Davis sat alone in his private study, the curtains drawn, the soft hum of the city below muffled by the bulletproof glass that lined his penthouse walls. The silence felt unnatural. Normally, he thrived in the clatter of meetings, the chatter of subordinates, the weight of phones ringing with demands only he could fulfill. But tonight, silence was suffocating.The prosecution’s office. The endless hours of questioning. The smug satisfaction on the junior prosecutors’ faces as they thought they finally had him cornered. He had seen it in their eyes the hunger, the desperation to carve their careers out of his downfall. And for a moment, for the first time in years, Davis had tasted fear.But then the call had come. The Prosecutor General’s order. The media blackout, swift and merciless. Kand Media erasing his name as though he had never been there. The relief had been intoxicating, but only bitterness remained hours later.He downed the remainder of his whiskey and poured another. His

The boardroom of Brown Empire felt like a furnace. The air conditioning hummed low, but no one noticed as the tension made the walls seem to close in. Screens all around replayed the interview on a loop. Ven’s calm face filled the monitors, his measured words, the burning look in his eyes hard to decode.Each statement was a blade slicing into the Browns’ composure.Henry Brown, the eldest and the sitting chairman, slammed his palm against the table. The sound cracked through the silence like a whip. His jaw tightened, his eyes bloodshot from sleepless nights. “Enough of this circus!” His voice thundered with the weight of a patriarch used to obedience. “We will not sit idle while a pretender drags our family name into the gutter!”Davis leaned back in his chair, arms folded, but his fingers twitched against his sleeve. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the screen. He studied Ven’s every move, every pause, as though analyzing a dangerous chess opponent. His lips curled into a bitter line

Ven sat forward on the edge of the armchair, elbows resting on his knees, as he watched the replay of the interview.“The late Chairman's son… alive. Survived the fire. Identity revealed as Ven.”It was strange, almost surreal, to watch himself on the screen. He had trained for it, calculated every word, rehearsed his tone until he could deliver it with the measured conviction of a man who had endured and lived to tell the tale. Yet now, hearing his own voice reverberating in every news cycle across the nation, a hole of vulnerability cut through the steel inside him.He had done it. He had stepped out of the shadows.But in doing so, he had turned the entire Brown Empire upside down.Ven muted the volume, watching the scrolling debates as pundits dissected every angle of his claims. Some supported him, arguing that the details matched too closely to be fabricated. Others called him an opportunist, a fraud sent by enemies of the Browns to destabilize their empire.Bryan stepped in quie

Cyrus Vane had always trusted his instincts more than reports. Reports could be bought, facts could be twisted, witnesses could be silenced, but instinct that quiet whisper honed from years of reading men’s greed and betrayal had rarely betrayed him.Tonight however, instinct screamed louder than ever.He sat alone in his private room, lights dimmed, the large screen in front of him playing the same clip again and again Ven’s interview just like others have been doing. The young man’s face, sharp with restrained fury, filled the screen. His voice, steady yet heavy with old wounds, reverberated in the quiet room. “My name is Ven. I am the son of the late Chairman of Brown Empire. My parents were murdered, though it was covered as an accident. I survived because of my father’s loyal guard, Kelvin."Cyrus pressed pause, leaned back in his leather chair, and steepled his fingers under his chin. The words were precise, deliberate. Not the trembling plea of a desperate fraud, but the decla

The message arrived with the sort of cold efficiency Ven had long grown used to. It was nothing elaborate, since there were no no flowery threats, no unnecessary taunts. Just a sharp, simple line burned across his encrypted channel.“Come alone if you want Elisa alive.”Ven read it once and went through it again. For a fleeting moment, he felt as though his own eyes refused to believe what they were showing him.Elisa his love.......He had spent years telling himself he had buried the ghost of her face, the warmth of her laughter, the way her eyes had once softened only for him. He knew he was only deceiving himself when he started sneaking out to catch a glimpse of her.Bryan was the first to notice the shift in his master’s stillness.“What is it?” Bryan asked, his voice careful, aware that Ven was not the kind of man who often froze at a message.Ven didn’t answer immediately. He simply set the device down on the table between them, turning the screen outward. Bryan leaned in, and