Ethan sat in the quiet of his virtual office, the door closed, the echoes of his own furious voice still hanging in the air of the dressing room beyond. He wasn't shaking.
He wasn't angry. A strange, profound calm had settled over him.
He leaned back in his leather chair, a slow, satisfied smile spreading across his face.
The fiery, table-kicking, vein-popping performance he had just delivered wasn't a loss of control.
It was the opposite. It was a calculated, deliberate act of management.
He had seen the blame game starting, the cracks appearing in his team's unity, and he had used the only tool that could shock them out of it: raw, unfiltered passion. He had become the villain, the madman, to unite them against a common enemy: their own complacency.
He had felt the shift in the room. The fear, the shame, and then, the dawning respect.
He had given them goosebumps. He had given them a fire.
The 2-1 loss was a price he was more than willing to pay for that.
