Marcus burst into Jeremiah’s office like a storm that had finally broken loose. The door slammed violently against the wall, startling everyone outside the hallway. Jeremiah had just stood up from behind his desk when Marcus crossed the room in a few furious strides. Without a word of warning, Marcus’s fist flew forward and landed hard on Jeremiah’s jaw. The sound echoed sharply in the quiet office as Jeremiah stumbled backward and crashed onto the floor beside his overturned chair.“You bastard!” Marcus roared, grabbing Jeremiah by the collar and dragging him halfway up. His face burned with rage, his eyes red with sleepless nights and fear for his daughter. “You ended up arresting my daughter. How dare you!”Jeremiah groaned as he tried to steady himself on the ground. Pain shot through his jaw, but the anger in his eyes burned brighter than the pain. “Get your hands off me, Marcus,” he muttered, still lying on the floor. “You should count yourself lucky that I didn’t get you arrest

The office was quiet except for the faint hum of the city outside the glass walls, but that silence carried a weight far heavier than any spoken threat. Damian’s gaze never left Jeremiah. Every twitch of the man’s jaw, every narrowing of his eyes, told Damian that nothing — no argument, no threat, no sum of money — would sway him. Not anymore.Marcus shifted nervously behind Damian, the lines of worry deepening on his face. “Please,” he whispered again, almost to himself. “She’s done nothing to you…”Jeremiah’s eyes flicked toward Marcus briefly, but they were devoid of any emotion. “Nothing?” he repeated, a faint edge of amusement in his tone. “You call stealing secrets ‘nothing’? Betraying trust ‘nothing’?”Damian’s hand tightened into a fist. He forced himself to breathe, to think. If there was one thing he had learned in the past ten years, it was that Jeremiah thrived on control — and if control was threatened, he would escalate. And escalate he had.“I don’t care about your defi

Victoria stood by the tall window of the mansion, the city lights flickering like distant stars beyond the glass. In her hand, the crystal wine glass reflected those lights, scattering them across the marble floor as she slowly walked across the room. Her steps were calm, measured, yet beneath that calmness was a storm that refused to rest.She lifted the glass slightly, swirling the wine as though the movement itself helped her think.“Father…” she called softly.Marcus, who had been seated behind the long wooden desk at the far end of the room, looked up at her. His face was lined with fatigue, the kind that did not come from sleepless nights alone but from years of making decisions that refused to stay buried.“Victoria, what could that be?” he asked, narrowing his eyes slightly as he watched her pacing.Victoria stopped near the window again, staring outside as if the answers she wanted were somewhere among the lights of the city.“Why do you choose to be blinded by Jeremiah’s act

Jeremiah walked slowly across the wide office floor until he reached Ethan’s desk. The large glass windows behind Ethan allowed the morning light to spill across the room, yet the brightness did nothing to ease the tension Jeremiah carried on his face. Ethan immediately noticed the worry in his expression.“You seem worried, Jeremiah. Is there a problem?” Ethan asked calmly, leaning back in his chair while studying him carefully.Jeremiah inhaled slowly before speaking. “Victoria… your ex-wife has been released from prison. And the strange thing is, I don’t have any trace of who arranged her release.”Ethan’s expression barely changed, but his eyes sharpened slightly.“What do you want to do about it?” Ethan asked. “Do you want to trace the person behind her release?”“Yes,” Jeremiah replied firmly. “I want to know who is behind it. Unless…” he paused and narrowed his eyes at Ethan, “unless you are the one who arranged it.”Ethan tilted his head slightly, amused by the accusation. “An

Ethan remained standing alone in the dim strategy room long after Jeremiah and Stephen had left. The door had barely closed behind them when the calm mask on his face slowly faded.For the first time that night, his expression revealed something far deeper than authority or control.Worry.Not the ordinary kind of worry that came from facing an enemy. Ethan had fought enemies his entire life. Rivals, corporate predators, political manipulators, criminal networks—none of them had ever truly disturbed his mind.But this situation was different.He slowly walked back toward the laptop and opened it again, staring at the dark screen for several seconds before typing a command. The system awakened once more, and the encrypted files appeared again.The adaptive strategic intelligence system.The more he looked at it, the more dangerous it seemed.Ethan leaned forward slightly, his fingers resting on the edge of the table as he studied the code structures again. The architecture was extraord