Page 18

The director of Ironside was a portly man.

Stuffed, patchy, and pasty, his hairpiece too obvious, his suit unsure how to wrap around his body.

As he moved, it tried this way and then that way before giving up, sagging and straining at the same time.

For someone who demanded perfection in all things, Callum was disturbingly hard to look at.

There was a certain disgusting power about him—an arrogance in the knowledge that it didn’t matter how much care he took in his appearance.

He held the world in the palm of his pasty hand.

A click of stumpy fingers, a hasty beckon, or a slashing movement was all he needed.

The man talked with his hands a lot, and they always said the same things.

Submit.

Crawl.

Beg.

Watch your fucking back.

Or the worst of them: You’re out. You’re done. You’re dead to me.

“Sorry about that.” Ed unbuttoned his suit jacket and took a seat, nodding to Olivia across the table. “Frisk,” he greeted before flicking his eyes over the others in a silent greeting.

Callum’s executive assistant nodded back, giving him a slightly loaded look that seemed to say you should have been early . But how was he supposed to know that Callum was in a mood?

Because Callum was always in a mood.

He lifted his shoulder in the smallest shrug at her before taking stock of who else Callum had called in.

Yulia Novikov, the psychopath who ran the Stone Dahlia and sucked Callum’s dick every night for the gigantic diamond ring he was taunting her with.

They were two powerhouses at war, and only one of them would win.

If Callum ever gave in and married her, she might actually kill him and claim his entire empire for herself.

If he didn’t? Fuck, who knew what she would do.

She might kill him anyway, for the sport of it.

Tilda Anderson, the show’s creative director, sat beside Yulia.

She was a stunning woman but a complete narcissistic sociopath.

Honestly, it was impressive that Callum had managed to hunt down the most experienced, cunning, and broken executives in the world—and that they were all beautiful.

Maybe he had paid for that. Cultivated it, the way he had cultivated Ed and Jack.

Maybe they were all from Sussex too, neighbours from his childhood, now unrecognisable after all Callum’s moulding.

Brian Able, the CFO who rarely showed his face, was there.

His thick black hair curled around his temples in agitation, his beard meticulously trimmed, his dark glasses glinting.

A ruthless motherfucker, that guy. He was forty-six, childless, and unmarried, but who needed a life when you had a menu of underprivileged students to take advantage of in the underbelly of sin beneath their illustrious campus? Not fucking Brian .

Viktor Kovalchuk was sitting beside his sister, Yulia. It had taken Ed almost a decade to figure out they were related since Yulia still used her second ex-husband’s last name. He had only discovered it because he overheard them whispering about how to handle their father’s funeral arrangements.

They opted to burn him.

Yulia offered to pick up the ashes.

Viktor suggested she toss them in the trash.

She laughed and said she had better plans.

A few weeks later, a new artwork appeared in her office, hanging large and imposing above her sleek black desk.

It was a strange, hellish landscape of black dust and red paint that chilled Ed to the bone.

The gold plaque at the base was labelled “Father,” with an inscription below in Russian, but that didn’t stop him from covertly taking a picture and looking it up later when he got home.

Burn in hell, goat. That’s what it said.

Further research revealed that “goat” was something like calling someone a bitch or a motherfucker. So … that was the day he decided he really didn’t want to learn anything more about Yulia and Viktor.

Viktor was the head of talent management.

Cold blue eyes, platinum blond hair. The most manipulative goat Ed hoped to ever encounter.

Next was Kesi Okafor, the PR director. Sharp features with an even sharper eye, she was always the most fashionable in the room and also the most likely to kick off a stiletto and stab someone with it.

She was a smooth-talking bloodhound. Charming to a fault.

Probably took her coffee with the lifeblood of small children and animals .

Maxim stood by the door. No last name that Ed knew of.

The head of security was wrapped in his normal black suit, his expression calm and cool, his eyes detached.

He never made a sound, and Ed was pretty sure he had a habit of silencing others, as well.

Professor Mathieu Dubois, the head of education, tapped his fingers agitatedly against the tabletop.

He always seemed desperate for these meetings to end and was never quite comfortable around the others.

He was the newest member of Callum’s inner circle of executives, and his role was mostly a joke. Head of Education . Seriously?

The final person at the table was Dr Julian Desmarais. The head of talent conditioning. Not even Kesi was as polished as Julian, and not even Viktor was as unfeeling. Julian wasn’t even human. He was too detached for that.

Ed sought out Jack’s eyes for a moment, but neither of them allowed an inch of expression onto their faces.

Still, this was odd. Callum usually liked to head the same meeting in two or three different groups of his inner circle.

