Free Web NovelChapter 32: The Parasite Came Back
The conference room was silent except for the low hum of the projector and the nervous shuffling of papers. Keres sat at the head of the long mahogany table, her posture deceptively relaxed and her expression was carved from stone.
Her dark eyes moved slowly across the graphs and charts displayed on the screen—green lines climbing, red lines dipping, blue bars standing in neat, unimpressive rows.
The morning light that had once seemed so warm in her bedroom now felt harsh and unforgiving, streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows and illuminating every flaw in the presentation before her.
The employee presenting—a young man named Harris who had been with the company for three years and had never once made eye contact with Keres without breaking into a cold sweat—pointed a trembling laser at a particularly stagnant growth chart.
His voice wavered as he explained the quarter’s performance, throwing around terms like "market correction" and "seasonal fluctuation" like they were life rafts and he was drowning.
Sweat stained the collar of his crisp white shirt, and his hands shook so badly that the red laser dot danced across the screen like a frightened firefly.
The board members sat rigid in their chairs, spines straight, hands folded neatly on the table. None of them dared to breathe too loudly or dared to look away from Keres, because looking away meant missing the moment her mood shifted—and everyone in this room knew that surviving Keres Eisenthurn’s bad days required seeing the storm before it hit.
Mr. Chen, the oldest member of the board, kept his eyes fixed on a spot just above Keres’ left shoulder, having learned long ago that direct eye contact during these meetings was an invitation for destruction.
Ms. Thomas, who had joined the board after fifteen years of climbing the corporate ladder, clutched her pen so tightly her knuckles had turned white.
Harris droned on, his confidence eroding with every second of Keres’ unbroken silence. The graphs showed incremental growth. Nothing catastrophic. Nothing worthy of celebration either. Just mediocrity wrapped in better fonts and presented with the desperate hope that pretty colors would distract from the ugly truth.
The numbers didn’t lie—sales had barely moved, profit margins had shrunk by less than a percent, and the new marketing campaign had failed to generate the buzz they had promised.
Harris knew this, the board knew this, and Keres definitely knew this.
What Harris didn’t know was whether Keres would simply scold them today or whether she would laugh—that horrible, sadistic laugh that preceded something far worse than anger.
Everyone in the room had heard stories about the laugh. Some of them had witnessed it firsthand. Anger they could handle. Anger was predictable. But the laugh meant Keres had stopped seeing them as employees and started seeing them as prey.
Keres’ finger tapped once against the arm of her chair.
The sound echoed like a gunshot.
"Stop."
Harris’s mouth snapped shut so fast his teeth clicked. He stood frozen at the front of the room, laser pointer trembling in his grip, sweat beading on his forehead and dripping down the side of his face.
His eyes darted to the board members—looking for help, for support, for anyone brave enough to meet his gaze—but every single one of them suddenly found the grain of the table fascinating.
Mr. Chen was now studying his cuticles with the intensity of a gemologist. Ms. Thomas had developed a sudden interest in the ceiling tiles. Even Sandro, who stood by the door with his arms crossed, seemed to be looking anywhere but at Harris.
Harris swallowed hard and looked back at Keres. His throat felt like sandpaper, and his voice came out as a croak. "W-what’s the problem, Ms. Keres?"
Keres tilted her head slightly, her dark hair sliding across her shoulder. Her expression didn’t change. Her voice didn’t rise. But something in the air shifted—the way the atmosphere changes right before a lightning strike, heavy with pressure and destruction.
She let the silence stretch, enjoying the way Harris squirmed under her gaze and the way the board members held their collective breath.
"Everything."
That single word landed like a hammer on glass. The board members flinched collectively, a ripple of tension passing through the room like a wave. Harris turned pale, his lips pressing together so tightly they disappeared. He looked like a man who had just been told his execution was scheduled for noon.
Mr. Chen cleared his throat, clearly deciding that his years of service entitled him to speak. "Ms. Eisenthurn, if we could just examine the data more closely—"
Keres’ gaze flicked to him, and Chen’s voice died in his throat. He looked away first, dropping his eyes to the table like a chastened child.
They always looked away first. It didn’t matter how old they were, how experienced, how confident. When Keres looked at them with those cold, dark eyes, they all remembered exactly who held the power in this room.
