The boardroom was still thick with silence, the echo of Mira's folder slam clinging to the air. Directors shifted in their seats, some avoiding her gaze, others glaring openly, tension wound tight across polished obsidian.
Then came the sound—sharp, deliberate.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Heels striking marble.
Every head turned as the double doors creaked open. Myra Aurelia Clock stepped through with the slow grace of someone who had no intention of apologizing for being late.
She was dressed in red—satin, flowing, cut dangerously close to impropriety. The color bled against the muted palette of the boardroom like fire dropped into ice water. The neckline dipped just enough to spark whispers, the hemline brushing her knees as she walked with the confidence of a stage actress who knew every eye was hers.
Perfume followed her in, sweet and heady, a stark contrast to the stale scent of coffee and paper that had dominated the room until now. It was a perfume that clung, heavy enough to turn heads, strong enough to unsettle.
Myra's eyes swept the table once, catching each director in turn. She didn't flinch at their stares. Instead, her lips curved into a knowing smile, playful and sharp.
The directors shifted uncomfortably, murmurs rising like ripples in water.
"She's late again…"
"Look at that dress—this is a board meeting."
"Doesn't she realize this is dangerous?"
Arkellin's gaze flicked to her as she approached. His expression remained unreadable, cool as ever, but his eyes followed the line of her stride, measuring the deliberate rhythm of her entrance.
Mira, at the head of the table, stood like carved glass. Her posture did not falter, but the faintest shift in her jaw, the press of her lips into a thinner line, betrayed what she felt.
Myra reached the table at last, her heels clicking one final time before she stopped, standing just long enough to let the tension stretch thin. Then, with a casual flick of her wrist, she slid into the empty chair beside Arkellin.
Her skirt shifted higher as she sat, and when she leaned back, one leg crossed elegantly over the other. The move was casual—too casual. Her perfume spread in a stronger wave, filling Arkellin's space, daring anyone at the table to comment.
The silence that followed was charged, alive.
And the boardroom storm had just been given fire.
The moment Myra settled into the chair beside him, the air shifted.
Arkellin remained still, shoulders squared, gaze fixed forward as if the weight of the entire board did not exist. Yet Myra leaned close enough that her perfume spilled into his space, sweet and intoxicating, blotting out the sterile scent of paper and ink.
She tilted her head toward him, dark hair brushing his sleeve. "I hope," she said, her voice silk wrapped in mischief, "I didn't miss the fun."
The words carried, deliberately loud enough to slip into every ear around the table. A ripple of whispers rose instantly, harsh and uncontained.
"She's sitting with him—look how close."
"Completely inappropriate."
"This is a boardroom, not a nightclub."
Myra ignored them all. She reached across the table for a glass of water, but her elbow brushed Arkellin's arm, lingering too long to be an accident. The satin of her dress shifted with the motion, the light catching at angles that made more than one director avert his eyes.
Arkellin didn't flinch. "You're late," he said quietly, his tone even, without reprimand but without warmth either.
Myra smiled as if his words were a compliment. "I came when it mattered." She sipped her water slowly, her eyes never leaving his face, amusement dancing in them.
Across the table, Mira's pen stilled against her notes. She hadn't looked up once since her sister entered, but now her eyes lifted, sharp and direct, pinning Myra with a stare colder than glass.
Myra only leaned back in her chair, one leg crossing over the other, her heel dangling idly in the air. She shifted closer to Arkellin, her knee brushing his under the table.
The gossip swelled again, soft but poisonous:
"She's doing this on purpose."
"What will Mira do?"
"This could destroy them both."
Mira's lips pressed into a thin line, her hand tightening around the pen until it nearly cracked. Yet her voice, when she finally spoke to the room, was cool and cutting as ever:
"Let's proceed. We have business to finish."
The directors fell into uneasy silence again, but the fire Myra had sparked didn't fade—it simmered, alive, beneath every word that followed.
And at the center of it all, Arkellin sat unmoving, his composure unbroken, as though both fire and ice belonged to him.
The meeting ground forward, the directors forcing their focus back to the agenda. A junior secretary adjusted the projector, and rows of figures and graphs washed across the glass screen at the end of the room. Numbers on quarterly performance. Audit trails. Future contracts.
But no one in the room was truly looking at the data. Their eyes flicked instead between the three figures at the head of the table—Mira, composed as ice; Arkellin, cool and unreadable; Myra, lounging in scarlet like she owned the fire.
The financial director cleared his throat, droning about offshore assets. The rhythm was dry, steady, until Myra broke it with a voice deliberately bright.
"So dull," she murmured, just loud enough. Then, she turned her head, gaze fixed on Arkellin, her tone shifting into something sweet, sharp-edged.
"What do you think, Mr. Andy?"
The words cut through the monotone like a blade. Her question wasn't directed at the board. It was bait—bait thrown in front of every director present.
The whispers flared instantly.
"She's putting him on the spot."
"What can he possibly say?"
Arkellin didn't turn to her. He rested both hands on the table, fingers laced loosely, and spoke with the calm precision of someone who had already mapped the terrain.
"Offshore assets aren't the issue," he said, voice even. "The issue is the board hiding losses by recycling debt through subsidiaries that were never meant to carry the weight."
The room froze.
Directors exchanged glances, a few stiffening visibly.
Arkellin continued, his gaze level, unhurried. "If you want solvency in two years, you cut the bleed now. If you don't, this company will be liquidating more than pride."
Silence, heavy and choking, followed his words. Even the projector's hum seemed louder.
Mira moved then, seamlessly, her voice flowing in to cover the jagged cut he had just delivered. "What Mr. Andy means," she said, cool but firm, "is that Clock Corp cannot afford to pretend anymore. We will act. I'll draft the restructure plan myself."
Her eyes slid briefly to Arkellin—silent thanks wrapped in sharp warning—before locking back on the directors.
Across the table, Myra smiled wider. She leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs slowly, deliberately. "See?" she purred. "That's why he's here."
The temperature in the boardroom dropped further, though the fire in Mira's eyes flared.
And the room seemed to tilt toward the inevitable.
The silence that followed Arkellin's words stretched long, taut as wire. Directors shifted uneasily in their seats, pens tapping nervously, throats clearing in weak attempts to reset the rhythm of the meeting.
But the balance had already cracked.
Mira stood straighter, her pen set down with a precise click. Her eyes flicked once to Arkellin, then locked coldly on her sister.
"This," Mira said, her voice firm but sharpened to a blade, "is a board meeting. Not your playground, Myra."
The words struck the air like glass shattering.
Every director froze, some glancing between the sisters with poorly disguised anticipation. The kind of spectacle money couldn't buy—two heiresses at war, with the stranger in the middle.
For a heartbeat, Myra was still. Then, her lips curved slowly, deliberately, into a smile that was both taunt and dare. She leaned an elbow against the table, chin resting lightly on her knuckles, eyes locked on Mira but her leg brushing lightly against Arkellin's beneath the table.
"Playgrounds," she murmured, voice low but carrying, "are where the best games are played, sister."
The ripple that followed was instant. A director coughed into his hand to cover a laugh. Another scribbled notes furiously, as if documenting ammunition for later.
Mira's jaw clenched, her knuckles white where her hand gripped the edge of the table.
Arkellin sat between them, utterly still. His gaze slid to Myra—playful fire in red satin—then to Mira—ice, elegant, cracking under pressure. His expression remained unreadable, but the air around him thickened, his presence drawing both flames and frost to orbit closer.
The boardroom no longer smelled of paper or coffee. It smelled of tension, perfume, and the faintest whiff of blood in the water.
And everyone knew—something was about to break.