I have been trying and planning for two weeks with Ms. Chen about this particular meeting. I enter the meeting room; everyone stands up with respect. "I know that everyone has tried their level best for this meeting, and I'm sure we will make it out victorious as we always do," I said to them.
"Yes, sir," they all shouted.
I nod my head, but something about this meeting room feels different today: a little bit off. Maybe it's my mind playing tricks on me.
I sit at the head of the table, my espresso coffee at hand, sipping it, trying to use it to cure my tiredness. I have barely slept for 4 hours in two weeks, but you wouldn't know it, because years of hard work have taught me to hide my tiredness. Because in my world, tiredness is looked at like being a failure.
To my right, my legal team, led by the ever-reliable Ms. Chen, is hushed in whispering and frantic keyboard clicks, reviewing the final details of the Moretti acquisition. Across from them, five board members: old money types who still treat me with hatred in their eyes: fidget in their seats, eyes darting between me and the door. They're here for the spectacle, awaiting my defeat.
I glance at my Patek Philippe: 8:00 a.m. Moretti is getting on my nerves. Why is he late? And here I was thinking that punctuality means something to a man like him, but I was dead wrong.
I pick up the proposal booklet. The noise of the booklet quietly filled the room. The numbers are undeniable. Moretti's empire, built on old-world traditions and, let's be honest, outright criminality, is crumbling. Park Capital has circled for months, patiently waiting for an opportunity to strike. Like a vulture waiting for a dead body to arrive before it eats, now with a combination of strategic investments, carefully placed leaks, and a little good old-fashioned pressure, the deal is almost sealed.
But I know bringing Dante down isn't going to be easy. I know and I'm prepared for whatever will happen.
He thinks he owns the world, everyone and everything in it… but he doesn't know that he doesn't control the world inside this office; he doesn't control my world. Today, he'll learn the hard way. This isn't Naples; this is Manhattan. Here, the law talks.
I suppress the thought of unease creeping through my mind. Moretti is unpredictable, and unpredictable is dangerous: but that also means that he may have a bad temper, and with that kind of temper, he can make mistakes when he least expects it. I've heard the stories of him being ruthless, efficient, unwavering, and loyal. From what I heard, he is a man who commands respect through fear… and money. From what I've heard and from the look of it, Dante doesn't care about the law because he makes the law. I don't dwell on that. Fear is short-term, but the consequences are long-term.
The doors to the boardroom are heavy, reinforced steel, soundproof. When they swing open, the scent of leather and rain floods the room. [God, I love that scent,] but my inner expression seems neutral.
Dante Moretti enters, and the air grows cold, thick with an invisible weight that presses against my chest. Everyone else bows instinctively, eyes lowered: but not me. I meet Dante eye to eye, forcing my gaze steady even as a bead of sweat prickles at my hairline, unbidden, tracing a hot path down my temple. Why now? Why him? My thoughts splinter: *He's just a man. Just a thug in a suit. You've crushed worse.* But the lie tastes bitter, and my fingers tighten around the armrest, knuckles whitening.
He isn't what I expected. The surveillance footage and paparazzi photos hadn't done him justice. He's taller than I imagined, and far more handsome than the frenzy suggested.
His suit is dark, tailored perfectly, yet casual. No tie, top button undone. Sleeves rolled up, revealing ink that snakes around his forearms, disappearing beneath the cuffs. Tattoos. I hadn't expected that. [He looks hot but not as hot and handsome as I want. Alistair, focus. You are supposed to destroy him, not look at him like he is your entire world.]
[Shu… he looks like a mafia about to go to war. Why is he dressed like a thug in a corporate meeting? Mtchewwww.] My pulse hammers in my ears, a frantic rhythm that drowns out the faint hum of the AC: *Is that my heartbeat? Or the room closing in?* and I shift in my seat, muscles coiling like I'm bracing for a blow that hasn't landed yet.
He moves with the grace of a predator that has already found its prey, his steps measured, deliberate, echoing softly against the polished floor as if he's tuning the very acoustics of the space to his will. Two men follow him in, faces impassive, eyes constantly scanning: bodyguards, of course. He is calculating like a maniac that he is. [I am sure he already knows that I'm not going to kill him or anything related to that, so why bring this many bodyguards to a corporate meeting?] As he approaches, he pauses by the window, one hand casually flicking the blinds just enough to let a sliver of morning light slice across the table like a scalpel, catching the edge of my proposal booklet and throwing jagged shadows over the numbers: *my* numbers, making them dance mockingly.
The room falls silent. Ms. Chen stops typing. The board members straighten, their backs on their seats, their earlier eagerness replaced by palpable tension. Dante doesn't sit across from me, where the light would equalize us. No: he claims the seat beside me, close enough that his cologne, that damned leather-and-rain, invades my space, and the heat from his body radiates like a low-grade fever. I can feel it seeping into my side, making my shirt cling where sweat blooms under my arms. *Too close. Too deliberate.* My thoughts race: *He's boxing me in. No escape angle. What if he reaches for that pen? What if:* I swallow hard, jaw clenching, forcing my breathing even.
