He Never Loved Me Until the Day I Finally Left Him novel Chapter 520

His delivery was calm, yet laced with a suffocating, predatory dominance.

This was the signature weapon of his entire existence.

Opponents in the boardroom constantly operated under the terrifying sensation of standing on a trapdoor.

One wrong syllable, and he would financially disembowel them.

Helena understood his psychological warfare better than anyone alive.

His tactics were violently carved into the marrow of her bones.

Today, shielded by five years of preparation, she remained an impenetrable fortress of ice.

Her heartbeat stayed a perfect, unbothered rhythm; absolutely nothing he did could shake her equilibrium.

In response to his seamless deflection, a predatory smile played on her lips.

"However, I have a condition," she dropped the bomb effortlessly.

The entire room flatlined, dozens of executives pivoting sharply in her direction.

The fiscal parameters of the merger had been brutally negotiated and finalized weeks ago.

Everyone assumed the CEO was fully aware of the lockdown.

Today was supposed to be a meaningless, ceremonial photo-op.

Given the massive capital involved, a face-to-face sit-down between the titans was an unavoidable corporate formality.

Moreover, this deal was merely the beachhead for a decade of planned corporate integration.

Establishing a visual rapport between the two overlords was mandatory.

For her to violently upend the table at the zero hour sent massive shockwaves through the ranks.

The lead negotiators from both sides broke out in a cold sweat, staring at her in sheer horror.

They had absolutely no idea what nuclear launch code she was about to punch in.

While she rarely micromanaged, they were terrified of her wrath.

She typically granted her board total operational autonomy.

But whenever nine-figure sums were moving across the wire, she insisted on holding the detonator.

This monolithic alliance was exactly the type of strike she supervised.

Her philosophy was absolute: if she trusted you, she gave you the keys to the empire; if she didn't, you were dead to her.

So he gambled everything on the elusive IGM.

Corporate espionage confirmed IGM was a totally independent juggernaut.

Their neural-net architecture was lightyears ahead of Shengxin's code.

Ultimately, it was an easy technological and political choice for Hayes.

The beta phases had been incredibly lucrative, which made this brutal power grab an unprecedented betrayal.

It felt like taking a shotgun blast to the chest at a dinner party.

Since the demand came directly from the apex predator across the table, every set of eyes frantically turned to Sebastian for salvation.

He was the absolute god of The Hayes Corporation; only he could authorize the surrender.

"You want to leash my empire to your desk, Ms. Wallace?" Sebastian asked softly, his tone dripping with venomous amusement.

"Precisely," Helena fired back, unblinking.

"That introduces an unacceptable level of risk," he countered flawlessly. "We are tethering our entire mainframe to your code. If you hold the kill switch and suddenly decide to execute a scorched-earth exit, my shareholders will suffer catastrophic bleeding. As CEO, I cannot knowingly walk my company into a slaughterhouse based purely on your word."

"Of course," she smiled, her eyes glittering with terrifying anticipation. "Take all the time you need, Mr. Hayes. I'm in no rush."