The silence inside Kate Brown’s office was never complete. A domineering and castigating feeling breath in the office.There was always something humming, from the hidden pulse of an empire built on ambition, secrets, and betrayal. The faint ticking of the old brass clock her father had left behind an heirloom, or maybe a curse. Or was it the occasional whisper of her own breath as she read and re-read the reports that made no sense.Today, it was the tension she heard most. The sound of something crumbling just beyond her reach.She stood by the window, arms folded, watching the city below. Everything looked normal, from the polished towers, traffic flowing like clockwork, but Kate had lived long enough in the Brown Empire to know that appearances were nothing but delayed tactics. Lies dressed in suits and marble.And lately, those lies were unravelling.Three canceled deals in under two weeks. Two investors vanishing. A quiet government audit in Spain. Foreign interest dying mid-n

The room was too quiet for a place with such bloodied history.A place that seemed beneath the earth, hidden below a defunct observatory on the outskirts of the city, beyond the reach of cameras or casual eyes. The air was crisp, the walls thick, and the furniture minimal. Three high-backed chairs faced each other in a perfect triangle, surrounding a table of blackened steel, smooth and spotless.No names were used here. No files were carried. Only memory and power came through the door.They arrived without sound.The first wore a charcoal coat and thin gloves, face obscured in shadow.The second leaned heavily on a polished cane, though his voice never hinted at weakness.The third one still, sharp, and bare-handed carried nothing but silence and cold eyes.When they all had settled, the lights above dimmed slightly. The silence lingered like ceremony.Then the one with the cane broke it.“Brown is slipping.”The second nodded once. A single movement, but heavy in implication.“It w

Davis tightened the silk scarf around his neck, wincing as the fabric brushed the bruises along his collarbone.Victory leaned on his cane beside him, jaw clenched as they stepped into the elevator that would take them to the top floor heading to the boardroom, that had been the center of Brown Empire for three generations.Neither man spoke.The silence between them wasn’t new, but now it burned with something sharper than rivalry. The smell of suspicion.They hadn’t talked about the attack in detail. Victory claimed to remember little. Davis, even less. But both knew enough to realize the timing hadn’t been random. It was a message.And neither believed the other was innocent.........The boardroom was already half-filled when they entered.Henry sat near the far end of the long glass table, his usual stoic expression unreadable. Kate was on the left, her posture elegant and guarded, not a strand of hair out of place. A few other shareholders older and cautious cautious nodded poli

Kate Brown had learned to stop believing in coincidences. When three of her deals collapsed in a single week without explanation, she didn’t assume it was market volatility. When Davis and Victory were attacked on the same night and survived, she didn’t dismiss it as random violence. And when anonymous firms suddenly appeared at the shareholder table with enough influence to unbalance a vote, she didn’t chalk it up to investor curiosity.She was beyond shocked in the shareholders meeting room and only tried to act neutral, just as she has been doing to avoid showing weakness.She thought her rivals were only her blood, but the recent events showed she has always been wrong with that notion.Someone was moving through the cracks of the empire she had fought to protect and rule. She knew what she did to get the hotels under her control, aiming for the Chairman position.And now, someone was denying her that. Even when she did as if the attack on Davis and Victory had nothing on her, s

The rain had been steady all evening, falling against the cracked skylights of the old warehouse. Each drop seemed to mark a quiet, relentless ticking that told Ven the night was getting older, and the game was getting tighter.He stood at the head of the long table, sleeves rolled up, hands braced on the spread of documents and maps beneath him. Every visible inch of the table was covered: Brown Empire’s branching subsidiaries, holdings across four continents, the personal networks of Davis, Victory, Kate, and Henry. There were photographs with corners curling from repeated handling, red marker lines marking the empire’s skeleton, and thin black threads connecting names to events like a hunter’s trap web.He had built this map gradually with the sole intent on how to fully take over the Empire. Every connection was earned with risk. Every pin placed with purpose.And yet tonight, too many new lines were appearing without his hand touching the pen.Bryan entered, moving like a shadow