No hostility, no overt threat: just assessment, calculation. I refuse to be intimidated. I've faced CEOs, politicians, even shareholders who hated me. I'm not about to be scared into submission by a fake mob boss. But my free hand trembles slightly under the table, and I press it flat against my thigh to still it.
Dante inclines his head slightly, a gesture of respect… or amusement. Silence stretches, thick and uncomfortable, amplified by the way he drums his fingers once: lightly, on the table's edge, a soft *tap-tap* that reverberates in my skull like Morse code for doom. I resist filling it with meaningless chatter. Let him make the first move so I can exploit any mistake. But the quiet gnaws, and my mind spirals: *Say something. Anything. Or is this his game? Starve me out?*
Finally, one of his men speaks, smooth but firm.
"Mr. Park, we appreciate you taking the time to meet with us."
I raise an eyebrow, my voice steadier than I feel.
"I assumed you understood the terms of the acquisition. My lawyers sent over the final documents last week."
He stays silent, eyes fixed on me. It's unnerving. I feel a strange heat rising in my chest, a flicker of something I can't quite name. Annoyance, perhaps. Or something else entirely. [Or an intention to strangle him for thinking too highly of himself.] Sweat slicks my palms; I wipe them discreetly on my slacks, but the dampness lingers, a reminder of how his proximity is already eroding my edges.
"The numbers speak for themselves," I say, forcing composure. "Moretti Enterprises is bleeding money. This acquisition is the only viable option."
I pause, waiting. But he simply sits there, gaze unwavering, expression unreadable. Another bead of sweat trickles down my temple. I wipe it away with my handkerchief, but not before it stings my eye, blurring the page in front of me.
"With all due respect, Mr. Park," he finally says, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that slithers through the room like smoke from a hidden fire, each word laced with the promise of something buried and rotting. He leans just a fraction closer, his shadow falling over my hand on the booklet, eclipsing the ink as if to swallow my arguments whole. "You misunderstand the situation. You've been poking at shadows, thinking they'll scatter. But shadows swallow men whole. And those who ignore the gathering dusk? They wake up to dawns they never saw coming: cold, empty, and echoing with echoes of deals gone sour."
I lean forward, hands clasped on the table, but my grip is vise-tight, nails digging into my skin to anchor me.
"I assure you, Mr. Moretti, I understand perfectly."
He smiles, a slow, predatory curve of his lips that doesn't reach his eyes: eyes like polished obsidian, voids that have seen graves dug and filled without a second thought. With a subtle flick of his wrist, he adjusts the overhead light's dimmer switch on the wall behind him: just enough to deepen the room's amber glow, casting his face in half-shadow while leaving mine starkly lit, exposed.
[He thinks he can intimidate me, but I have been preparing myself for this for weeks.] *Liar,* my mind hisses. *He's already under your skin. Feel that itch? That's him burrowing.*
"Do you?" His tone dips lower, a whisper that echoes unnaturally in the silence, as if the walls themselves are leaning in to listen. "I don't think you do. You've built your little fortress of paper and ink, but paper burns so easily, Mr. Park. So does flesh. Ask the last wolf who howled at my door: his pack still whimpers in the woods, chasing ghosts of fortunes they once called their own." He lets the silence hang, heavy as a noose, before adding, "This negotiation… is over. It ended the moment you decided to hunt what doesn't die. Obey the wind's warning, or find yourself scattered like the leaves that defied the storm."
The words don't shout, don't slam, but they hit like a physical blow, each syllable a blade twisting in the gut. Heat surges up my spine, anger hot and sharp, but beneath it, a coil of dread tightens my shoulders, my breath coming shorter now, ragged at the edges. *Past failures? Whose? Mine? Or the ones he's crushed? God, what if he's right: what if this is the howl that brings the wolves to my door?*
"What the hell are you talking about? You think you can just walk in and dictate what happens and what doesn't happen? This isn't your world, Moretti. You don't call the shots here."
His smile widens, just a bit, revealing teeth that gleam like warnings in the low light. [To scare me, but I'm not scared: maybe a bit.] My heart stutters, a wild thing trapped, and I taste copper on my tongue: bit my cheek without realizing. *Get it together. He's bluffing. Has to be.* But the thought frays, unraveling into visions of empty boardrooms, whispers in the halls: *Park's fall: from grace to grave.*
"Perhaps not," he murmurs, the words coiling out like venom from a fang, "but I do have a say in what happens to my family. And you... you've just made yourself part of that conversation. Uninvited guests don't leave these tables unscathed. They linger, like stains that no amount of scrubbing erases: fading empires, forgotten names. Heed the echo, Alistair, or become one."
Family. My weakness. His loyalty to them is legendary, bordering on pathological. *My family,* my mind screams, a frantic loop. *What about them? What if he:* stops. Focus. But the sweat is flowing freely now, soaking my collar, and my vision tunnels slightly, the room's edges softening.
