I never lost sleep over the thought of other men circling my fiancée. In our world, my reputation preceded me; no one with a pulse and an ounce of sense dared cross that line. Yet, returning from a six-month executive seminar in Europe, I pulled up to the corporate headquarters just in time to see a boy barely out of college sitting in the passenger seat of Helena’s Porsche. I didn’t storm over to tap on the glass. I simply instructed my executive assistant to arrange a private dinner that evening for Helena and every member of her inner circle. A disobedient woman can always be replaced. As for any man who dares covet what belongs to me—even in thought? He gets crushed. … "Mr. Paddy, seven of Ms. Fontaine’s directors have arrived, but there’s one more person... not on the guest list." Leah, my assistant, kept her voice barely above a whisper, her gaze darting cautiously toward the private dining room at the end of the hall. "Who?" I asked, sliding my phone into my suit pocket and gesturing for her to lead the way. "The young man... from her passenger seat." A quiet, dry chuckle slipped past my lips. Exactly as I expected. Around the long mahogany table, seven or eight senior executives stood up in unison the moment I pushed the door open. Helena sat at the head of the table. When our eyes met, a flicker of hesitation crossed her features before she instinctively shifted one seat to the right, vacating the head position for me. Beside her sat a young man in his early twenties. He was dressed in understated luxury, meticulously groomed, with the delicate, scrubbed innocence of fresh prey. The entire room held its breath. The air grew thick, suffocating. Yet this boy seemed completely oblivious to the frost settling over the room. He casually reached across, picked up Helena’s crystal water glass, took a sip, and offered her an easy, pampered grin. "Helena, you skipped lunch again, didn't you? No way. I’m going to make sure you eat tonight." I remained still in the doorway, observing. Sighting the stiff posture of the executives around him, the boy finally turned his head in my direction. He tilted his chin, glancing from me to the room full of terrified executives, then turned back to Helena with a bemused smirk. "Who’s this? Showing up late without even an apology—is our corporate culture always this casual?" When no one dared utter a word, he pressed on, his tone a dangerous blend of naive innocence and righteous entitlement. "I mean, even if he’s a board member, basic etiquette still applies, right? You spoil these people, Helena. It makes these dinners so awkward for the rest of us." Helena’s personal assistant looked mortified, discreetly tugging the boy's sleeve. "Mr. Briggs," she hissed under her breath. "This is Alvis Paddy. He is Ms. Fontaine’s fiancé, and... the controlling majority shareholder of the group." A profound silence smothered the room. Austin Briggs froze, the glass hovering midway to the linen tablecloth, the smug smile on his face calcifying into sheer disbelief. He slowly set the glass down. Before Helena could interject, he forced an airy laugh. "Oh, the fiancé. Well, all the more reason to arrive on time, right? We’ve all been waiting for you." I walked over and claimed the seat at the head of the table. My gaze rested entirely on Helena. "Helena, your new intern has quite the personality." She finally looked at me, her expression guarded and cold. "He’s young. He doesn't know any better. Don't lower yourself to his level." "Have you ever known me to lower myself for anyone?" I asked, opening the leather-bound menu and casually turning a page. "By the way, have that car sent to the scrapyard tomorrow. Buy a new one." Her brow snapped into a hard frown. "What?" "I have no interest in a car whose passenger seat has been occupied by strangers." Beside her, Austin muttered something beneath his breath. I didn't catch the words, nor did I need to. "One more thing," I said, closing the menu with a soft snap and pinning Helena under an unyielding gaze. "This Mr. Briggs—have his termination processed before nine tomorrow morning. Reach out to every partner in our network personally. Make sure he is permanently blacklisted across the industry." Austin’s face drained of color. He shot up from his chair. "You have no right!" "I am Alvis Paddy. That is all the right I need." Helena’s jaw tightened. She looked as if she were about to argue, but the sheer weight of my presence choked the words in her throat. A collective, silent exhale rippled across the table. I stood up, walked behind Helena, and rested a hand lightly on her shoulder. "Helena, you would do well to remember how you got to sit at this table in the first place." Her voice chased me toward the exit, laced with barely contained fury. "Alvis! Must you always be so merciless?" "Merciless?" I paused, pushing the double doors open as the cool hallway draft rushed in. "It seems you still don't know me very well." ... It was nearly eleven when I arrived home. I was leaning back against the sofa in the dimly lit living room when the front door clicked open, and Helena stepped inside. "Sitting in the dark by yourself?" she demanded. "Waiting for you." She unbuttoned her cuffs, tossing her coat onto a chair, her voice fraying with agitation. "You went entirely too far tonight. Austin is just an intern—a twenty-two-year-old kid who doesn't know how the corporate game works. Was all that theater really necessary?" "He doesn't know better," I murmured, sliding my legs off the sofa and sitting upright. "Do