"Honestly, we’ve wasted enough ti already. You’re far too young to be sitting at this table," Delia decreed, voice sharp as a blade’s edge. "There’s no way this circus act should be continued any longer."
That was exactly when Kaiden started laughing.
At first, it was a low, quiet chuckle. But it soon grew louder and sharper with every passing second, until he was leaning back in his chair, smiling like he was watching a cody unfold.
He looked at each of them, slowly, one by one.
First, Marlow.
"You say fake, I say not, so who’s right and who’s wrong? I’m more than happy to let the public decide. We’ll post the video. Let both the interned and the awakened networks run with it. Let the platform algorithm chew on it like fresh at. Let’s see what the court of public opinion thinks, hm? Are you greasy, old pigs in the wrong, or are my beautiful, innocent little angels uttering lies?"
Marlow’s mouth opened, but nothing ca out.
Then Kaiden turned to Vesta. The smile faded a notch, becoming less amused, colder.
"You’re right. They signed it. Just like starving dogs chew poisoned at even when they know it slls wrong. That doesn’t an one bit that they weren’t preyed on. Neither does that an the ones holding the leash weren’t rich n and won in fine suits with backgrounds of extre privilege. We’ll let the public decide if your business practices are vile, disgusting, and predatory, or if it’s just the young girls who are simply too dumb or too greedy to notice they’re signing their lives away."
Next, Renzo.
"How couldn’t XXXVidz be involved?" Kaiden asked. "You own Untainted Holes."
Then, slowly, he turned his gaze to Zadie.
"And it was your very own executive who ran the casting that day. How could you possibly not be in bed with the studio? You might as well be treated as one and the sa."
Zadie’s fingers stopped tapping on the crystal table, but she said nothing. Unlike the others, she didn’t even seem enraged. She wore a perfect poker face throughout it all.
Finally, Kaiden looked to Delia.
He just smiled.
"Thanks for your valuable input," he said simply.
And the room dropped into silence again.
A deeper silence.
Because for the first ti, none of them had an imdiate coback.
Kaiden reclined, still perfectly composed, and lifted a bottle of expensive wine for a slow sip.
Behind him, the Valkyries stood still through it all, silent, expressionless.
Like predators watching their prey flounder.
Like actresses waiting for the applause of the crowd.
Like the end of Act One.
And the beginning of sothing far darker.
*BANG!*
The boardroom doors burst open, slamming against the walls with a violent crack.
A voice, shrill and panicked, called out behind the noise. "Y-You can’t just walk in here! This is a closed eting!"
But the woman stepping in didn’t even blink at the assistant and her cries of protest.
Tall, feline, and impossibly alluring, the newcor strode into the boardroom with a feminine sway in her hips that commanded attention like a whip crack. Her golden skin shone tantalizingly under the lights, her pupils slitted like a predator’s, and her smile—her smile—was a razor in velvet.
Bastet.
The Ra-Blessed Felinid. A chaos-drenched feline in sexy high-heels.
She said nothing at first, only purred.
She drifted past the attendants as if they weren’t even there, her eyes locked on none other than Kaiden.
Then she reached him and draped herself over his chair from behind with both arms, curling around him with obsessive, languid devotion. Her fingers trailed along his collarbone, down to his chest, until her lips were just inches from his ear.
"Mmm... You sll amazing today, Master~" she purred, voice sultry beyond words. "My favorite kind... Power and danger~"
Then she grabbed his hand and guided it between the teasing gap of her cleavage. He didn’t flinch.
With the precision of soone who knew exactly what he was reaching for, Kaiden gripped sothing cold and tallic between Bastet’s pair of perky breasts.
He pulled it free.
A single, sleek USB pendrive.
He turned it in his fingers once, then asked, "Did it go well?"
Bastet’s purring deepened, and she leaned closer still, her lips brushing his ear as she answered.
"I visited the little man who ran the business..." she said with feline delight. "Asked to see his... database?" The word was awkward in her mouth, foreign and aningless. "Whatever that is. I asked nicely the first ti, then less nicely the second. He gave it to eventually. All of it."
She nuzzled him possessively, her hand still keeping his in between her tanned cleavage, even though the pendrive had long been retrieved.
Across the room, Zadie let out a long, exhausted sigh. The arrival of the monster girl could only an one thing. She had a role to play in this.
"... Is that what I think it is?" she asked while eyeing the pendrive.
Kaiden tilted his head to the side with an innocent expression, grinning. "I’m not a mind reader, Zadie. But just for you, I’ll tell you what this is."
He turned it slowly between his fingers so every executive could see.
"This is the complete, internal data archive of Untainted Holes studio. Contracts. Schedules. Logs. IP access trails. Internal ssages. And most importantly..." He let that pause hang in the air for a second before delivering the finish:
"... the full contact information of every girl they’ve ever contracted."
A beat passed.
"Each of them will be found. Each of them will be contacted. And, of course, each of them will be given a voice."
His smile twisted.
The warmth drained from his face.
And in its place, sothing inhuman blood.
A monster wore Kaiden’s skin now.
A demon with dead eyes and the voice of the abyss.
He leaned forward just enough to cast a long, creeping shadow over the boardroom table and asked:
"So, what shall it be?"
User Comments
0 comments from readers