Keres stood up slowly, her chair sliding back without a sound. She walked toward the screen, her heels clicking against the floor in a rhythm that matched no heartbeat in the room.
Every eye followed her. Every breath held. Even the projector seemed to dim slightly as she passed, as if the machine itself was afraid of her.
"The graphs and charts," she said, her voice soft and dangerous, like silk wrapped around a blade, "are almost identical to the sales from last month."
The sound echoed through the silent room. She turned to face them, crossing her arms over her chest, and let her gaze sweep across the table like a searchlight hunting for weakness.
"It’s good, yeah."
Nods of cautious agreement rippled around the table. Someone let out a quiet sigh of relief. Harris allowed himself a tiny smile—the desperate, hopeful expression of a man who believed he might survive after all.
Mr. Chen even allowed himself a small nod, as if to say, See? She’s not unreasonable. We just needed to let her speak.
Keres’ expression didn’t change for a single heartbeat.
Then she snapped.
Her palm slammed against the desk with enough force to send pens rolling, coffee cups rattling, and one board member’s glasses skittering across the polished surface.
The sound cracked through the room like a whip, sharp and violent and utterly unexpected, and every single person at that table jumped—some of them visibly, some of them just barely managing to turn the flinch into a cough.
"AND YOU MOTHERFUCKERS ARE ALWAYS READY TO SETTLE FOR LESS!"
Her voice cut through the room like a blade, sharp and merciless, bouncing off the walls and windows and drilling into every ear present. Harris stumbled backward so fast he nearly tripped over the projector cord, catching himself on the edge of the table at the last second.
Mr. Chen’s hand flew to his chest like he was checking his own pulse, his face draining of color.
Ms. Thomas dropped her pen, and it rolled across the floor and disappeared under the table, but she didn’t dare bend down to retrieve it.
A young woman near the window—an assistant who had been brought in to take notes—dropped her tablet, and the screen shattered against the floor with a crack that made everyone flinch again. But no one looked at her. No one could look away from Keres.
"No fucking improvements!" Keres swept her arm across the table in a wide, angry arc, sending a stack of reports flying through the air. Papers scattered like wounded birds, fluttering and spinning and drifting down to settle on the floor, on laps, on the polished surface of the conference table, on the heads of board members who were too scared to brush them away.
"Fucking still the same! Month after month, quarter after quarter, year after fucking year! You bring me the same graphs, the same charts, the same excuses, and you expect me to clap like a trained seal and tell you what a good job you’ve done?!"
She snatched a thick report from in front of the nearest board member—a man named Torres who had been quietly praying for the meeting to end—and hurled it across the room with all her strength.
The report hit the wall with a satisfying smack, pages exploding outward like a paper bomb, before sliding down to join the growing mess on the floor.
Harris stood frozen in the wreckage, his mouth opening and closing like a fish pulled from water, his brain desperately searching for words that wouldn’t make things worse. "Ms. Keres, if you would just let me explain the quarterly projections—"
"Fucking motherfuckers!" Keres rounded on him, and Harris actually stepped backward so fast he knocked over his chair. It clattered against the floor, the sound loud and awkward in the tense silence. "Why do I even bother signing your goddamn paychecks?! I could replace every single person in this room with a team of trained monkeys and get better results! At least monkeys would entertain me while they failed!"
Ms. Park raised a trembling hand, her voice barely above a whisper. "Please, Ms. Keres, calm down. All of us are trying to somehow increase the sales. The market has been difficult this quarter, and with the new competitors—"
"Yeah, thank you for admitting you didn’t try enough."
Keres’ voice was quiet again, and somehow that was worse. The screaming they could handle. The screaming was familiar, almost comfortable in its predictability. But this—this cold, precise, surgical disappointment wrapped in a soft voice and delivered with a pleasant smile—this was the voice that made grown executives cry in their cars and question their life choices.
Keres stood in the center of the chaos she had created, her chest rising and falling with heavy breaths, her hair having come loose from its elegant style so that strands fell across her face like dark curtains.
Her eyes blazed with an anger that had nowhere to go and everything to feed on, and for a moment, no one in the room was sure whether the storm had passed or was just gathering strength for a second wave.
"UGH!"
