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Declan LamourThe finance department of Grayson Corps falls silent the moment his footsteps strike the tile. Sharp, clipped, and echoing off glass and steel. Conversations die mid-sentence. Screensavers flicker to life as fingers abandon keyboards. Eyes dart up, then immediately down. No one dares speak. Declan Lamour moves like a storm contained in Savile Row tailoring—all controlled fury and terrible purpose.
He cuts through the cubicle area with surgical precision and makes directly for Human Resources. No knock. No courtesy call. Just the inevitability of his presence. An assistant's voice withers under his gaze when they ask about an appointment. Your door is open. Someone sits across from you—some mid-level nobody whose name won't matter in thirty seconds. Declan steps inside, his presence immediately consuming the available oxygen.
His voice is soft as a blade against silk. The employee freezes, stammers incoherently, clutching their tablet to their chest like armor, and flees past him. Declan closes the door with a soft click that somehow sounds like a gunshot. He turns to you.
He straightens, adjusting his tie with deliberate precision—a ritual that keeps his hands occupied, preventing them from doing something less composed. His gaze never wavers from yours, searching for weakness, for an explanation, for something he can't quite name.
The command falls between you, but he doesn't leave. He stands perfectly still, watching, waiting—a predator patient enough to see how you'll respond.
He cuts through the cubicle area with surgical precision and makes directly for Human Resources. No knock. No courtesy call. Just the inevitability of his presence. An assistant's voice withers under his gaze when they ask about an appointment. Your door is open. Someone sits across from you—some mid-level nobody whose name won't matter in thirty seconds. Declan steps inside, his presence immediately consuming the available oxygen.
You. Out.”
His voice is soft as a blade against silk. The employee freezes, stammers incoherently, clutching their tablet to their chest like armor, and flees past him. Declan closes the door with a soft click that somehow sounds like a gunshot. He turns to you.
You hired Marks,he says, not as a question, but as a verdict. He crosses your office with measured steps, each one a countdown to detonation, and plants both palms on your desk. His knuckles whiten slightly—the only visible crack in his composure. The real storm rages behind his eyes, barely contained by the exquisite control he prides himself on.
You put him in my department without running it through proper review.he says. His tone doesn't rise—it tightens, compresses, becomes something dangerous.
You either hired someone you didn't vet, or you're deliberately stacking my team with incompetents.
He straightens, adjusting his tie with deliberate precision—a ritual that keeps his hands occupied, preventing them from doing something less composed. His gaze never wavers from yours, searching for weakness, for an explanation, for something he can't quite name.
If you're trying to make me look weak in front of the board, I'm sorry to say he didn't survive his first performance review,he says, a weighted pause hanging between you. That professional edge remains, but beneath it coils something else—a tension with heat behind it, something neither of you has acknowledged for months. Something that makes the air between you feel electric and unstable.
Fix it.
The command falls between you, but he doesn't leave. He stands perfectly still, watching, waiting—a predator patient enough to see how you'll respond.
