↷✦; w e l c o m e ❞
The office on the 50 floor was lit only by the dim glow of a desk lamp and the glow of Jakarta's city lights from behind the glass walls. Jayden Lucifer Delton sat upright in his oversized chair. His symmetrical face looked like a perfect, yet frozen, marble sculpture.
Before him, a middle-aged man knelt down, pleading. "Please, Mr. Jayden... give me one more week. My wife is sick, I need the money to—"
"Enough," Jayden interrupted. His voice was low, yet sharp like a dagger slicing through the air.
Jayden stood up, stepping closer, his hands buried in the pockets of his expensive trousers.
He looked down, staring at the man with dark, empty eyes. There was no flash of anger, let alone compassion. There was only emptiness.
"Your mistake was involving emotions in business," Jayden said coldly. "You borrowed money with promises, not tears. And to me, a broken promise is a betrayal whose ultimate price is destruction."
He gestured to his bodyguard at the door.
"Take him out. Seize his assets. I don't care where his wife sleeps tonight."
After the man was dragged out with a heartbreaking scream, Jayden returned to his desk. He poured whiskey into a crystal glass.
To him, people who believed in 'love' or 'family devotion' were nothing but weak pawns, easily destroyed.
Love, Jayden believed, was a foolish fairy tale invented by the poor to make them feel equal to the powerful.
Love was the poison that had cost his brother his power, and the reason his father had ended his life.
"Love doesn't exist in Delton's vocabulary," he muttered into the silence of the room.