Please relocate those two immediately, Riiiip! – Story Of The Day!

The walk-in closet was a sanctuary of cedar and the suffocating scent of Mark’s Santal 33—a cologne that cost more per ounce than the meager weekly grocery budget he allowed me. As I folded a faded college sweatshirt, Mark’s voice cut through the silence like a jagged blade. He was impatient, impeccably dressed in a custom navy suit, and draped in the arrogance that comes with a Patek Philippe watch and a complete lack of soul. He sneered at my battered suitcase, calling it a “goodwill dump” and reminding me that appearance was everything for his high-stakes meeting with Helios Energy in London.

I didn’t argue when he called me frugal or mocked my supposed days of knitting and daytime TV. I didn’t mention that while he was at the gym, I was at the kitchen table orchestrating the maneuvers of Vanguard Holdings, the shadowy investment firm currently swallowing European tech startups and logistics grids. I simply zipped my bag and followed him to the Uber Black. He warned me not to “hover” around his executive assistant, Tiffany—a twenty-four-year-old whose ambition was as sharp and cold as a scalpel.