you?" I looked at her steadily. "Helena, have you forgotten what kind of man I am?" "Of course I haven't!" She pulled at her collar, her voice rising in pitch. "You're a control freak. An intern takes a ride in my passenger seat and you throw a tantrum. Do you have any idea how pathetic that looks to outsiders?" "Do you honestly think I care about what outsiders think?" She choked on her breath. "I have to run our regional projects," she argued, grasping for leverage. "I give a team member a lift on my way home. What's the crime in that?" "On your way?" I let out a quiet laugh. "Our estate is located on private, gated acreage. Everyone in this enclave knows everyone else. Helena, whose route were you taking that happened to pass through here?" Her face went pale, then sullen. She stood frozen under the chandelier. After a long pause, she spoke, her voice dropping into a low, strained register. "I'll scrap the car tomorrow. But about the boy... don't ruin his life. He just graduated." "What I say stands." "Alvis!" "If you feel that much pity for him," I said, cutting her off as I stood and walked toward the master bedroom, "you're welcome to go comfort him right now. But if you walk out that door tonight, don't bother coming back." Behind me, the house fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. ... When I woke the following morning, two documents were neatly laid out on the coffee table: a receipt confirming the vehicle had been surrendered for disposal, and a signed copy of a human resources severance agreement. The signature at the bottom was unquestionably Helena's sharp, elegant cursive. I glanced over it once and tossed it back down. At the very least, she wasn't foolish enough to wage an open war against me. A moment later, my phone vibrated with a brief voice note from Leah. "Mr. Paddy, Austin Briggs’s departure is finalized. Ms. Fontaine signed it personally. However, he spent half an hour weeping in the main lobby before leaving. His exact words were: 'Alvis Paddy will live to regret this.'" I typed back a one-word reply: "Noted." I had heard threats like that countless times in my life. Not a single person who uttered them had ever lived to see me regret a thing. I took no pleasure in senseless cruelty. But I possessed a single, unbending rule: the harder someone tried to play the tough guy with me, the more thoroughly I ensured they learned that regret was a luxury reserved exclusively for them. Around lunchtime, a message arrived from Helena. "The car is gone. The boy is gone. Are you satisfied now?" I tapped out a brief reply: "Depends on your behavior." She didn't write back. The storm appeared to have settled into a fragile peace. Yet, a month later, a subtle dissonance began to hum beneath the surface. Helena was too quiet. Uncharacteristically so. Lying in bed one evening, I pulled up the financial records and supplier logs for the projects she had managed over the past six months. A new vendor caught my attention—a company I had never approved. I took a screenshot and sent it to Leah. "Who owns this firm?" Leah replied three minutes later with a lengthy brief, but only one sentence mattered: "Mr. Paddy, I’m digging deeper. The registered legal representative on file looks suspicious." I stared at the company name on the screen for a long time before setting the phone face-down on the nightstand. Before closing my eyes, I sent Helena a text: "Breakfast together tomorrow." Her reply was instantaneous: "Sounds good." I locked the screen, murmuring into the quiet dark, "It better be." ... "Mr. Paddy, Ms. Fontaine has been spending an unusual amount of time with this firm recently. The project scope is relatively minor, but she visits their offices at least twice a week, not counting encrypted video conferences." Leah handed me an iPad displaying Helena’s calendar from the past four weeks. I scrolled through the timeline. "Go on." "There is one more detail..." Leah hesitated. "After Austin Briggs was terminated, this was the company that hired him. His title is Assistant to the Director of Business Development." My fingers froze over the screen. "A fresh graduate, universally blacklisted across the industry, suddenly lands a directorship-track role?" "They aren't on our primary tier of enterprise partners," Leah explained quietly. "They operate as a secondary vendor, the kind of small shop that usually flies beneath our corporate radar." I laid the iPad on the desk and leaned back into my leather chair without a word. Leah stood rigidly beside me, barely daring to breathe. Two minutes ticked by before I broke the silence. "How many active contracts do we currently have with them?" "Three. Two are mid-execution, and one was signed just last week." "Terminate all of them." Leah’s pen hovered. "All of them? Mr. Paddy, we’ve already disbursed a substantial advance on the newest contract..." "Forfeit the advance. If I recall correctly, our standard breach-of-contract clauses heavily favor us. Have legal draft and issue the termination notices today." "Understood. Anything else?" I picked up my phone, scrolling methodically through my private contact list. "Pull a complete directory of every supplier and contractor doing business with that firm. Make the calls yourself. Every single corporate partner aligned with the Paddy Group is to sever ties with them immediately." "Sir... if we move that aggressively, the market ripple might be—" "A ripple in a puddle," I said, dropping the tablet onto the polished wood. "When I wipe someone off the board, I don't