Eamon stood, buttoning his coat with slow precision, as if the contract wasn't the execution it had just been. Angel followed, gathering the documents, her sharp gaze sweeping over Ethan one last time.
Ethan didn't look at them. He couldn't. His body was frozen in that chair, shoulders slumped, his face slack with defeat. Only when the heavy doors of the auction room closed behind Eamon and Angel did he move, his hands trembling as he dug his nails into the table's edge.
The silence pressed in, choking, broken only by his own ragged breath. Then, in a low, venomous mutter, the words slipped free.
"This company… it was never what mattered." His lips curled into a twisted grin, though his eyes were glassy. "All that matters is Xavier. Dead and erased."
He let out a weak laugh, the sound jagged. "And a hundred billion… yeah. That's more than enough to buy his grave."
