Briggs didn’t even see the blur of motion.
Before the stranger reached him, Briggs let his temper fully snap. He shoved Evelyn backward with brutal force.
“You’re nothing here!” Briggs roared. “Get back in line!”
Evelyn stumbled and hit the cold gray floor. The lobby froze. Briggs puffed out his chest, taking an aggressive step toward her.
He never took a second step.
The man in the dark suit didn’t just walk. He lunged.
A heavy hand clamped onto the back of Briggs’s neck. Another seized his wrist.
*SLAM.*
Briggs’s face crashed onto the cold metal of the security scanner. His arm was twisted violently behind his back, pinning him in agonizing, helpless submission.
He gasped, spit flying from his lips, his eyes rolling wildly in shock and panic.
“Get off me!” Briggs choked out, sweat instantly beading on his forehead. “I run security for this building!”
“Not anymore.”
Evelyn stood up. She didn’t look shaken. She didn’t look scared. She brushed the dust off her beige shirt and calmly adjusted her gold hoop earring.
The murmuring crowd parted. The corporation’s actual CEO came sprinting out of the executive elevator, pale and sweating, stopping dead in his tracks when he saw her.
“Ms. Vance,” the CEO stammered. “I… I can explain.”
Briggs’s eyes bulged against the metal table. *Ms. Vance? The billionaire who just bought the entire company?*
Evelyn walked slowly toward the pinned guard, resting one hand gracefully against her chest. Her expression was pure, icy majesty.
“You confused a badge with authority,” Evelyn said, her voice a slow, terrifyingly quiet whisper. “You’re fired.”
She turned her cold gaze to the trembling CEO. “And so are you. Clear his desk, too.”
Briggs let out a muffled groan of absolute defeat, his cheek pressed flat against the metal. He hadn’t just bullied a stranger. He had just assaulted the owner of the building.