permit them to wear a cheap disguise and crawl back on. Whoever built him that bridge is going to tear it down today. And if they refuse, I’ll bury the bridge and everyone standing on it." Leah took a sharp breath, nodded, and stepped out. By late afternoon, Leah had spent hours on the secure line. Her final update was concise: not a single partner dared utter a word of protest. ... When Helena arrived home that evening, her face was pale and drawn, her phone buzzing relentlessly against her palm. She rejected three calls in a row before picking up a fourth, her voice snapping with frayed nerves. "I know! Stop panicking, I’m handling it!" She slammed the phone down and looked across the room at me where I sat dining alone. "Did you do this?" "Yes." "Do you have any idea how much terminating those contracts disrupts our own pipeline?" "I am aware." "Then why the hell did you do it?" "Helena." I set my silver fork down and met her eyes. "I told you to fire the boy and scrap the vehicle. You complied on paper. But then you turned around, arranged a cozy landing spot for him, and used company business as a cover for your secret rendezvous. Did you honestly take me for a fool?" Her lips parted, but no sound came out. "You can think I am jealous. You can think I am controlling. You can believe I am cold and heartless," I said, rising from the table and walking over until I was standing directly in front of her. "But you will never make a fool out of me." I held her gaze. "This is your final warning. No more parlor tricks." Helena stared at me, a complex tempest of resentment and fear churning in her eyes. She turned her face away, her voice scraping like sandpaper. "Alvis... can't you leave someone a single shred of a way out?" I offered a thin smile. "And who is this 'someone' you're so worried about?" She gave no answer. I turned and walked toward my study. Before closing the door, I left her with one final remark. "Helena, the next time you speak on his behalf, the consequences won't be this gentle." ... The fallout reached the matriarch of the Fontaine family faster than I had anticipated. The following afternoon, in the middle of an executive board meeting, Leah leaned down and murmured into my ear. "Old Mrs. Fontaine threw a massive fit at the family estate. She’s threatened to place Ms. Fontaine under house arrest to force her into line." My expression didn't shift. I simply nodded and continued the presentation. After the meeting adjourned, Leah returned with another update. "Ms. Fontaine... slammed the doors and stormed out of the family manor. Not even her father, Mr. Richard Fontaine, could stop her." "Understood." "Also, Mr. Richard Fontaine personally issued an official Fontaine family blacklisting against Austin Briggs, forcing his immediate termination. The Fontaine family’s crackdown was even more aggressive than ours." I nodded slowly. But I wasn't concerned with the Fontaine family’s stance. I was watching Helena. Sure enough, at ten that night, the front door crashed open, slamming violently against the foyer wall. "Alvis Paddy." Her silk blouse was rumpled, her eyes bloodshot, her hair uncharacteristically disheveled. I had expected her to come to me tonight, but seeing her stripped of her pristine composure only left me feeling a quiet disappointment. "Did you run to my mother and tattle on me?" "I don't play children's games," I replied, not even bothering to look up from my tablet. "Then how did she find out?" "You left a trail a mile wide. Someone was bound to notice." She closed the distance between us, her fists trembling as if fighting the urge to strike me. "My mother wants to lock me away like a delinquent. Are you satisfied now? Does this stroke your ego?" "I think you brought it entirely on yourself." She let out a bitter, humorless laugh and struck the leather back of the sofa with her open palm. "Alvis, what more do you want? He is an intern! Is all of this really necessary over a twenty-two-year-old kid? You got him fired, you weaponized your entire network to starve him out of the industry, and now you have my own father doing your dirty work! How can a grown man be this petty and threatened by a boy?" I set my glass down and rose to my full height. "Threatened?" I stepped into her personal space, watching her bravado instantly crumble. "Helena, your entire family’s annual revenue doesn't equal a single quarter's spare cash flow from the Paddy Group. Do you honestly believe a man like me feels threatened by an intern?" Her breath hitched. "You think this is jealousy?" I took another deliberate step forward, forcing her gaze down. "I was offering you the last shred of dignity you had left. You know better than anyone how you secured your seat at that executive table. If you decide you don't want that dignity, I have no problem flipping the entire table over." Her throat worked convulsively. She didn't retreat, but her knuckles turned stark white. "All you know how to do is threaten me." "I am not threatening you," I said softly. "I am reminding you of reality." The room hardened into stone. Suddenly, she spun around, snatched her car keys off the marble island, and bolted toward the door. "Where are you going?" "None of your damn business!" The heavy door slammed shut, the vibration echoing through the empty rooms. I stood there alone in the silence, letting out a single, quiet exhale. Then, I unlocked my phone and sent Helena one final message: "Helena." "My patience has officially run out."
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