Chapter 118: Extermination
Ryan didn’t clench his jaw and the glass in his hand didn’t shatter.
The anger that had once driven him to scream at Emma in the middle of a corporate gala was completely gone.
What replaced it was a cold terrifying apathy. He was staring at two insects crawling across his newly acquired marble floor.
James looked exactly the same. Smug, slightly balding, wearing a tuxedo that didn’t quite fit his shoulders.
He was currently trying to wedge himself into a conversation with a pair of real estate developers who were actively ignoring him.
Emma stood beside him. Ryan’s eyes dragged over her.
Three months ago, she was the center of his universe.
Now, looking at her, all he felt was a profound, grating embarrassment that he had ever settled for so little.
She was wearing a loud, heavily sequined magenta dress with a thigh-high slit that screamed ’new money’ in a room built entirely on generational wealth.
Next to the understated, structural elegance of the Astor Hotel, Emma looked cheap. She looked like a tourist who had snuck past the velvet rope.
"What is it?" Zara asked, feeling the sudden, absolute stillness in Ryan’s posture. She followed his line of sight.
"Ghosts," Ryan murmured, his voice dropping to a dark, gravelly pitch. "The ex-boss. And the ex-girlfriend."
Zara’s dark eyes narrowed.
The genuine, radiant warmth she carried completely vanished, replaced by a fierce, protective hostility.
She looked at Emma’s sequined dress, performing a hyper-fast, brutal visual assessment that only a fashion icon could execute.
"The magenta sequins?" Zara asked, her voice dripping with aristocratic pity. "That’s her."
Zara took a slow sip of her champagne. "Let’s go say hello."
Ryan didn’t argue. He placed his hand on the small of Zara’s back, guiding her through the crowded ballroom.
They moved with the unbothered, heavy gravity of apex predators circling wounded prey.
James was mid-sentence, attempting to explain a mediocre SaaS integration to a man checking his Rolex, when his eyes snagged on Ryan.
The words died in James’s throat. His mouth actually fell open. He blinked, rapidly, completely failing to process the visual data.
The guy he had fired, the guy security had dragged out of the Meridian Tech lobby, was standing in the center of the Astor Hotel wearing bespoke Tom Ford and holding a crystal flute of champagne.
Emma noticed James’s shock. She turned.
Her eyes widened to the size of saucers.
The smug, proprietary grip she had on James’s arm went entirely slack.
Her gaze darted frantically over Ryan’s tailored suit, the heavy, expensive watch on his wrist, and the cold, unyielding power radiating off his shoulders.
Then, Emma looked at the woman standing beside him.
The liquid-gold silk.
The flawless, staggering, world-class beauty.
The casual, absolute perfection that made every other woman in the room look like they were average at best.
Emma’s hands instinctively dropped to smooth down the cheap sequins of her own dress, a brutal, crushing wave of insecurity hitting her like a physical blow.
Ryan stopped three feet away.
"James," Ryan said. His voice was flat. Empty. "Emma. It’s been too long I must say."
James’s face flushed a dull, ugly red. The veins in his neck tightened. "Russo. How the hell did you get in here? Are you catering?"
Ryan didn’t get angry at the comment. Anger was a currency exchanged between equals.
"I’m bidding," Ryan replied smoothly. He took a sip of his champagne.
Emma finally found her voice.
She stepped forward, puffing her chest out, trying to summon the devious, cruel smile she had worn the night she broke his heart.
It failed completely. It just looked strained.
"Ryan," Emma said, her voice overly loud. "You look... different. I guess you finally found a job after James let you go? I texted you about an opening, but you ignored me."
Before Ryan could answer, Zara unleashed a smile so radiantly kind, so genuinely warm and devastatingly bright, that it practically sucked the oxygen out of Emma’s lungs.
"Oh, you must be Emma!" Zara said, her velvet voice dripping with absolute, weaponized sweetness. She reached out and gently touched Emma’s arm. "Ryan has told me so much about you. It is so incredibly brave of you to wear that color in a room like this. It shows so much... spirit."
Emma’s strained smile shattered.
The backhanded compliment hit her flawlessly, wrapping a brutal insult in a layer of untouchable kindness.
"I... what? Who are you?"
"I’m Zara," she replied effortlessly, not bothering with a last name because she didn’t need one. "And it’s just so sweet that you guys get to attend these things. Ryan mentioned you run a mid-level software firm, James? It must be exciting to see how the big players operate."
James’s knuckles turned white around his glass.
He stepped forward, trying to physically reclaim the dominance he was rapidly bleeding.
"Meridian Tech is a market leader, sweetheart," James sneered, attempting to diminish her. He looked at Ryan. "And whatever scam you’re running to rent that tuxedo, Russo, it won’t last. You were a mediocre developer, and you’re a fraud of a businessman."
"Meridian’s quarterly growth is stalled at two percent, James," Ryan stated, his voice completely bored. "Your churn rate is disastrous because your UI is a relic. Market leader is a disgusting lie."
James froze. The color completely drained from his face.
Right on cue, Diana Lockridge drifted past their cluster. She didn’t glance at James.
She didn’t even acknowledge his existence. She stopped exclusively for Ryan.
"Ryan," Diana said, her tone carrying the absolute weight of Wall Street royalty. "The partners at Sequoia want a five-minute brief on your data integration model before the auction begins. Don’t keep them waiting."
"I’ll be right there, Diana," Ryan replied.
Diana nodded and glided away.
James looked like he was going to vomit. The sheer, insurmountable gap in status crashed down on him. Ryan wasn’t faking it.
Ryan was actively dismissing him to go speak with the most powerful venture capitalists on the pla.
James took a shaky, aggressive step toward Ryan. "Listen to me, you little—"
A massive hand clamped down on James’s shoulder with bone-crushing force.
Hayes materialized out of the crowd like a ghost. The PMC operator didn’t draw a weapon, but the sheer, lethal violence radiating from his posture made James instantly freeze.
"Sir," Hayes said, his voice a low, terrifying rumble directed entirely at Ryan. "Are these individuals bothering you?"
Ryan looked at James. He looked at Emma, who was currently shrinking back, staring at Zara’s golden gown with absolute, bitter humiliation welling in her eyes.
"No, Hayes," Ryan said, his voice dropping into the freezing, untouchable cadence of the Warlord he was becoming. "They aren’t bothering me."
Ryan turned his back on them. He offered his arm to Zara.
She took it, flashing one last, devastatingly sweet smile at Emma. "Have a wonderful night in that dress, honey."
Ryan and Zara walked away, stepping smoothly back into the glittering heights of the Astor ballroom, leaving James and Emma socially stranded.
Deep in Ryan’s pocket, the burner phone vibrated.
[EXPENDITURE RECOGNIZED: REVENGE / HUMILIATION]
[Base Impact Acquired.]
[Bold Action Multiplier Applied To Expenses: 4x]
Ryan smiled. The auction would be fun.
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