He would change certain details for each group.

It was his way of injecting them with paranoia because it lowered the pool of suspects if certain details of their meetings ever leaked to the press.

For some reason, he had called everyone in. All to the same place. At the same time.

Ed didn’t like the change. He didn’t like any change when it came to Callum Rowe .

“We have a fucking problem.” Callum clicked the projector to life, and Ed watched as a muscle pulsed in his thick neck.

The man was seconds away from exploding. His hand was shaking . He sank into his seat and tossed the remote to Olivia Frisk. His assistant stood and seamlessly took control of the meeting.

“It would appear that Eleven has decided to make a political statement with one of their new music videos.” She leaned over the laptop connected to the projector and brought up a news headline.

Eleven’s “Flicker in the Crowd” Sparks Controversy: Is it Really a Dark and Tragic Metaphor?

Olivia scrolled down, revealing most of the article, and they all leaned forward to read it.

Eleven’s latest music video, “Flicker in the Crowd,” is being hailed as a perfect representation of personal loss, exploring the tragedy of a loved one fading away, becoming nothing more than an insignificant flash in a sea of people, or a painful flicker of a memory.

The song, recently released, has quickly become a standout in their debut album, stealing the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.

However, fans have uncovered subtle metaphors within the video that hint at something much darker.

The video, which features a vibrant celebration on the street turning chaotic and fragmented, has drawn eerie comparisons to the Ironside Consolidation Day shooting two years ago, which tragically took the lives of twenty-two Gifted students .

From flickering lights and hazy, smoke-filled shots to the imagery of different faces—some of which bear a resemblance to the deceased students—being lost in the crowd, the connection between the video’s narrative and the tragedy is hard to ignore.

Discerning fans have even isolated some of the background sounds, claiming that they can hear gunshots in the music.

While the band insists it’s merely an artistic metaphor for heartbreak, the growing fan speculation raises unsettling questions about the deeper meaning behind their latest release and what it could all mean.

Are Eleven trying to tell us something?

Ed fell back in his chair, dread churning in his gut. Those idiots . Those fucking idiots. All they had to do was shut the hell up, put their heads the hell down, follow the damn script, and stay out of trouble.

“The little shits thought we wouldn’t notice,” Callum shouted, slamming his fist down on the table and making it shake, the glass vibrating like it might shatter.

Ed stared at the shivering glass, biting back the suicidal urge to point out that they hadn’t noticed. The fans had.

“They could be wrong?” Yulia asked. She looked a little bored. This meeting wasn’t about death, torture, sex, manipulation, or money. It was nowhere near her sphere of talents or interests. This was about politics.

“They’re testing the bars of their cage,” Dr Desmarais purred, staring at the projection of the article with a small spark of interest. “We should acknowledge their call for help. I can begin private counselling sessions with them to heal this trauma.”

Dr Desmarais had one mission at Ironside and one mission only.

When a student was sent to him, it was because they were too talented to expel, too problematic to disappear , or too important to ignore.

But they all had one thing in common: They weren’t conforming.

It was his job to pound his fist into the moulding clay of their minds until they were as empty and cold on the inside as he was, and willing and eager to follow directions.

“They need to be punished,” Callum snapped, though he didn’t muzzle Desmarais, which had Ed’s stomach sinking.

“Isn’t the doctor punishment enough?” Yulia sighed, motioning to Desmarais, who stared at her coldly, neither offended nor pleased with the remark.

Callum’s face was reddening, his breath growing shorter. If someone didn’t do something to appease him, one or more of them were about to suffer. Yulia must have noticed because her body became a little stiff, and she quickly spoke again.

“Let’s change their Stone Dahlia contracts again. Remind them how much power they really have.”

Callum began to relax, his shoulders inching down, the colour in his face blushing from deep, homicidal purple to pleased, homicidal ruby-red.

“Do that.” His lips twitched in a smile, still a little too jerky for Ed’s liking. “Make it count, Novikov. ”

“Will do, sir.”

“Dismissed!” Callum clapped his hands, and Ed pulled himself to his feet, leaving behind his stomach in the conference room.

Jack walked quietly beside him down the hall, and they ducked into the same car while Jack muttered something to the driver.

They didn’t say a word to each other as the car pulled away from the campus or as it rolled along the countryside roads.

Almost half an hour later, Jack indicated for the driver to pull over, and they both got out, strolling along a winding path that hugged an empty park.

The birds trilled, a nearby stream gurgled happily, the sun glittered with gold warmth, and the smell of wet grass tickled their nostrils.

Inside, they were dead.

They didn’t dare to speak out loud.

Not even here.