[Seriously, I have a family too, you know,] I said in my mind.
"Your family's interests are best served by accepting this deal," I say, voice tight. "I'm offering you a generous payout. More than you'd get anywhere else."
He shakes his head slowly, eyes never leaving mine, boring into me as if he's already seen all of me: blood on marble floors, a headline buried on page 17. He picks up my discarded handkerchief from the table: *When did I drop it?*, twirling it in between his fingers like a noose in miniature, the fabric whispering against his skin in the charged quiet.
"You don't understand, Mr. Park." His voice hardens, a growl that vibrates through the table, up my arms, into my bones, syncing with the erratic thump in my chest. "This isn't about money. It never was. Money buys toys. I buy silence. Loyalty. Graves. And for those who play the fool with family cards? Their hands come up empty: ace of spades, every time, marking the spot where the game turns to dirt."
"Are you threatening me and my family?"
"No, I'm not, Alistair, but don't push me to."
I scoff, but it comes out choked, my throat dry as sandpaper. "What do I not understand, Dante? Please explain it to me."
"Everything has always been about money, Moretti. Don't insult my intelligence."
His expression hardens further, the air around him thickening, as if his very presence is drawing the oxygen from the room. He drops the handkerchief back onto my lap with a feather-light touch, but the contact: brief, deliberate, sends a jolt through me, my muscles locking rigid.
"You think you can buy anything, don't you?" He leans forward, voice dropping to a near whisper that feels like ice shards scraping against my skin. "You think you can come in and take what you want, with your useless, good-for-nothing lawyers and your clever spreadsheets. But some things… some things can't be bought. They can only be taken. Or buried. And you, Mr. Park... you're starting to look like something I'll have to bury. Like the titans before you, who thought rebellion was a bid, not a burial plot."
A shiver runs down my spine, raw and electric, the kind that whispers of locked doors and screams in the night. My thoughts fracture fully now: *Buried. Titans. Is that a threat? A promise? What if the board sees this: sees me crumbling? What if I am the fool, the echo, the stain?* I don't like where this is going. [Shu, even if I don't like where this whole thing is going, I cannot back down: not now, not after everything I have been through to make this work.] But backing down feels like the only sane move, and that terrifies me most.
"I think you'll find everything has a price, Mr. Moretti," I say, voice regaining composure: or so I tell myself. "It's just a matter of finding it."
He stares, long and unflinching, his gaze stripping me bare, as if he's already seen all of me: blood on marble floors, a headline buried on page 17. Then he stands, the motion fluid, but he lingers a bit too long by my chair, his hand brushing the backrest inches from my shoulder, close enough to stir the air like a predator who has already gotten his prey where he wants it to be.
The room falls silent, the kind of silence that follows a gunshot.
"I've said all I have to say," he says flatly, but there's a promise etched in the flatness like a blade that is ready to strike. "I won't waste any more of your time. Or mine. But remember this, Alistair: time wastes men like you: tick by tock, until the clock strikes debt, and the collector comes calling with receipts from the grave."
He walks toward the door, followed by his bodyguards, each step a deliberate possibility of inevitable problems. A wave of unease tightens in my stomach. I expected a fight, a negotiation, a battle of wills. I hadn't expected… this. It was too calm, like the hush before bodies drop. My skin crawls, every nerve alight, and I can't shake the phantom weight of that handkerchief in my lap, heavy as chains.
At the door, he pauses, turning back to me. His smile is slow, a creepy smile of malice that crawls across his face, sending a chill down my spine like fingers from the grave. He flicks the blinds again on his way out, fully this time, plunging the room into a deeper depression that feels like regret.
"Enjoy your empire, Mr. Park," he says, soft but clear, the words dripping with honey, "while it lasts. Sleep lightly. The darkness has teeth... and it's hungry tonight. Just ask the shadows of those who said no: they're still whispering their regrets from the bottom of the well." They will tell you that every action has consequences.
[Is he threatening me?]
Then he's gone. Doors close behind him, leaving me alone in the sterile silence of the boardroom, the light too dim now, the air too still, my mind a whirlwind of fractures: *Whose regrets? God, what have I unleashed? Who is he? He puts so much fear in me about him.*
I sit for a long moment, mind racing. What just happened? Did he concede defeat? Or is this something else entirely? I don't know, and that scares me more than anything.
I look around at my lawyers, the board members, Ms. Chen, my entire company that symbolizes my control. It all feels… fragile. [The board members look at me with the look of "I expected that failure."]
I stand, legs unsteady, holding the table for a moment. I walk to the window and look out at the city I thought I owned. Lives, lights, and shadows stretch before me. But tonight, the shadows seem to whisper.
And I know, with a growing sense of dread, that something has shifted. The game has changed. And I have no idea what the new rules are… though I know what I planned has already backfired. "I can feel that something is coming. Something I can't yet name, but it will change everything."