Briggs’s ego had taken the wheel. He didn’t care who was watching.
“You’re nothing here! Get back in line!” he roared.
Releasing her arm, he planted both hands on Evelyn’s chest and shoved her with all his weight.
Evelyn stumbled backward. Her beige silk shirt fluttered as she hit the cold, hard floor in a clumsy heap.
The lobby froze. The dropped coffee seeped into the tiles. A collective, horrified gasp sucked the air from the room.
Then, the man in the dark suit moved.
He didn’t shout. He didn’t warn. He just exploded.
A blur of dark fabric and raw muscle blitzed into the frame. Before Briggs could even blink, a massive hand clamped onto the back of his neck like a vice.
*CRACK.*
Briggs’s face was smashed brutally into the metal security table. The impact rattled the glass turnstiles. The man pinned him there, neutralizing the oversized guard in a single, breathless second.
Dead silence returned to the lobby.
Slowly, Evelyn stood up. She didn’t panic. She didn’t scream.
Her previous calm had crystallized into something far more dangerous: absolute, freezing authority. She placed her right hand flat against her chest, taking one slow, deliberate breath to compose herself.
She walked over and looked down at the table.
Briggs was paralyzed. His face was squashed against the reflective steel, cherry-red and dripping with sweat. His eyes were blown wide in suffocating panic, mouth gasping for air like a dying fish.
Evelyn stared into his terrified eyes. She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t have to.
“You confused a badge with authority,” she said, her flat, icy words echoing through the lobby of the billion-dollar company she owned.
“You’re fired.”