Briggs didn’t even hear the footsteps.
He was too busy tightening his grip. “You’re nothing here!” he roared, violently shoving her backward.
Evelyn hit the cold gray tiles hard.
Someone screamed. The entire room froze.
Briggs took a heavy step forward, ready to finish the humiliation.
He never took the next step.
A blur of black fabric and raw kinetic force hit him from the blindside. The tall stranger didn’t shout. He didn’t issue a warning.
With terrifying, silent efficiency, he clamped one hand onto Briggs’s shoulder and the other onto his duty belt.
In a single, brutal motion, he yanked the heavy-set guard backward, spun him, and slammed him face-first down onto the flat metal security table.
*CRACK.*
Briggs’s breath exploded from his lungs. His cheek ground against the cold steel, his arm locked instantly into an inescapable hold. The stranger pressed his weight down, turning the aggressive guard into a helpless, gasping ragdoll in a fraction of a second.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Slowly, Evelyn stood.
She ignored a trembling employee who stepped forward to help. She simply brushed a speck of dust from her beige shirt, placing a hand over her chest to take one brief, composed breath.
When she looked at Briggs again, the vulnerable old woman was gone.
Her face was stone. Absolute, terrifying authority.
She walked over and stared down at the guard. Briggs was sweating profusely, his eyes wide with a sudden, sickening realization.
“You confused a badge with authority,” Evelyn said. Her voice was perfectly calm, yet it echoed through the lobby like a gunshot.
She leaned in just inches from his ear.
“I own this company.”
She didn’t blink.
“You’re fired.”