Chapter 45 - 44 Thirty-Two

Chapter 45: Chapter 44 Thirty-Two

I stormed into his office.

I didn’t care that he was my boss. I didn’t care that he was a terrifying, rich-as-sin bastard.

My skin was crawling, my phone had blown up with three more toxic gossip links, and I was seconds away from completely losing my shit.

Laziel was sitting right on the edge of his desk, looking entirely too unbothered, flipping lazily through a stack of papers.

"I want to change offices," I spat out, marching straight up to him.

He didn’t even look up. "No."

"I am not asking you, I am telling you!" I slammed both hands down on his desk, leaning right into his space. "I cannot stay out there for another five minutes. I don’t understand this circus of a building anymore. Everyone out there is looking at me like I’m a walking scandal, whispering behind my back like a bunch of brain-dead hyenas. I want my desk moved. Anywhere. The basement, the parking garage, a broom closet—I don’t give a damn, just get me away from them!"

Laziel finally lifted his head. He looked me up and down slowly, his dark eyes ice-cold and mocking.

"Tell me," he drawled, his voice dangerously low, "since when do you have a say, little mouth?"

That did it. The fuse blew.

"Do you know what’s happening out there, you arrogant dickhead? They’re saying I slept my way to the top!" I shrieked, glaring daggers at him. "And whose fault is this whole mess, huh? You’re the one who dragged me into your house! You’re the one who forced me to live under your roof! You made my life a living hell, and now these thirsty bitches think I’m riding your coattails!"

Laziel just stared at me, his gaze dropping slowly to my mouth before crawling back up to my eyes.

"Watch your tongue," he murmured, "Keep running that clever little mouth of yours like you have a death wish, and I’ll show you exactly what happens when you test a man who’s already losing his patience."

My breath hitched instantly, my chest locking as a sudden, scorching wave of heat coiled deep in my stomach, catching me so off guard I forgot how to form words.

Laziel didn’t blink. He just held my dazed, wide-eyed stare.

"Let them talk," he added smoothly, his voice returning to that maddeningly calm tone.

"Easy for you to say!" I stammered, my voice suddenly pitching an octave higher as my body betrayed me, reacting entirely too fast to his threat. "You’re the one sitting on a throne of cash while I’m out here fighting for my life against a bunch of gossiping hyenas!"

A smirk touched the corner of his lips.

"If they think you slept your way here," he leaned forward, "maybe I should give them a real reason to talk."

...

The next morning, I woke up with my face pressed half-way into a pillow, drooling like an absolute degenerate.

I cracked one eye open.

Sunlight.

Bright sunlight.

...Sunlight?

I frowned.

No.

No, no, no.

I grabbed my phone from the bedside table.

8:47 A.M.

"...Jesus Christ!"

I shot upright so fast I almost headbutted the headboard.

I scrambled out of the bed, ready to curse out whoever let me sleep like the dead after yesterday’s emotional warfare. But the mansion was dead silent. I checked Laziel’s room opposite. His side of the bed was already made and ice-cold. The bastard had slipped out before dawn again, leaving me to my misery. But at least this time, unlike yesterday morning when he vanished into thin air, he had actually gone straight to the office.

What kind of savage lets a woman sleep through her alarm like a coma patient? I muttered, frantically throwing on a tailored pencil skirt and a blouse, rushing out the door with half-dry hair and a prayer.

I expected war when I stepped off the elevator. I braced myself for the snide side-eyes, the whispered giggles by the water cooler, and the toxic glare of the marketing girls. I took a deep breath, puffed my chest out, and marched onto the executive floor like I was walking to the electric chair.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

The office wasn’t just quiet. It was eerie. It felt like a ghost town right after a zombie apocalypse.

Different faces.

Different receptionists sitting at the front desks, looking terrified to even blink. A completely new marketing team huddled by the glass partitions. Half the people I had seen yesterday—the catty bitches whispering by the coffee machine, the desk jockeys who looked at me with disgust—were simply gone. Vanished. Erased from the timeline.

I stood there blinking, genuinely wondering if I had somehow gotten on the wrong elevator and walked into a parallel corporate dimension.

I walked over to the nearest desk, staring at a woman with a sharply parted bun who looked like she might burst into tears if I breathed too hard.

"Excuse me..." I asked, my voice pitching up in confusion. "Where’s Sarah?"

The woman looked at me like I was speaking ancient Greek. "Who?"

"Sarah. From accounts. Her desk was right... here." I pointed to the empty, spotless chair.

The woman shook her head frantically. "I’m sorry, Miss Brenner. I’m new. I don’t know any Sarah."

I frowned, naming three other gossiping hyenas from yesterday.

Nothing. Absolute blank stares. It was as if half the floor had never existed.

Before I could spiral into a full existential crisis, footsteps echoed behind me. I turned around to see the chief of security walking over.

"Good morning, Miss Brenner," he greeted.

"What happened?" I blurted out, gesturing wildly to the empty desks. "Where is everyone? Am I losing my mind, or did half the company evaporate overnight?"

The chief didn’t even flinch. "The CEO conducted a personnel review."

I stared at him. "...A personnel review?"

"Thirty-two employees no longer work here."

My jaw dropped. I just stood there, letting the number bounce around in my skull. "...Thirty-two? Just like that? Thirty-two people?"

"They violated company policy."

"What policy?!" I threw my hands up. "There’s a policy against breathing too loud?! What rule did thirty-two people break all on the same Monday?!"

"Gossip," the chief replied without missing a single beat.

I froze. My entire body went completely rigid as the pieces clicked.

with disbelief. "You’re telling me he fired thirty-two people because they were talking shit about me?"

The chief looked at me with a completely straight, deadpan face.

"No."

I blinked, thrown off by the answer. "No?"

I stood there, my mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. Oh my god. He actually did it.

I didn’t even say goodbye to the chief. I spun on my heel, marched straight past the rows of terrified new employees, stormed down the corridor, and threw open the doors to

Laziel’s office without even bothering to knock.

"You fired half the floor?!" I screamed.

Laziel didn’t even look up from his screen.

"Thirty-two isn’t half," he replied.