway," Victoria continued, folding her hands in front of her. "His little exit changes nothing. Except that it made me want to revise the terms."
"Meaning?" Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed.
"Meaning the apology I asked for, your son’s prostration, won’t happen in an empty room. There will be witnesses."
"Fine," Lorenzo said, waving a hand to close the subject. "I’ll have a few board members attend. Settled."
"All of Apex’s staff," Victoria cut in, still just as light. "Every employee. Down to the interns."
Lorenzo’s mouth tightened. First real crack of irritation.
"That’s excessive."
"The people from the Jade Gardens too," she added, ignoring him completely. "Whoever’s still there. I want them present."
"Victoria."
"And the family," she said, cutting him off outright. "What’s left of it. The friends. Everyone who used to come laugh at his dinners while listening to his jokes about rats like me. I want them as witnesses for the day your son kisses the ground at my feet."
All of Lorenzo’s ease evaporated. His jaw hardened, his eyes calculating the scale of what she was describing.
"You’re asking me to gather half of the Upperworld to watch my son crawl."
"I’m asking you," Victoria answered, "to gather everyone who looked the other way while he treated me like shit, and called it nothing at all. I have a list, Lorenzo. Names. Every face that mattered, across all those years. I want them all together."
Silence.
"You have a week," she added, standing, smoothing her dress with the same calm as when she arrived. "Organize it, and let me know when it’s done." She stopped at the door, turning her head. "Or don’t. Good luck explaining that choice to your board."
Nash stood as well, offering his arm to Victoria. Dahlia was already heading for the exit ahead of them.
"Wait."
Flash’s voice cut through the room.