The Dirt That Dared to DreamNathan Gray stood outside the Titan Logistics tower, shivering. Not from the cold. From the way the wind cut through his shirt like it knew he didn’t belong here. He looked down at his hands. Calloused. Cracked. Grease still under the fingernails no matter how hard he scrubbed in the company bathroom. He wiped them on his pants. It didn’t help.He had shown up three hours early. Maybe four. He didn’t check his watch. He just waited. He stood like a damn fool in front of the glass building like he was guarding it, like someone important might come out and say, “There you are, Nathan, come inside, we’ve been waiting for you.”No one did.The security guard, Kevin or Kyle or whatever, gave him that look. The one like he smelled something. He didn’t say a word. Just sipped from his paper coffee and went back to his booth. That was fine. Nathan didn’t need small talk. He needed this job.He needed it more than anything.His shirt collar was wrinkled. He’d irone

The Dinner TableThe dining hall was too bright. Too long. Too cold. The kind of room that made silence sound louder. Servants in stiff black uniforms moved like ghosts between the candlelit chandeliers and silverware that never got used by the same hands twice. The table stretched so far it looked like a runway, like the kind a jet might land on.And everyone had a seat.Well, not everyone.Excel Winchester — or the man now breathing through his body — stood near the corner like some confused waiter. His mother, Sarah, was already seated at a smaller round table off to the side. Not part of the grand display. His father, Michael, sat next to her, quiet as usual, eyes lowered, hands folded on the napkin in his lap like he was waiting for someone to slap it away.The rest of the Winchesters filled the main table.Steve, the eldest, already halfway through his wine. Lucas, smirking with every word he muttered to his wife. Katherine sat like a statue with her chin raised too high, preten

The hall smelled like money and arrogance. The table was shorter this time, but the people around it weren’t any smaller. It was glass-topped, gold-rimmed, and surrounded by men and women who hadn’t had to ask for anything in years. Everyone wore suits like armor. The air felt expensive. Stiff. Hostile.Excel sat near the end. Not too close to Alaric, but close enough to make the others uncomfortable.Nobody said it out loud, but he felt it.They didn’t want him here.Steve Winchester tapped a pen against his folder like he owned the rhythm of the room. Sebastian slouched back, pretending to scroll his tablet, eyes darting toward Excel every few seconds. Elias whispered something to his assistant and chuckled.And Excel?He sat quietly.He didn’t speak. Not yet. He just watched. Listened. Waited.The numbers flew around — percentages, unit projections, capital shifts. They spoke fast. Over each other. Trying to out-smile, out-talk, out-shine. It wasn’t a meeting. It was a war without

Excel didn’t sleep that night. Not because he was afraid, not really. It was something else. Something like rage but quieter, thicker. Like oil in his blood. It moved through him in slow waves, kept him up even after the noise of the gala had died in his head. He sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on knees, hands clenched like they were trying to squeeze something invisible.Victor Hayworth’s voice kept echoing in his skull. That smile, those words. "Died like a dog in a ditch."Excel’s jaw locked again. He had clenched it so long it ached now. His teeth felt like they’d fused. His fingers twitched. He could still feel the ghost of Victor's handshake. Still warm. Still smug. Still clean. So clean. Like nothing had ever bled beneath those nails. Like nothing ever touched him but silk and power and sin hidden behind legal papers.He stood up too fast and nearly tripped. His knees didn’t want to work right. The world tilted sideways and then settled. He paced. Back and forth. The carpet

Sebastian couldn’t sleep. His pillow was soaked. Not with tears. With sweat. Cold, sick sweat that made his shirt cling to his back and his chest feel like it was folding in on itself. He stared at the ceiling like it owed him something. Like it might explain how everything had flipped so fast.He wasn’t just losing. He was drowning.That night after Excel exposed him, the whole house had shifted. Doors didn’t open as fast. Conversations stopped when he walked in. Even Steve didn’t speak to him in the hallway, just nodded once like he was some mailman. One of the guards at the back gate didn’t even salute. That had never happened. Not to him.He sat on the edge of his bed and cracked his knuckles, one by one, slow like bone was all he had left to control.Excel.That bastard. That ghost of a boy who couldn’t even talk right last year. The one who used to flinch when someone raised their voice. Now walking around like he owned the name. Like he was something more than a favor from Alar