"Mr. Sterling, this girl disrespected me so I have to teach her a lesson. I apologize if I disturbed you. We'll take it elsewhere, you won't hear the noise anymore," Joshua Briggs quickly said fawningly. The man almost bowed all the way to the waist due to the fear of meeting Andrew's stern gaze.
Anne, on the other hand, was furious.
He was sitting there in the dark all this while she was being toyed with by these men.
If he disliked her—which she had no doubt he did—couldn't he at least stop them just because of the mere fact that she worked in his company? No, for the mere fact that she was a human being.
What if these men gathered and raped her? Would he still silently sit there indifferently?
This man's morals need to be kept under a microscope and inspected thoroughly.
When Briggs didn't get a reply from Andrew, he assumed the man had given a silent permission for him to do whatever he wanted.
He grabbed Anne by the arm and she tried to swing his hand off, but his grip tightened, his face showing a twisted smile filled with threat and something feral.
As she looked at the man's face in this moment, something else came back to her. The faces of everyone in the office giving her silent glances when they heard she was coming here to convince these certain investors.
The way they seemed to withhold smiles and laughter.
Realization poured on her like cold water.
Everyone knew already.
They all knew that these men would do something like this to her.
Anne scoffed self-deprecatingly.
So she had been fooled.
The man was dragging her to an inner room and she fought back. Knowing that Andrew Sterling was actually behind, watching her being taken away by this man with lewd intentions, made her even more infuriated. She struggled so hard to free herself, and when her strength failed her, she used her teeth instead, clamping them down on the man's hand that was holding onto her so tightly.
"Argh! How dare this little witch bite me?!" Briggs had had enough of the chase by now. He liked innocent girls because they were hard to coax and get into bed, and getting girls easily had become boring over the years. However, Anne's defiance had reached the final step of annoying him. He could no longer control himself as he raised his hand, aiming to hit her so badly to set her straight, but a dark voice akin to the devil's chains dragging the floors of hell sounded all of a sudden.
"Hold it."
Briggs froze, and his gaze traveled to Andrew, who leaned against the wall with his leg crossed over the other, watching everything like a show.
"Mr. Sterling..." Briggs was breathing heavily at the effort of dragging Anne. She was as stubborn as an animal who refused to budge.
Andrew's slender finger raised, pointing directly at Joshua Briggs' forehead.
"You, come here."
"Huh?"
Joshua couldn't believe that he was being called over like a child. He looked around, seeing the same uncertainty in the eyes of the other men in the room. Most of the women stiffened upon hearing Andrew's voice. They had made the mistake of trying to entice him and had been turned down sternly.
Briggs didn't want to attract the man's ire; he didn't waste too much time to trudge forward hesitantly.
"Is... there something you want to tell me?" Briggs asked after standing in front of Andrew for a full minute, but the man didn't say a word.
Andrew didn't reply to the man. Instead, he looked over to where Anne stood over Joshua Briggs' short head that stood a few feet shorter than him.
"Why are you still standing there?"
Anne realized he was talking to her and jolted. She was still trembling internally at what just happened. Her mind thought of a sarcastic sentence to jab at him, but she held it back, knowing that all she needed was a chance to leave this godforsaken room.
Silently, she moved forward, walking towards both men and stopped a distance away from both of them.
Andrew frowned at the distance between them.
Why was she standing so far away from him? Did she think he had the same intentions as this waste of a man?
"It must have been a very fun past few months for you, hasn't it, Briggs?" Andrew suddenly asked.
"I don't understand what you mean."
Andrew's lips raised ever so slightly. "Do you remember how desperately you pleaded years ago to get a spot in my company? Perhaps you want some reminder."
Briggs' expression went stiff.
His eyes darted as his mind worked speedily to think of something to say. He didn't know where this conversation was headed.
"Back then... back then the returns were very favorable. A very high percentage of returns from..."
"Ah, returns have gone down now, have they?"
Briggs didn't know how to reply to that. This man was very well aware of the games they played, but he had never interfered in their matters. They weren't the only ones who manipulated and played games just to get others at the palm of their hands.
No one in their right minds would want to pull out of Sterling Enterprises. They were just playing games to get their own fun.
Their group of friends wanted to flush out Clara Hastings from her little hole; that was why they were toying with the employees.
"Returns are still pretty good," he chuckled nervously.
Anne couldn't help but send a burning glare to the hypocritical man. "If the returns are still that good, why did you decide to pull out? Was this on purpose? All along you just used your power to toy around with the lives of innocent employees?"
Briggs glared at her, wishing he could silence her with a slap if Andrew Sterling wouldn't stop him again.
As Anne spoke, her left hand held onto her right wrist. Andrew spotted the ring of red bruise around her wrist. For some reason, that ghastly red mark made displeasure bubble somewhere within him.
"Which hand was it?" he suddenly mumbled, breaking the sharp glare Briggs was sending to Anne.
"Mr. Sterling, what did you say?" Briggs fawningly asked.
From Andrew's memory, he remembered that Briggs was right-handed. When his gaze traveled down, he found the bite mark upon Briggs' right hand. His gaze suddenly shot up to meet Briggs', and the man flinched.
Something about those eyes... damn, they were creepy.
Why was a man two times younger than him able to make him shiver in the knees with a single glance?
Andrew suddenly extended his right hand forward without saying a word. Seeing this gesture, Briggs was quick to let out a sigh of relief.
Of course, this frightening Sterling man wouldn't grow pity on his employee all of a sudden. He just wasn't capable of a feeling like that. As usual, he would look the other way without a care in the world and allow them to do whatever they wanted.
Was this a goodbye handshake?
Briggs couldn't wait for Andrew Sterling to leave. He would have all the freedom to teach this girl a damned lesson.
He shook Andrew's hand enthusiastically, but the smile on his face slowly disappeared as pain crushed his bones.
"Arghhhh!!!!" He opened his mouth to wail like an animal being slaughtered as he felt all the bones in his hand crush slowly and excruciatingly.
Anne took a few steps back, surprise evident on her face.