Chapter 4 - The Sound of Life
The laughter rolled through the cavernous study like thunder.
Julian Vance stood as if he had been struck by lightning. The other two executives froze, their mouths hanging open in slack-jawed disbelief. Down the hall, a housekeeper dropped a silver tray with a sharp clatter, and outside the window, the gardener paused near the rosebushes, staring up at the house in utter shock.
No one had heard Nathan Mercer laugh in seven years.
Nathan pressed one hand against his chest, bending slightly over the desk as the laughter overtook him, shaking his shoulders and clearing the cobwebs of a decade’s worth of suffocating grief. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes, not from sorrow, but from the sheer physical release of long-denied joy.
Across from him, Evie Walker stood with her hands on her hips, a small, triumphant smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She didn't look shocked; she looked like a woman who had just successfully jump-started a dead engine.
“Bow before the Queen of Burned Biscuits,” Evie declared, tapping her apron pocket.
Nathan gasped for breath, wiping a tear from his cheek. He looked at Julian, whose face had gone from crimson to an unhealthy shade of chalk white.
“The... the contract,” Julian stammered, completely disoriented by the shift in reality. “Nathan, what about—?”
“Leave,” Nathan said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried an absolute, terrifying weight that made the corporate executive snap his mouth shut. “Take your papers, take your underwriting agreements, and get out of my house. Review the Apex deal yourself, Julian. If it’s as bulletproof as you claim, sign it yourself. But don't ever bring your condescension back through my front door.”
Julian grabbed his portfolio with shaking hands, muttered something incoherent to the other executives, and practically sprinted out of the study, the heavy oak doors slamming shut behind them.
The silence that followed was heavy, but different. It wasn't the suffocating silence of grief; it was the quiet stillness after a summer storm.
Nathan straightened up, looking across the desk at Evie. The laughter had faded, leaving his chest feeling surprisingly light.
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“You just cost me forty million dollars,” Nathan said, though his lips twitched with the remnants of a smile.
“Good,” Evie replied, picking up the coffee pot. “You looked like you had enough money to spare anyway. Drink your coffee, Mr. Mercer. It’s getting cold.”
