Chapter 297 Wonderful.

Chapter 297: 297 Wonderful.

I deliberately chose the executive lounge to host Jester’s little emissaries.

It wasn’t just a psychological power play—though sitting casually behind a massive, polished mahogany desk while making them stand on the imported rug certainly helped set the baseline tone—it was primarily a tactical choice.

The last time I had hosted their psychotic boss in this exact room, things had nearly spiraled into a catastrophic bloodbath.

Since then, I had instructed Rhea to make a few... aggressive architectural modifications.

Behind the rich mahogany wainscoting and the tasteful, velvet-flocked wallpaper sat a highly classified, heavily shielded arsenal of auto-turrets, ultrasonic emitters, and enough localized EMP charges to instantly fry a mechanized tank battalion.

I severely doubted these specific goons would be stupid enough to try anything physical, but you never really knew when you were dealing with the Order’s rank-and-file flunkies.

When the doors finally swung open, I couldn’t stop myself from actively grimacing in deep, unfiltered distaste.

It was bad enough that Jester felt the need to send an errand boy instead of picking up a phone, but he’d chosen to send his shadow. In a somewhat painfully literal sense.

Sleer was an intensely unpleasant bastard on the absolute best of days, but walking into my home right now, he was actively offensive to the senses.

His companion, however, was somehow even worse. Maybe significantly more so, given the specific family lineage.

I recognized Samuel immediately. Where his sister Vanessa had aggressively rebelled against her bloodline by trying to make the world a genuinely better place, Samuel had happily dove headfirst into the family business of terror and psychological torture.

He looked like a walking, talking optical illusion. Dressed impeccably in a sharply pressed, vintage three-piece suit, his entire physical outline violently blurred and popped in stark, monochromatic grayscale.

It was exactly like looking at a living film negative, or watching a man who had literally stepped straight out of a static-laced television set from a 1930s noir flick.

Sporting a tilted bowler hat and a razor-thin, bloodless smile on his pasty white face, Samuel walked into the opulent lounge with a sharp, rhythmic click-clack of his leather shoes.

He stopped perfectly on the center of the rug and offered a faint, mockingly theatrical bow.

"Thank you so much for seeing us on such short notice," Samuel said. His voice was smooth, cultured, and carried a faint, tinny echo, exactly like an old transatlantic radio broadcast.

"I promise you, the pleasure is entirely yours," I replied dryly, intentionally not bothering to offer either of them a seat.

Sleer instantly hissed, the sound exactly like a rusted kettle coming to a violent boil. His shadowy edges physically frayed with sudden agitation. But Samuel merely nodded, completely unphased by my open hostility.

"I completely understand that my father’s last face-to-face meeting with you in this very room was not quite what either party had hoped it would be," Samuel continued. "But I can firmly assure you, our presence here today is for something significantly more beneficial to both you and him."

"And what exactly is that?" I asked, leaning back in my leather chair and resting my hands carefully near the hidden activation stud mounted under my desk.

Instead of answering directly, Samuel reached into his monochromatic suit jacket.

He flicked a flat, metallic disc out of his pocket and set it precisely in the center of my glass coffee table. The device let out a sharp, mechanical click.

A second later, the air above it rapidly assembled into a flickering, highly detailed blue hologram of Jester himself.

I glowered openly at the projection. The creepy clown floated above the table, his jagged, painted features shifting with digital interference.

Even stripped of his physical presence, Jester could easily give Pennywise a serious run for his money in the raw body-horror genre.

"Polaris," Jester purred smoothly, the artificial audio perfectly capturing his raspy, velvet tone. "So incredibly glad to see you again."

"Makes exactly one of us," I growled, the metal in my bracers humming with a low vibration of irritation.

He laughed. The heavy, rusted iron chains crisscrossing his chest rattled with a sharp, crackling static noise through the disc’s tiny external speakers.

"Yes, I imagine so. As a direct result of our past... friction, I thought this digital approach would be vastly better received than my coming down to your lovely estate in person. Especially given your current, heavily publicized challenges."

I felt my jaw clench hard enough to ache at the thinly veiled jab, but I forced myself to remain perfectly still.

"Heard about that already, have you?" I asked, keeping my voice entirely deadpan.

"I imagine the entire world has by now, Miles. Modern technology is an absolute marvel, isn’t it? Bad news travels so terribly fast these days."

"Amazing stuff," I said, scowling deeply. What the hell was his actual game here?

"So very true," the floating holographic head bobbed in mock sympathy. "But I firmly believe I may have an elegant, permanent solution to your little PR problem. An absolute lifeline in your hour of desperate need. And I would be utterly delighted to make the offer."

"And that would be?" I asked warily, my fingers hovering mere millimeters from the turret release sequence.

The jagged, painted cut of a smile in the dark window of his face widened into a terrifying, impossible grin that stretched far past the boundaries of human anatomy.

"Join me."

I stared at him, completely and utterly stunned. My brain momentarily flatlined. And apparently, I wasn’t the only one in the room completely blindsided.

Sleer was staring up at the glowing blue hologram, his jaw practically hitting the floorboards in sheer, unadulterated amazement.

"Come again?" I asked, half convinced the audio feed had glitched.

"Join my league," Jester repeated seamlessly, his tone abruptly dropping the theatricality for a moment of cold, hard business. "I have seen plenty of your skill by now. And though we may have initially gotten off on the completely wrong foot, I firmly believe that you would make an outstanding, highly profitable addition to my personal organization."

"What?!" Sleer sputtered, violently breaking his silent formation. "Master! You cannot be serious! He is an insolent—"

"Hush," Jester commanded softly, not even bothering to look down at the shadowman.

And just like that, as surely as if an invisible, iron hand had reached out of the projection and wrapped directly around Sleer’s throat, the man instantly choked on his own words.

Sleer grasped frantically at his neck, his shadowy form violently flickering as he gasped for a breath he suddenly couldn’t take. He fell dead silent in suffocating terror.

"It’s an excellent, highly competitive offer, Miles. I’m sure you’ll logically agree," Jester continued smoothly, completely ignoring his dying minion and keeping his glowing, digitized eyes locked entirely on me. "I’ve been actively searching for a reliable, highly competent new lieutenant to manage my affairs. Especially since you violently killed the last one. And I think you would fill the role wonderfully."