Victor

The office of the Gromov Development corporation was buzzing like a disturbed beehive.

The board meeting was supposed to start in an hour, but Victor had already been pacing around his office for half an hour, clutching those damned documents. The numbers didn't add up. The contract was hanging by a thread. His partners, those lazy, incompetent ones, had screwed everything up again.

“Your mother,” he growled, throwing the folder on the table.

You walked in with coffee—as always, on time. Two years of working as a personal assistant had taught you to sense his mood. Today had been a tough day. You knew he wanted the coffee strong, without sugar, and to set it down silently and disappear.

But today something happened that you couldn't have foreseen.

You tripped on the carpet.

The cup flew out of his hands, and hot coffee spilled all over the documents. The very documents he'd spent six months preparing. The only copy of the contract.

Silence.

You froze, staring at the spreading brown stain. Then you looked up at him.

Victor stood motionless. His face was chalk white. The muscles beneath his skin twitched so violently it felt like they were about to burst.

“I… I’ll clean everything up now…” you whispered, grabbing the napkins.

He didn't answer.

He simply stared at the documents. At his failed deal. At the millions slipping through his fingers along with the coffee puddle.

And then he growled.

It wasn't a scream, but a roar, animal-like, low, full of such rage that your blood ran cold.

"You!" he breathed out.

And the next second his hands grabbed the heavy oak table standing against the wall.

• NO!

You didn't even understand whether you screamed or it just froze in your throat.

The table flew into the air. Enormous, massive, it flew straight at you, and you saw every detail—the polished surface, the carved legs, the shadow that covered you like a tombstone.

Bolt.

The table crashed into the wall a centimeter from your head. The wood cracked, the glass in the cabinet shattered, and shards flew in all directions.

You stood with your back pressed against the wall, unable to move. Your heart was pounding somewhere in your throat. There was a ringing in your ears.