Chapter 4 - Stripping the Mask
“I didn't choose this seat, Nicholas,” I said, my voice quiet, steady, and carrying clearly across the suddenly dead-silent room. “You put me here. Because I didn’t fit your aesthetic.”
Nicholas’s face flushed a deep, violent crimson. He stepped forward, his voice dropping into a harsh, venomous hiss, forgetting for a split second that everyone was watching. “Shut up, Jenna. Don't make a scene. You’re embarrassing me in front of clients who matter.”
“Clients who matter?” Emmett interjected smoothly, finally lifting his head. He stood up from the tiny plastic chair, towering over my brother. The contrast between Emmett’s crisp, authoritative presence and Nicholas’s sweaty, frantic desperation was brutal. “Let’s talk about clients who matter, Nicholas.”
Nicholas swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing violently. “What... what do you mean, Mr. Stewart?”
“Your entire architectural firm, Sterling & Vance, applied for our regional tech-hub contract last month, didn’t they?” Emmett asked, his tone deceptively casual as he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a sleek leather folio.
Nicholas’s eyes widened, a flicker of raw, pathetic hope sparking in his chest. He puffed out his chest, trying to regain his posture. “Yes! Yes, we did! We submitted our portfolio last Tuesday! We have the most innovative designs for the downtown campus, sustainable glass facades, smart grids—we spent six months on it!”
“You did,” Emmett agreed, flipping open the folio. “And your proposal was garbage. It was a derivative, unimaginative, aesthetically bankrupt stack of blueprints that looked like a suburban strip mall designed by an intern using a 2012 template.”
The blow was so direct, so publicly devastating, that several people near the front gasped out loud. Nicholas staggered backward as if he had been physically struck in the chest.
“B-but... but you said you were reviewing it!” Nicholas stammered, tears of sheer panic pricking the corners of his eyes. “You said there was potential!”
“I said the project had potential,” Emmett corrected coldly. “I said that if the underlying structural philosophy was completely rewritten by a master strategist—someone who understands how human behavior interacts with physical space—it might be worth looking at. That’s why I reached out to your anonymous consultant to rewrite your pitch.”
Emmett paused, his dark eyes locking onto my brother with chilling precision.
May you like
“Do you want to know who that consultant was, Nicholas?”
The ballroom was so quiet you could hear the distant hum of the kitchen refrigerators. Nicholas stood frozen, his lips moving soundlessly, his brain refusing to connect the dots, terrified of the answer he already knew was coming.
