The question scrapped against the air so abruptly that, while it was not loud, it pounded and reverberated across the hall.Everyone heard it. All at once, wandering eyes pooled over the source of the voice where a young man in a suit stood.His first button was undone and his tie was absent—a combination of fashion choices that made him appear charmingly cavalier and nonconformist. He had eschewed styling his hair, contrasting everyone else in the room, and let his mane assume its natural form. He did not bear the most handsome features in the room, but he had something else to him—an air of alternative duende—that made it hard to tear one’s attention away from him.Who else could this be other than Zayn Larson?Hearing him speaking up made Gordon, who stood near him, gawk in nonplussed shock. Never in his imagination had he ever predicted Alexandra’s boyfriend to be him!The familiarity in his voice arrested every muscle in Alexandra’s face. She turned to find Zayn, and the tear
The corner of Victor’s lips jolted uncontrollably.In his mind, the poor man was howling in despair. How was he supposed to answer this? This engagement party had turned into a joke!“It was you, Zayn Larson! It was you all along!” A shout, laced with staggering bitterness, rang out nearby. There was malice burning in William’s eyes as he glowered at Zayn with a look of vertigo whose hunger could only be relished by his enemy’s flesh, bones, and fresh, warm blood.Emotions assaulted the man’s veins so violently. They twisted his features beyond recognition while waves of visible tremor rocked him. Not a mote of his famed handsomeness survived; now, he looked like a demon in the flesh who terrorized the onlooking crowd.Zayn was not the least afraid of him. He smiled and remarked, “Oh, it’s me, all right. Gee, William Brown, I didn’t expect you to be so lucky! You actually survived.”Shrill chomping sounds escaped from William as the man gnashed his teeth. Combined with his clenche
Tony was wearing one of his foulest grimaces. It was clear that Victor had hardened his resolve and made a choice, and that was to become enemies with him rather than to explain themselves out of this fiasco.To ask someone like him to just take the loss and scamper away was akin to asking for the impossible, but admittedly, there was no turning back after all was said and done. Far more impossible things had happened, and if he were to throw a fit right now, their unflattering optics would be all on him.One did not occupy his spot as a mogul without the necessary wits—Tony let what had happened simmer in his mind for a second and immediately saw the key to the issue. With a chuckle, he put on a look of benevolence and looked into Victor’s eyes, proclaiming, “You’re your daughter’s precious little Papa above all else, after all, Victor. Tonight will truly live long in my memory.”It was a proclamation clear as day to every attendee: the Smiths and the Browns were now enemies.To t
Alexandra’s face turned a little paler.William was the worst—and she could not overstate how much she hated him. Why must he be so irksome?! Could he please give himself the boot without one last kick at her?Yes, Alexandra knew who Zayn really was—the maligned son-in-law of the Carter family whose infamy was too well-known in the city. If her family knew all about it, she could bet that their heads would explode. Worse, her dad was definitely not going to let her off the hook this easily, too. How could she not panic?Now that things had come to this, there was no other option for her than to grit her teeth and dissembled nonchalance the best she could. “Oh, please. As if there’s anything for me to hide! Zayn is my boyfriend who, I know, has never killed anyone or violated the law. Honestly, are you done with your yammering? Can you spare us the embarrassment and leave already?”Alexandra had accidentally worded her retort too tartly that she immediately attracted the ire of ever
“What?” Victor’s frown deepened. His long-awaiting relief had mutated into a terrible sense of dread once more.A man who could not even get a job? How useless would that sort of person be? Worse, this person was someone whose reputation in Waltz City was that of infamy. That sort of claim alone could wipe any semblance of good feelings in his face away already!“Alexandra! Who is this friend of yours, hmm? Might you have been fooled by him?” Victor asked, framing his question in a way that highlighted his fast-thinking wits. Surreptitiously, he had changed his language and called Zayn a “friend” rather than “boyfriend”.The young woman in question bit her lips and hung her head, her eyes darting away from Victor’s. She hated to admit it, but Zayn’s real identity was a bit difficult to let know. It was not that she despised who he was—she just could not talk about it to her father under pressure like this.William watched the debacle develop with his grin widening enough to split h
“The Carters’ son-in-law?!”Other members of the Smith family were close to losing their minds, especially the elders, who were so livid that they were visibly shaking. The most reputation-conscious ones among them were even wobbling on their knees, and they were only able to stand because with the help of the youths nearby.Throughout the shock and awe, they kept muttering to themselves, “Our family is cursed…”How could they not feel that way? The Smiths was one of the premier families in the entire city! Their prestige might be shadowed by modern nobility the likes of the Larsons, but they were still respectable upper-class people. And now, Victor’s precious little girl had gotten herself entangled with the useless son-in-law of the Carters, before sabotaging the Browns’ engagement party with a fiasco. How could the family be even more humiliated by this point?The crowd erupted into a furor that just kept intensifying.“Damn me! I didn’t hear this wrongly, did I? This Zayn Lar
William’s smile froze on his lips. He had always hated Zayn’s stupid, placid look with a burning passion—why the hell did the guy always think he had to put on that dumb pretense?!“I really have to hand it to you for being this thick-skinned, Zayn. Despite where you’ve come to, you managed to put on that unfazed face,” William said, his smirk returning. Scorn was dripping from every feature on his face. “What, are you going to pull out an excuse to hide your real identity from your arse to save yourself, huh?”He turned to Alexandra. “Honestly, I don’t get you sometimes, Miss Smith. You knew Zayn’s the infamous son-in-law of the Carters, and a renowned useless piece of sh*t, and yet you see no problem being with him? Gosh, I guess we should all admire your temerity for ‘true love’! You want that so much, you don’t even give a damn about your family’s reputation anymore.”His words cut like a fusillade of knives. With every word, William stabbed the parts where they hurt the Smiths
“Chairman of Violet Vision”—more shocking words had never been uttered.Right before the engagement party had started, the topic that had captivated most of the guests’ had been the chairman himself. Speculations on his background, real look, age, and even his presence had dominated the crowd’s intrigue. The chairman, indeed, was the city’s biggest enigma.Fast forward now, and Zayn claimed himself to be the Chairman of Violet Vision.No joke could be more perfect than this, could it?!Unsurprisingly, what followed the short-lived silence was an explosion of boisterous chortles and guffaws. The only few exceptions were Zayn’s men the likes of Gordon and Sean.“Hahaha! I’m hearing this right, yea, guys? He’s the chairman?”“I’m dying right here, man! What a weirdo this guy is turning out to be! I mean, he could have fantasized himself as literally anyone else in the world, and he had to choose the chairman of Violet Vision! He really thinks that just because the man is a mystery m