Chapter 10
“CYRUS, WAIT. Please.”
Kyara had lost all sense of pride by the time she finally caught up with her ex-boyfriend at the end of the hallway.
To get to this point, she had to run past so many of their colleagues, all of them looking at her and Cyrus curiously because she was acting like a girl who couldn’t get over being dumped.
Oh, if only that were true.
She could bear having everyone believe such a lie because it only affected her.
But when what Cyrus believed could affect someone else, and that someone was her boss—
“I just need five minutes,” she said shakily. “That’s all I’m asking so please—”
Cyrus suddenly shoved her against the wall, Kyara hitting the back of her head so hard that it made her feel dizzy for a few seconds.
“I thought long and hard about you last night,” he sneered, “and you know what I realized?”
She tried to speak, but Cyrus clearly wasn’t in the mood to wait for an answer.
“You really fucking led me on,” he hissed. “You had me believing you were this nice small-town girl that I had to bide my time with, patiently grooming you into who I wanted you to be, until I finally had you in my bed—you fucking made a fool of me!”
He grabbed a fistful of her hair as he spat at her, and she could only bite her lip hard and pray that this would be over soon.
“All this time I was waiting for you, you were with him, weren’t you?”
She shook her head. “C-Cyrus, please listen—”
“No, bitch! You listen to me, and you better fucking listen well.” Hatred blazed from his eyes as he took a step back from her. “I’ll make both of you pay.”
No. No. No.
“C-Cyrus—”
Helplessness threatened to swallow her whole, and the next thing she knew—
“P-Please.”
She was down on her knees because she didn’t know what else she could do.
“Please, I’m begging you. Don’t hurt him.”
Cyrus only looked at her...and then he began to smile, and Kyara...
She remembered that look from long ago. Early last year, when they were having breakfast at the diner, and he had looked like he was in a really good mood that she had curiously asked him if anything had happened.
‘Well, if you really want to know. There’s this person who just rubbed me wrong. So I told that person I was thinking of having them fired.’
She remembered telling herself while listening to Cyrus that it had to be a joke. It had to be.
‘It was fun making that person beg. I made them think they had a chance. You should’ve seen their face, Kyara. The whole thing was so worth it for the face.’
At that time, she had tried so hard to fool herself into thinking that maybe...maybe whoever it was that Cyrus had been talking about, that person had done something wrong, and it was why Cyrus had wanted them out of a job.
But now...
Now she knew better because Cyrus looked like he was in a really good mood again.
No no no.
“His days are numbered, Kyara,” he said pleasantly, “and you won’t be able to do anything about it.”
“Please don’t hurt him.”
She stayed on her knees because it was the only possible choice for someone powerless like her.
“I’ll...I’ll d-do anything, just p-please don’t—”
Cyrus had grabbed her hair again, using it to force her to look up. “For old times’ sake then...”
Kyara was still in a daze when she rode the elevator back up to the seventieth floor. How strange...how so painfully strange and terribly terrifying to realize that one could date a man for three years and never know that person at all.
She tried to get her mind back at work, but it was just so, so hard, with Cyrus’s words playing over and over in her mind.
You come to me when I tell you. Do what I say. Doesn’t matter when or where. Or I go after your boss, and I’ll make it as ugly as I can. He’ll never be able to show his face in public again.
A part of her wanted to just go right up to Lyrius Havington and demand the truth. Are the rumors right? Does Cyrus’s father have something on you? Because otherwise, I’ve just turned myself into my ex-boyfriend’s slave for nothing.
She really, really wanted to ask, but at the same time...was there any point when logic only pointed to one direction? Everyone knew Lyrius was a billionaire. He could easily buy this company ten times over, but here he was, still a vice-president. Surely it could only mean the rumors were true?
“Kyara?”
Lara’s tone alone had Kyara stiffening, but when she looked up and saw the strained expression on the other woman’s face—
“It’s that bad?”
Lara took a deep breath. There was no way to soften the blow with this one, so—
“Mr. Havington has requested that you be moved to Accounting.”
She simply went ahead and delivered the killing blow in one swing.
“Effective immediately.”
Kyara could only stare at Lara. Accounting. Her boss—wait, no, her former boss now—
Lyrius Havington who was her former boss had transferred her to the worst place on earth, and that was Accounting, where her ex-boyfriend reigned as king.
“It can’t be that bad, right? You and Cyrus might have broken up, but surely you’re still friends?”
Kyara forced herself to nod and smile, seeing no point in telling Lara that what Lyrius Havington had condemned her to was beyond bad. He had as good as sent her to Hell, and Cyrus would make sure there was no escaping it.