Chapter 68: Thousands Of Dollars Wasted

Ruby’s breathing hitched as my words sank in, her eyes widening with a sudden, intoxicating wave of validation. The anxiety that had been hanging over her about Quin’s massive corporate machine vanished, completely obliterated by my refusal to step down.

"Yes," she breathed out, a wide, thrilled smile breaking across her face. "Yes, Mister."

She was utterly obsessed with that unshakeable firmness—the fact that while every other executive in the industry cowered whenever Quin cleared their throat, I didn’t even care about their multi-million-dollar war chest.

Without breaking eye contact, she pulled her phone out of her designer bag, tapped her manager’s speed dial, and put it on speaker while holding it close to her chest.

"Ruby?" her manager’s anxious voice cut through the speaker. "Look, we’re drafting the delay press statement right now for Quin’s schedule—"

"Cancel it," Ruby interrupted, her voice ringing out with a cold, absolute confidence she had never possessed under her old label. "We aren’t moving the date by a single second."

"Ruby, wait, you don’t understand, Quin’s artist is dropping three music videos and a live-streamed concert at midnight! We’ll get buried in the algorithm—"

"We drop raw, on schedule, tonight," she said firmly, tossing me a cheeky, dangerous smirk. "Ethan said so. Get the distribution feed locked in, or I’ll find a team that can handle a real release."

She ended the call before her manager could even stammer out a response, tossing the phone onto the sofa.

"Done," she whispered, stepping closer to me, her chest rising and falling softly against mine. "No delays. We go to war tonight."

[System Notification: Release Locked!]

[Pending Milestone: 40x Cashback Multiplier ($111,000,000) Active]

[Target ’Ruby’ Loyalty & Alignment: Maxed out]

Before the heavy silence between us could pull us any deeper, my phone on the table began buzzing wildly again with Amanda’s second FaceTime attempt, her caller ID flashing across the screen.

Ruby let out a low, teasing chuckle, running her fingers lightly down my arm before taking a step back. "You better answer your little gamer girl, Mister. I’ll be in the studio room, keeping an eye on the midnight launch stream."

I answered the buzzing FaceTime call, and Amanda’s face instantly filled my screen.

She wasn’t looking at the camera. Her face was deathly pale, her eyes wide and red-rimmed as if she had just seen a ghost. She was sitting on the floor somewhere dark, holding her phone with shaking hands.

"Ethan... I... I tried talking to him, okay?" she stammered, her voice frantic, jumping around in her usual hyper-verbal habit but completely stripped of any humor. "I tried explaining it! I literally said, ’It’s a sponsorship, it’s an investment,’ but he wouldn’t even let me finish the sentence, and then he just—he didn’t listen to anything, and I—"

"Amanda," I interrupted, my tone dropping into a dead, flat baritone that cut straight through her panic. "Stop spiraling. Get straight to the point. What happened?"

She took a sharp, ragged breath, clutching her phone tighter as a tear finally spilled over her lash line.

"My dad," she choked out, her voice barely a whisper. "He... he destroyed the gaming kit, Ethan. All of it. The monitors, the custom rig... everything you just bought me. It’s completely trashed."

I froze.

The silence in the room became suffocating. A hundred and forty-two thousand dollars worth of hardware—shattered to pieces before she could even log in.

"What?" I said softly, my eyes narrowing into two slits of pure, ice-cold fury.

"Are you hurt?" I demanded, my voice cutting through the speaker like a blade.

"No, no, I’m okay physically, I’m fine," Amanda whimpered, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve. "Ethan, I am so, so sorry. I’m going to pay you back, I swear! Every single cent! I’ll take on extra hours, I’ll drop my electives, I’ll get a second job—"

"Amanda, relax," I commanded, shutting down her frantic rambling instantly. "Forget about the money. I can buy you ten more setups by tomorrow morning without even noticing the hit to my bank account. Money isn’t the problem here."

I stood up from the sofa, pulling my keys off the marble island as my jaw set into a hard, dangerous line.

"If your dad smashed a hundred and forty grand worth of equipment, he’s going to be the one paying for it if I decide to hold a grudge," I said, my tone deadly quiet. "Now, tell me what actually happened."

Amanda bit her lip, her eyes darting away from the camera as fresh tears welled up. She let out a shaky, trembling breath, her social battery completely shot and her usual hyperactive wall utterly shattered.

"Can... can we talk in person?" she asked softly, looking up at the screen with a desperate, vulnerable gaze. "Please? I don’t want to explain this over the phone. I’m sitting down the street from my house right now."

The quiet park bench sat under the cool glow of the midnight moon, completely removed from the noise of the city. Amanda sat pulled tightly into herself, her knees tucked against her chest in her damp tracksuit, staring blankly at the dark grass below.

I didn’t press her. I just sat beside her in silence, letting the cool night air give her room to breathe until the shaking in her hands finally stopped.

After a long time, I turned my head slightly. "You okay?"

Her breath hitched softly, and when she finally spoke, her voice was tiny—stripped of all her hyperactive chatter, raw and deeply afraid.

"He’s always hated my gaming," she whispered, her first words hanging heavy in the dark. "Always."

I kept my eyes on her, giving her my full, undivided listening ears as the story slowly spilled out of her.

"He has anger issues... he’s always angry about something," she continued, her fingers tightening around her shins. "When the delivery crew brought all those boxes to the house today... he lost his mind. He was so stupid about it. He assumed I bought all of it myself. He started screaming, saying this is what I was doing with his money, that I was putting his cash to waste... and then he started accusing me of stealing from him."

A tear slipped down her cheek, but she didn’t bother wiping it away.

"I tried to tell him it was a sponsorship, that an investor gave it to me, but he wouldn’t listen. He just grabbed a golf club and... smashed every single box. Every monitor. The PC tower. All of it." She let out a shaky, desperate breath, her shoulders collapsing inward. "I felt so overwhelmed, Ethan. I wanted to just pack my bags and run away, but... I’m the eldest sister. My mom isn’t around. I can’t leave my little sister alone in that house with him."

She turned her head to look at me, her eyes filled with a heartbreaking, desperate defeat.

"Sometimes... I actually believe him," she whimpered softly. "Sometimes I really think I just need to give up gaming. Maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s just a stupid dream."