She grabbed the nearest thing—a glass of water that had been sitting untouched in front of an empty chair—and hurled it against the wall with all her strength. The glass shattered, pieces of crystal raining down like jagged diamonds, water dripping down the cream-colored paint in long, wet streaks that looked almost like tears.
"FUCKING IDIOTS! FUCKING INCOMPETENT, USELESS, WASTE OF SPACE IDIOTS!"
Keres braced her hands on the table, her knuckles white, her shoulders heaving with every ragged breath. The room was deathly silent except for the drip-drip-drip of water from the wall and the soft rustle of settling papers.
No one moved, no one breathed, and no one wanted to be the next target.
Finally, Keres lifted her head, and her voice came out cold and flat and final. "GET OUT OF MY FUCKING SIGHT!"
The board members didn’t need to be told twice.
Chairs scraped against the floor in a discordant symphony as they scrambled to their feet. Harris practically ran for the door, nearly slipping on a scattered report, his expensive shoes skidding on the polished floor.
Mr. Chen moved with surprising speed for a man his age, clutching his briefcase to his chest like a shield.
Ms. Park and Ms. Thomas gathered their things with shaking hands, dropping their folders before managing to scoop up the scattered papers and follow the stampede.
The young assistant with the broken tablet hesitated for just a moment, looking at the shattered screen with something like grief, before deciding that grief could wait and survival could not.
Within seconds, the room was empty except for Keres and the mess.
The door clicked shut and the silence that followed was deafening.
Keres closed her eyes and breathed.
She could still feel the anger humming through her veins, hot and hungry, demanding more destruction, demanding blood and tears and apologies that would never come.
The board members would regroup in the hallway. They would whisper among themselves, comparing notes on whose turn it was to be yelled at next, sharing stories of past explosions and future anxieties.
They would talk about her like she wasn’t a person but a natural disaster—something to be endured, survived, and avoided whenever possible.
Stay out of her path, duck when she throws things and don’t make eye contact.
At least, Keres thought bitterly as she stared at her reflection in the darkened projector screen, they’re consistent in their mediocrity.
She straightened up slowly, smoothing down her blazer with practiced motions, tucking the loose strands of hair behind her ears, becoming once again the picture of controlled power.
"Sandro!"
The door opened almost immediately. Sandro stepped inside, his expression carefully neutral, his eyes sweeping the room once—taking in the broken glass, the scattered papers, the water dripping down the wall—before returning to her face.
He had seen worse. He had cleaned up worse. Nothing in this room surprised him anymore. He had been with Keres for eight years, through tantrums and tirades, through laughter and tears, through moments of genuine warmth and moments of terrifying cruelty. This was just another Tuesday.
"Yes, boss?"
"Get me some wine, fuck." Keres pressed her fingers to her temples, massaging small circles against the throbbing ache that had taken up residence behind her eyes. The headache was building now, a dull pulse that matched her heartbeat, a reminder that even storms exhaust themselves eventually.
"I’m having a headache with these people."
"Yes, boss."
Sandro turned to leave, but paused at the door. His voice was quiet, almost gentle—the tone he reserved for moments when Keres looked less like a CEO and more like a woman running on empty, moments when the armor cracked just slightly and something human peeked through. "The usual, boss?"
"Just get the expensive one. The red. I don’t care which." fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com
He nodded and slipped out, closing the door behind him with a soft click that somehow felt louder than all the screaming.
Keres walked to the window and pressed her forehead against the cool glass, letting the temperature ground her, reminding her that she was still a person and not just a collection of sharp edges and angrier words.
The city sprawled below her—cars moving like ants, people like specks, entire lives unfolding in buildings she would never enter.
Somewhere out there, Asteria was shopping. Spending money. Buying things. Existing in a world that had nothing to do with board meetings and quarterly reports and incompetent employees.
The thought should have annoyed her. Instead, it made something in her chest loosen.
And then, as if summoned by the thought alone, her phone began to chime.
One notification, then another. Then a cascade of them, a continuous stream of dings and buzzes that filled the silent room like birdsong after a storm. Keres pulled the phone from her blazer pocket and unlocked it, her eyes scanning the screen.
On and on the notifications went, a shopping spree captured in real-time, each purchase a small rebellion against the boredom of being trapped in a house with nothing to do.
