All Chapters of Ring of Power: The Billionaire's Secret: Chapter 261
- Chapter 270
319 chapters
261 - It's Clean
"Because he's the chairman," Lily said. "Because she's right for him. Because they work together and they've been through everything together and it makes sense. It's not the same as your situation.""Okay," Elena said."Stop saying okay," Lily said."What do you want me to say?" Elena said.Lily thought about it. "Nothing," she said. "I want you to say nothing because there's nothing to say."Elena sat with that for a moment. Then she reached over and put her hand on Lily's arm. Just briefly. Then she picked up her coffee and stood up."The press release due today?" Elena said."Five PM," Lily said."You'll have it done by three," Elena said. "You always do."She left.Lily sat at her desk.'He said soon,' she thought. 'That's all it was. One word.'She started typing. The press release took shape. Clean sentences. Right tone. Exactly what it needed to be.Her coffee
Last Updated : 2026-07-25
262 - The Real Interview (I)
"She's been like this for three thousand years," Jake said. "Apparently.""Is that supposed to make it better?" Werner said."No," Jake said. "But it explains it."Rael looked at Jake. "I guided what was already moving.""You told Marcus you did it poorly," Jake said."I said you didn't need guiding," Rael said. "You needed time. Taking twenty years longer than necessary because I didn't trust that Marcus had built the right thing is a failure of judgment. I'm allowed to acknowledge that."Sora had come down from the elevator and was standing a few feet back. "What made you finally trust it?" she said.Rael looked at her. "You," she said. Simply.Sora looked at her. "Me.""The way Titan is structured," Rael said. "The way the inner circle operates. The way decisions are made." She paused. "I've watched wielder groups form and collapse for three thousand years. The ones that hold have a specific quality.
Last Updated : 2026-07-25
263 - The Real Interview (II)
"Yes," Jake said."And she didn't disclose that to the broader team," Claire said."It wasn't her information to disclose," Jake said. "It was mine.""Some would argue the board should have known," Claire said."The board knew what they needed to know," Jake said. "They had a chairman who was managing his health and a company that needed continuity. The specifics of my background were relevant to the transition announcement. Not to the day-to-day.""And now that it's public?" Claire said."Now people can decide what they think of it with the full picture," Jake said. "That's fine."Claire looked down at her notes. Then back up. "There's something I want to ask directly," she said. "And you can decline it.""Go ahead," Jake said."Is there something personal between you and Sora Chen?" Claire said. "Beyond the professional relationship."Jake looked at her. The room was quiet for a second.<
Last Updated : 2026-07-26
264 - Network Grows (I)
That evening nobody planned to be in the common room together and everyone ended up there anyway.Tommy had brought food. Nobody asked him to. He just arrived with bags and started setting things out.Marcus was on video call from the hospital. Sitting up properly. Looking more like himself than he had two weeks ago."Clean resolution," Marcus said."Clean," Jake said."Carter's contact came through," Marcus said."He did what he said he'd do," Jake said.Marcus was quiet for a moment. "That surprised me.""Me too," Jake said. "A little.""Do you trust him now?" Marcus said.Jake thought about it. "I trust that he came through on this specific thing," he said. "Ask me in six months.""Fair," Marcus said.Marcus looked at the room through the screen. At Tommy handing Elijah a bowl of something. At Mei Ling arguing with Elijah about whatever the argument was today. At Sora on her laptop doing something she'd claim didn't need doing tonight. At Harrison sitting with his drink."Well done
Last Updated : 2026-07-27
265 - Network Grows (II)
The call was scheduled for nine AM.Jake, Sora, Elijah, and Rael in the conference room. Harrison in the corner with his notebook. Mei Ling next door at her monitors with the frequency tracking running in real time.Elijah set up the connection. Three faces appeared on screen.Nobody spoke for a second. Just both sides looking at each other. Eleven years of careful tracking on one side. A year and a half of surviving everything on the other."I'll let you start," Jake said. "Since you reached out."The one who spoke first was Hana.Late thirties. She had the kind of focused attention that came from spending years watching something dangerous from a careful distance."Before I start," she said, "I want to know who's in the room with you."Jake looked at the screen. "Fair." He went around. "Jake Morrison. Chairman. Sora Chen, CEO. Elijah Brooks, Heart wielder. Harrison Reed, COO. And Rael."Hana looked at Rael when Jake said the name. Something shifted on her face. Not shock. More like
Last Updated : 2026-07-27
266 - Network Grows (III)
Jake looked at Rael."Rael," he said.Hana looked at Rael again. That same quality on her face. Not quite readable."How long have you known about the carriers?" Hana said to Rael."Since I built the original design," Rael said."Three thousand years," Hana said."Yes," Rael said."And the seventh seeded the design into the world without knowing you built it," Hana said."The seventh knew pieces of the design," Rael said. "Not the complete version. Not the bidirectional function.""Which means it's been building a network using something it doesn't fully understand," Hana said."Yes," Rael said."That's actually useful," Hana said."Yes," Rael said.Jake looked between them. "You two have spoken before.""No," Hana said. "But I've read everything I could find. Which isn't much. But enough to know who I was hoping would be in that room." She looked at Rael. "We have questions for you. A lot of them.""I know," Rael said."Later," Jake said. "The network. Walk us through what you know."
