< 7
7
As Zoey’s boss, Samuel felt he must do something. e stepped forward, his voice tight with suppressed anger
“Ms. Sterling, this… incident. Must we escalate it to this level? Zoey is like a family to him. Grant me this courtesy.
Let it end. Now.”
A genuine laugh, cold and sharp, escaped me.
“Courtesy? Family?” I echoed, the mockery barely concealed. “Is your face truly worth that much in your estimation, Mr. Rockwell?”
Samuel’s face immediately darkened.
“Sterling!” he snapped, dropping all pretense. “Don’t push this too far! Remember where you are! This is Baycrest!”
“Remarkable. You and your secretary truly are cut from the same cloth. The arrogance… the identical threats.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket, the movement deliberate, unhurried, drawing every eye in the vast hall.
“Mr. Rockwell, your secretary act with such impunity on your property, on your plane, precisely because she believes she’s shielded by the Wang name. Sheltered by your privilege.”
“Well today… privilege meets its reckoning. I’ll teach you so-called elites a lesson!”
After saying that, I dialed Samuel’s father’s number right in front of everyone present.
The connection clicked instantly.
“Oh my, Ms. Sterling? What an unexpected pleasure! Shouldn’t you be… ah…
on a date with my son now? What’s the matter?”
I gave Samuel a meaningful look and spoke unhurriedly, “Mr. Robert Rockwell, I find myself deeply curious about one thing. Has the Rockwell family’s existence become… too comfortable for its own good?”
Before he could formulate a spluttering response, I adopted Zoey’s earlier, insolent cadence – a perfect, chilling mimicry.”You have ten minutes. Get to Baycrest Airport now. Or I will personally oversee the utter dismantling and restructuring of the entire Baycrest commercial landscape.”
Silence. Profound, heavy silence from the other end. Then, distant but unmistakable, came the sharp sound of glass shattering on a hard floor.
“Ms. Sterling… Please calm down, I’ll be right there!”
Everyone present was utterly stunned.
“Holy shit, who the hell is she?”
“She just spoke to Mr. Robert Rockwell like he was a misbehaving footman!”
“This is Baycrest! Where the fox is king, the lion must bow! How can she-?”
“Wait till Mr. Robert Rockwell arrives… then we’ll see how high she flies…”
As the current representative figure of The Rockwell Dynasty, Samuel was absolutely furious.
“I don’t care who backs you! The Rockwell family will make you pay!”
I casually waved my hand at him, completely unfazed.
“Mr. Rockwell, you have the situation precisely backwards. This is no longer about whether the Rockwell family
13.00
7.3%
can tolerate me. The salient question now is… whether I will show any mercy to the Rockwell family.
As Samuel’s brown-noser, Zoey immediately spoke up to refute.
“Bitch, how dare you disrespect Mr. Rockwell? Show yourself! Show us this bigshot you hide behind!”
I simply smiled at her impotent rage.
“Ms. Williams, you don’t actually think it was just a coincidence that I made the plane turn around, do you?”
“Years as a top executive’s aide… and you never learned the fundamental art of reading the room? Of knowing where true power resides?”
The minutes stretched, thick with anticipation. The departure hall grew impossibly crowded, phones raised everywhere capturing the unfolding high-society implosion. Whispers became a constant hum. Airport staff stood dumbfounded on the periphery.
“My heavens… what a spectacle… Am I watching Game of Thrones?”
“Absolute legends… Titans of commerce you usually only see in financial journals…”
“This trip just became priceless… witness history…”
Just then, a man in his late fifties, radiating an aura of command despite the frantic urgency etched on his face. He pushed through the sea of people, his tailored suit dishevelled, his impressive bearing undermined by his harried pace and labored breathing.
Robert Rockwell, architect of the Robert Dynasty, finally reached me.
“Ms. Sterling….. I’m terribly sorry!”