Keres scrolled through the list, doesn’t entirely care if the numbers climb. Just the thought of watching her wife spend her money is enough to make Keres smile.
Not the sadistic smile that made employees flee in terror, not the cold smile that promised pain. A real smile—small and soft and entirely inappropriate for a woman who had just finished screaming at her board members.
The problems she had been drowning in moments ago seemed to fade, pushed aside by the image of Asteria wandering through stores, eyes wide, picking up things that caught her attention, probably asking the maids for advice on what to buy because she had never done this before.
Damn, Keres thought, scrolling through another wave of notifications. "She’s actually spending it."
The smile widened.
Sandro returned a few minutes later, carrying a bottle of expensive red wine and a single crystal glass. He poured the dark liquid and handed the glass to Keres with both hands.
"Here, boss."
Keres took the glass without looking at him, her eyes still fixed on her phone, still scrolling through the purchases.
"Sandro," she said, her voice contemplative rather than commanding.
"Yes, boss?"
"Send some of your men to keep my wife safe." She finally looked up, her eyes meeting his in the reflection of the window. "She’s out shopping. Call the driver and find out where they are. Make it discreet. Make it a secret. I don’t want her knowing she’s being watched." She paused and think to consider.
"Update me about everything. Every store she visits and every purchase she makes."
Sandro didn’t ask questions. He didn’t raise an eyebrow. He simply nodded, already pulling out his own phone to make the arrangements. "Yes, boss."
He left without another word, the door closing behind him, and Keres was alone again with her wine and her phone and the strange warmth spreading through her chest.
She took a long sip of the wine—rich and dark and expensive, the kind of wine that reminded you why being rich was worth the headache—and scrolled through the rest of the notifications. Her wife was buying things. Her wife was happy. Her wife was safe.
That alone helped to calm her down.
~~~•••~~~
The knock came twenty minutes later, just as Keres had finished her first glass of wine and was contemplating a second. She had moved from the window to her usual chair behind the desk, the scattered papers and broken glass still littering the conference room because she couldn’t be bothered to clean up her own mess.
Let someone else do it. That was what she paid people for.
"Come in," she called, not looking up from her phone.
The door opened, and her secretary stepped inside. Her hands were clasped in front of her, her shoulders tense, her expression carefully neutral.
"Ms. Keres," she said, her voice slightly too high. "Ms. Henderson is here. She’s looking for you."
Keres’ eyes narrowed. The warmth that had been blooming in her chest curdled instantly, replaced by something cold and familiar.
Alexandria Henderson, the very parasite—Keres meant woman—the very woman who couldn’t let go of Keres no matter how many times she was pushed away.
"Where is she?"
"In your office, boss." The seretary swallowed hard, clearly sensing the shift in Keres’ mood. "She said she would wait. She... She made herself comfortable."
"Of course she did." Keres set down her wine glass and stood, rolling her shoulders back, preparing herself for the encounter.
"Yeah, I’ll deal with that parasite myself."
She finished the last sip of her wine—because facing Alexandria required either wine or violence.
She stepped out of the conference room. The hallway was empty now, the board members having scattered to their various offices to lick their wounds and update their resumes.
Employees who saw her approaching immediately pressed themselves against the walls, bowing their heads, trembling as she passed.
But Keres ignored them all. They didn’t matter. They were background noise, furniture with heartbeats, obstacles between her and her destination. She walked with long, confident strides, her heels clicking against the marble floor in a rhythm that cleared the path ahead of her like magic.
She reached her office door—the large double doors at the end of the hallway, carved from dark wood and emblazoned with the Eisenthurn family crest—and pushed them open without knocking.
Alexandria Henderson was already inside, naturally. She had made herself comfortable in Keres’ chair behind Keres’ desk, her legs crossed, her phone in her hand, looking for all the world like she belonged there.
She was beautiful in the way expensive things were beautiful—polished and perfect and completely devoid of warmth. Her blonde hair fell in waves over her shoulders, her red dress clung to every curve, and her smile when she looked up at Keres was sharp enough to cut glass.
"What the fuck are you doing here again?" Keres sneered as she slammed the door behind her, the sound echoing through the office like a gunshot.