Last Updated : 2026-07-28
267 - Warning Hana
Mei Ling pulled Jake into the monitor room twenty minutes after the Tokyo call ended.She'd been running the frequency data the entire time they were on the call. The movement vectors had been updating in real time on her second screen while everyone else was talking."Look at this," she said, pointing at the map.Jake looked. The seventh's position markers across the last six hours. The spacing between them getting tighter."It's moving faster," Jake said."The speed increased while we were on the call," Mei Ling said. "Four days was already a tight window. This tightens it further.""Does it know we're watching it?" Jake said."I don't know," Mei Ling said. "But Jake. Either it doesn't know we're watching or it doesn't care. And I can't tell which one yet.""Which one is worse?" Jake said.Mei Ling looked at him. "The second one."Jake picked up his phone. "Get Hana back on. Right now."***Hana answered in under a minute. Kenji and Yuna were already visible behind her. All three of
Last Updated : 2026-07-29
268 - It's Here
"If we leave in the next two hours," Hana said, "twenty hours.""Leave in the next two hours," Jake said."There's one problem," Hana said. "The two carriers we haven't found. If the seventh activates them while we're in the air and we're not there to move—""Mei Ling finds them before you land," Jake said."I heard you say that," Hana said. "I want to hear Mei Ling say it."Mei Ling looked at the screen. "I'll have them before you land."Hana held her gaze for a moment. "Okay," she said. "We're booking the flight."Kenji leaned forward. "One more thing. The seventh. Once it finishes the network activation and turns it on Jake. What does that actually look like? What are we walking into?"Everyone looked at Rael.Rael was quiet for a second. "The combined frequency from all active carriers creates a resonance that pulls on the natural Hearts simultaneously. For Jake, who carries four, the pull is compounded. The four Hearts destabilize against each other. The energy release when they
Last Updated : 2026-07-30
269 - So It Begins
"That they're carrying something," Elijah said. "That it's dangerous. That we can help.""And when they ask why it's dangerous," Jake said."We tell them," Elijah said."We tell them what?" Jake said. "Start from the beginning. What are the first words?"Elijah thought about it. "Hi. You've been carrying a supernatural artifact and an ancient entity is about to use it to turn you into a weapon against someone we care about. You need to come with us right now.""And then?" Jake said."And then hopefully they come," Elijah said."And if they don't?" Jake said."Then we have a problem," Elijah said."We'll have forty-seven problems," Jake said. "Forty-seven different people with forty-seven different thresholds for believing something impossible. We can't spend twenty minutes convincing each one. We don't have twenty minutes per person.""Some of them will call the police," Harrison said."Some will," Jake said. "We accept that. What we can't accept is losing the window because we spent
Last Updated : 2026-07-31
270 - I Was Used?
Four blocks.Jake was on the phone with Rael the entire way. Sora was on the phone with Mei Ling."What do we have on her?" Sora said."Twenty-six," Mei Ling said. "PhD candidate, materials science, north side university. No criminal record. No medical history that's relevant. She bought the pendant at a night market in Shibuya two years ago during a research trip to Japan.""Family?" Sora said."Parents in Osaka. No siblings in the city. Her closest contact here is her PhD supervisor, a Professor Tanaka. She's published twice. Both papers on crystal lattice structures and electromagnetic properties in non-standard mineral compositions."Sora glanced at Jake. "Crystal lattice structures and electromagnetic properties."Jake looked at her. "That's either going to make this conversation much easier or extremely weird.""I think easier," Sora said."How confident are you?" Jake said."Reasonably," Sora said."We're all using that word now," Jake said.They turned the last corner.The int
Last Updated : 2026-07-31