Nobody laughed after that, not even Giselle Park, who had stepped close enough to see everything, her heart moving faster than she was prepared to admit. The man they mocked would become the only one standing between her and everything she was about to lose.
That Monday morning had started like any other at the Nexara building, 42 floors of blue glass rising above the east side of the city, home to one of the most quietly powerful security technology firms on the eastern seaboard.
But the first floor that day had been converted into something else entirely. 63 candidates filled the lobby in two long rows, each one carefully selected, each one arriving with the particular posture of a man who believed he was the obvious answer to the question being asked.CEO leadership training
Former police officers, professional fighters, ex-military contractors, men who had spent years being paid to look dangerous and had become very good at it. The air smelled like ambition and shoe polish.
Then the revolving door turned and Dominic Shaw walked in. Hunter Voss crossed the lobby before the registration clerk could speak. He was 38 years old, thick through the shoulders, with the particular confidence of a man who believed he had already won a competition that hadn’t finished.
As acting head of security for Nexara Group, Hunter had reasons to be unsettled by today’s tryout, and he had chosen to let that unease come out as cruelty. He stopped directly in front of Dominic, close enough to establish the size difference.
This isn’t a daycare, friend. The preschool entrance is in the basement. More laughter from the chairs. Logan Cross, sitting in the front row with his arms crossed and one leg stretched out like he owned the floor, gave a slow nod.
Logan was 253 lb of professional MMA fighter who had won three regional championships in the last 4 years. He was also the most obvious choice for this position, and he knew it.
