AshleyAkram
Warning ⚠️: May include violence and disturbing themes.
They call me a narcissist.
She screams it at me, her voice cracking under the weight of her own anger, as if the word itself can wound me. I watch the way her hands tremble, how her eyes search my face for something-guilt, perhaps, or shame.
I feel neither.
"I am honoured," I reply, my voice as empty as the silence that follows. People often mistake emptiness for calm. They do not understand that it is something far more deliberate.
I gesture toward the door without looking at her again. "Show her the exit."
---
Ali Abbas. Managing Director of TerraForge. Ruthless. Cold. Mysterious.
I skim through the ink they waste trying to understand me, then set the tabloid aside on the glass table. My reflection stares back at me-unimpressed, untouched.
"I don't really understand the things they write about me," I murmur, though that isn't entirely true.
People need stories to make sense of what they fear.
---
Fear is a language I speak fluently.
The man in front of me begs in broken sentences, his voice shaking, his body weaker than his desperation.
"Please... I have children..."
I watch him. Detached. Patient. Unmoved.
He asks for time, as if time is something I owe him.
I pull the trigger before he can finish the sentence.
Silence returns.
---
Ruthless. Cold. Indifferent. Merciless.
I hear every word they use to define me, and every time, I find them lacking.
"They do not describe me," I say quietly, watching the fear bloom in another pair of eyes.
She steps back as I step forward.
"They are too lenient."
Her breath stutters.
When she tries to run, I catch her easily, pulling her back into a reality she wishes to escape.
"I am not what they call me," I whisper, my voice steady, certain.
"I am worse."
I pause, letting the truth settle between us like a verdict.
They say a man like me can never be loved.
"Why not?"
And for the first time, it is not the world I am questioning.