She approached the desk with measured steps, her eyes never leaving Alexandria’s face, and dropped into the chair across from her—the chair that was meant for visitors, not for her.
She would not give Alexandria the satisfaction of fighting for the position of power.
Alexandria laughed, a sound full of condescension and sarcasm, the kind of laugh that made Keres want to throw something at her head.
"Nothing. Can’t I visit my girlfriend?"
"Ex!" Keres snapped, her voice sharp enough to draw blood. "You might be forgetting what you’ve done, Alex. The affair. The lies. The way you looked me in the eye and told me you loved me while you were fucking someone else behind my back." She leaned forward, her eyes blazing.
"I haven’t forgotten. I will never forget."
Alexandria’s smile didn’t waver, but something flickered in her eyes—something that might have been guilt or might have been annoyance.
With Alexandria, it was always hard to tell. "Oh, poor you." Her voice dripped with false sympathy. "I told you, Keres, it’s already in the past. It was one mistake. One tiny little mistake. Can’t you forgive me already?"
"Haha, no." Keres laughed, the sound hollow and humorless. "I am an Eisenthurn. And I don’t eat the same swill I retched." She rolled her eyes away from Alexandria, staring out the window at the city below, at the world that existed beyond this room and this conversation.
"You made your choice. You chose him. You chose his money, his status, his—what did you call it?—’passion.’ And now you want to come crawling back because his passion didn’t pay the bills?"
Alexandria’s smile finally faltered. She uncrossed and recrossed her legs, a tell that Keres recognized from years of knowing her. She was uncomfortable. Good.
The room fell quiet for a moment, the tension thick enough to taste. Alexandria didn’t know how to retort—a rare occurrence, given how much she loved the sound of her own voice—so she simply sat there, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes fixed on Keres with an intensity that bordered on desperate.
"Look, Keres." Alexandria’s voice was softer now, almost pleading. "It was unintentional. I didn’t mean to hurt you. The moment I found out you were married, I couldn’t get rid of the thought that you had moved on from me. It drove me crazy. It still drives me crazy."
Keres turned back to face her, and her expression was ice. "I didn’t move on, Alex. I never loved you."
The words hit Alexandria like physical blows. Her face went pale, then flushed, her hands clenching into fists in her lap. Her lips pressed together so tightly they disappeared, and for a moment, she looked like she might cry or scream or both.
Keres stood up, smoothing down her expensive coat, preparing to leave. She had said what she needed to say. She had made her point. There was nothing left in this room for her.
"Get rid of yourself before I get rid of you myself," she said, her voice was cold and final. She paused at the edge of the desk, looking down at Alexandria with something that might have been pity or might have been contempt.
"And you know how I handle disobedient girls. Don’t even try to provoke me."
She walked toward the door, her heels clicking against the floor, and each step was a declaration of her indifference.
Then she stopped.
A thought occurred to her. A delicious, wicked, utterly petty thought.
She turned back to face Alexandria with a smug smirk curving her lips, her eyes glittering with malicious amusement. "You should see the face of my wife," she said, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "She’s way more beautiful than you. Petite. More... sexy and... Obedient than you could ever dream of being."
The provocation worked exactly as intended.
Alexandria’s face contorted with rage. Her carefully constructed composure shattered like the glass Keres had thrown earlier, and for a moment, she looked less like a sophisticated socialite and more like a spoiled child who had been told no.
"Oh, you little shit!"
Alexandria grabbed the first thing her hand touched—a heavy crystal ashtray that sat on the corner of Keres’ desk—and hurled it across the room with all her strength.
The ashtray flew through the air, spinning end over end, and slammed against the door just as Keres pulled it open and stepped through.
It missed her by inches.
Keres didn’t flinch. She didn’t look back. She simply walked out of the office, letting the door swing shut behind her, and stood in the hallway for just a moment, listening to the sounds of Alexandria’s tantrum echoing through the room.
"Fuck!" Alexandria screamed, her voice muffled by the heavy door but still audible. "I’ll make sure to find out who Asteria is! I’ll expose how filthy she is! I’ll destroy her! Do you hear me, Keres?! I’ll destroy her!"
Keres smiled, straightened her blazer, and walked away. Then slowly, Keres’ smile turned cold.
She would enjoy watching Alexandria burn.
