"Mika, are you still there?"Beatrix Holloway's voice crackled through the speaker, sharpened by alarm after the unmistakable clatter of a phone hitting the floor. On the other end, Mika Turner stood frozen behind her desk, her lungs refusing to expand. She forced a slow breath, pressed a trembling hand against her chair, and stooped to retrieve the phone."I'm here," she managed, her voice thin and flat."Listen carefully. You need to divorce Curry immediately, cut every tie, and deny every connection you ever had to him. If anyone comes asking, you tell them you have nothing to do with him and never did." Beatrix spoke rapidly, her words tumbling over one another. "You know what the Draven Clan is. Even Nicolas Kalyn bows his head when their people walk into the room. If they trace Curry back to your family, that's not trouble, Mika, that's extinction."The silence that followed felt like standing at the edge of an abyss."I understand, and I'll call you b

The conference room at Pinnacle Corp headquarters was already packed by the time the morning sun cleared the skyline. Every seat around the long mahogany table had been claimed, and a low buzz of restless conversation filled the air like the charged energy that precedes a verdict.Everyone who mattered was present, from shareholders in tailored suits nursing their second cups of coffee to mid-level managers who had dressed a touch sharper than usual, along with department heads who rarely attended general meetings but would not have missed this one. The only absence was Belmont Turner and his immediate family.Most of the staff here had already thrown their lot in with Roland Turner, and it had not taken much convincing. Mika ran Pinnacle Corp with exacting standards, demanding excellence in both competence and attitude while tolerating neither laziness nor mediocrity. Her compensation packages were generous and her benefits above market rate, but that had never been enoug

A handful of Pinnacle Corp employees filed into the conference room carrying the stock transfer agreement, and under the watchful eyes of every shareholder present, Roland Turner signed the document. His pen moved with visible reluctance, each stroke dragged across the page as though the ink were being bled from his veins, while the room stayed silent save for the scratch of the nib and the faint rustle of papers.Mika Turner accepted the share certificate and allowed herself a quiet smile as she studied the numbers printed across its face. This transfer brought her holdings to fifteen percent of the company's equity, a position second only to Matriarch Adelaide Turner herself. The arithmetic was satisfying, because no other single shareholder now possessed enough voting power to override her proposals without the Matriarch's explicit backing, and she finally held real leverage on Pinnacle Corp's board.Roland caught that smile. His jaw tightened, and a cold darkness settl

The moment Thaddeus Zane spoke those words, Alfred Parsons felt a quiet surge of vindication. Bringing Curry along had been the right call. Thaddeus might have built his fortune along the Riverbank District, but Bayhaven City was where he had grown up and where his roots ran deep. He had said it himself that this trip home was about giving back, and he had no plans to leave soon. If Curry could forge a connection with an entrepreneur of that caliber, it would open doors no amount of grinding could unlock."Ah, Mr. Zane, I think there's been a misunderstanding," Commissioner Beaumont said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "The doctor I mentioned is already here."He hadn't expected Curry to blend so thoroughly into the background. The young man stood off to the side in plain clothes, drawing less attention than a piece of furniture.Thaddeus straightened at once, and excitement flickered across his features as he asked where the doctor was.Beaumont tilted his chin

"There's no need to be so grim about it, because this isn't some incurable death sentence." The voice cut through the ward's tension, and every head turned toward the doorway where fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting sterile glow across faces frozen mid-expression. Curry stood with his hands in his pockets, his posture as relaxed as if he had wandered into a coffee shop rather than a critical care suite. He leaned against the doorframe, let the silence stretch for a beat, then stepped inside and swept his gaze across the room, cataloging the monitors, the physicians clustered near the bed, and the family members rigid with grief. "Once the toxins are purged, the old lady could easily live another seven or eight years." The proclamation landed like a thunderclap. Master Vance had just pronounced the condition terminal, and now this young man, barely into his mid-twenties, was contradicting him with the casual confidence of someone correcting a minor arithmetic