The moment Alex had that thought, he sighed.
He returned his knife back to the display case and went to the kid-size dummy to vent out his frustrations.
He wondered why he would still have this knee-jerk reaction whenever he thought of his father. He was partly annoyed at himself and partly aggravated over it.
Ever since the misunderstanding with his father was cleared up a couple of years ago, a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders. He had this deep resentment towards him but he didn't really hate him - and that fact ate up at him.
He held on to his resentment like it was some precious thing so when it was taken away, he was a bit lost. Plus, he found that he couldn't really stop his mouth sometimes. Or the way he thought.
Alex sighed again and continued punching the dummy.
The monotonous and repeated actions helped him focus his mind.
He loved his father (though he'd never admit it openly) and he learned a lot from him … yet, at the same time, he was also happy whenever his father was not around. He had more freedom and could 'be himself'.
It wasn't to say that he suffered when his father was around, and he admitted grudgingly that he did enjoy his nights out as Cinder - but he was also under the tight reins. He felt shackled.
The constant push and pull on his feelings just made him rather unhappy.
Alex continued punching and kicking the dummy, beads of sweat trailing down his young face. If there was anyone who was watching this, they'd be quite captivated by the scene that was being shown.
At seven years old, the genes of the Smiths were quite strong in Alex. Although he still had the youthfulness of a young child, the extremely well-defined sharp jawline gave him a sort of presence that was unusual in a child.
That, coupled with his normal serious demeanour and manner of speech, one would not normally treat him like a seven-year-old. Right now, his intense focus on his training gave him an extra edge, giving one a glimpse of the figure he would become when he grew older.
Alex lost the concept of time as he continued punching and kicking, finding the whole thing rather therapeutic. It was just too satisfying to let go like this without having to worry about injuring the other party too much.
Or having his father telling him to calm down.
Hearing the loud thumps echoing in the room and feeling the pain in his hands made him happy.
There was a ghost of a smile on his face as Alex relentlessly continued his training.
✿ Author posts on WN and neovel ✿
Everyone was sitting quietly in the meeting room, their hearts in their throats as the silence continued. It was so quiet that you could hear the slight wheezing of someone in the room breathing.
The high-pitch whistling sound echoed in the room, causing the people listening to it quite uncomfortable. After all, there was a ticking time bomb at the head of the table, and the sound felt like It was like a slow winding up of the bomb.
That it could cause the bomb to blow up.
The young man at the head of the table was flipping through the documents of the presentation earlier. He had requested a detailed report and no one could tell from the expression on his face whether he was happy, or angry.
But everyone could practically *feel* the pressure upon them.
The man that had presented the financial and marketing reports earlier was busy wiping the sweat from his forehead.
The wheezing continued.
Then, a low and magnetic voice sounded in the room, "Sam, get Mr. Silvia a cup of hot peppermint tea."
Mr. Silva, or Joe, nearly choked at that and was about to refuse when the pair of blue eyes looked up at him at that moment.
However, instead of anger that he had expected, there was a trace of warmth in them as he said, "Wheezing is caused by an inflammation in your throat, or perhaps larger airways, and can be caused due to a variety of reasons such as you're coming down with a cold, an allergy or even the pollutants in the air."
"The hot peppermint tea will help open up the airways and reduce the irritants or pollution that you're breathing in temporarily. You really should see a doctor about that, just in case," Kyle said to him.
Joe nodded, thanking him.
When they had heard that the CEO of Smith Industries was coming over in person to check the company, everyone had been in a panic. Normally, there would be a team that was sent out to do these audits, and though there have been reports about how strict those were - it was nothing compared to one that was headed by the CEO himself.
In fact, his reputation on the swift and brutal way he would 'clean up' started even before he was the CEO.
His methods were known to be called 'The Purge'.
So even though he was feeling under the weather earlier, Joe did not dare not to turn up. For all you know, he would have found out through the phone that he had been laid off.
Kyle closed the file and tapped it.
"I don't have to tell you how bad this is," Kyle said, "What I want to know is, who was the first person who discovered it and what has been done since then?"
Everyone looked at each other, not daring to say a word though some sneaked glances at the speak when Kyle pointed at a rather timid-looking woman right at the back.
"Ms. Powers," Kyle called out, "Speak."
Rowena Powers literally jumped when that silky voice called her out. Her hands began shaking and her eyes widened, wondering why the great Kyle Smith would single her out.
Did he know?
How did he know?
She had sent the email anonymously, detailing the discrepancies in the accounting and her suspicions. Being one of the few women in here, she was often glossed over or put down but she still managed to hold on to her position.
Not easy.
Her auburn hair held tightly in a bun with some tendrils falling down the side of her oval face, the hazel eyes peering through the dark thick-rimmed glasses that she wore. The men around her scoffed a bit at being singled out, happy that it wasn't them in the hot seat.
Hearing that, she straightened her back and swallowed a bit, licking her bottom lips slightly nervously. She clasped her hands tightly together, taking several deep breaths, and looked up towards the man who had been the youngest CEO in history.
If he could reach this pinnacle at such a young age, she, too, could do this.
To her surprise, she saw him looking at her with some sort of encouragement. As if telling her silently that he had her back.
Was it her imagination?
She blinked and somehow, her nervousness faded away as she opened her mouth and started telling about all the wrongdoings she had discovered happening in the company.
"I first noticed something was wrong when the gifts we buy for our clients seemed to go missing quite often," Rowena said, "Though it is common that some do get waylaid, and the numbers were small that one tended to dismiss it as negligible, having it occur so frequently was not good."
Mutterings were heard at first, but when a cold gaze swept over the entire conference room, it stopped immediately.
However, the more she spoke, the more uncomfortable people were getting.
Finally, one could not stand it anymore as he stood up and shouted - partly in anger though mostly in fear, "You!! How dare you slander us like this?! Do you really think we're so incompetent that we wouldn't have noticed all of that?!"
A slight laugh broke through his rant, and he turned to look at Kyle, his eyes wild, "Sir, you can't believe what she says. She's just a lowly manager from the -"
"I know who she is, Dale," Kyle cut him off, staring at him and a slow smile emerged from his lips.
Sam, seeing this, did an internal eye-roll and looked at the poor soul as if he had been given the death sentence. Kyle had just given his Joker Smile.
Though on him, it didn't make him look like some half-baked lunatic full of killing intent, but rather, it actually made him rather enticing. It carried the hint of promising something more, though there was a slightly dangerous vibe to it - the sort of thing that most women fell over because it was akin to a sexy bad boy.
But Sam knew that the promise was actually 'Death'.
"So yes, tell me, Dave," Kyle continued with a slight tilt of his head, his smile getting slightly wider before it disappeared and his cold gaze locked on him, "Just why did you not notice this?"
Sam pursed his lips.
It has begun.