10-Year Trial: Reclaiming My Trillionaire Bloodline

Chapter Four

The brushed-gold elevator doors slid open. Butler Thomas stepped out, his spine straight, his posture immaculate. The moment his polished leather shoes touched the dark Italian marble, Senior Analyst Victoria and the six regional executives around the table stood as one.

In unison, they bowed their heads, breaking into a slow, measured applause that echoed against the glass walls.

Leo stood frozen in his rain-soaked canvas jacket. Water dripped steadily from his elbows onto the pristine floor, forming a dirty puddle around his scuffed, grease-stained work boots. His chest still heaved from sprinting up the stairwell, his throat burning with cold air.

"Young Master Vance," Butler Thomas said, stopping three paces away and bowing deeply from the waist. "Welcome home."

Leo didn't clap. He didn't bow. His eyes darted with guarded intensity between the bowing executives and the old man in front of him.

"What home?" Leo asked, his voice sharp and hoarse. "Are you... are you the person who called my phone?"

"Yes, Young Master," Thomas replied, raising his head with a faint, respectful smile. "It took some time, but you are finally here. I offered to send a car to collect you, but somehow you found your way to us on your own."

Leo wiped rainwater from his brow, his fingers trembling slightly from adrenaline. "What is this place? Who are these people?"

"A gathering of the elite," Thomas said smoothly, gesturing faintly toward the bowed figures.

"What are you talking about?" Leo pressed, taking a heavy step forward, his knuckles white. "What kind of elite?"

"Like I told you on the phone," Thomas explained, his tone firm yet gentle. "Your ten-year trial has officially concluded. These individuals are the regional directors of the Apex Association, waiting to receive their leader."

Leo stared at him, bitter anger flushing through his chest. "Why was I allowed to suffer?"

The applause died instantly. A tense, sharp silence descended upon the room. One of the senior executives near the back exchanged a nervous, quiet glance with the director beside him.

"For ten years, I lived in a rat-infested room," Leo said, his raspy voice cutting through the quiet. "I starved myself to pay off debts for a woman who just threw me away like trash. I picked up garbage on the street while Marcus Sterling tossed money at my feet. If I belong to this family... why was I left to rot in the gutter?"

Butler Thomas didn't flinch. His expression softened into solemn understanding.

"It was the Sacred Mandate of the Vance Bloodline," Thomas said softly. "A rule every heir must endure before transitioning to head the Apex Association. A ruler who has never known cold cannot protect the vulnerable. A master who has never known hunger will be consumed by his own greed. The Patriarch bound you to a ten-year Poverty Trial so that when you take power, no amount of wealth can ever corrupt you."

"And what did I gain from ten years of misery?" Leo challenged, bracing his hand against the edge of the mahogany table to steady his weary frame.

Victoria tapped her silver tablet. Above the mahogany table, a high-resolution projection flared to life, displaying scrolling ledgers, commercial banking networks, shipping fleets, and industrial holdings.

"The Apex Association's primary financial arm, the Apex Trust, holds controlling equity in thirty-two commercial banks," Thomas listed calmly. "Seventy percent of international rare-earth mining concessions, deep-water shipping corridors, and defense networks."

"How much are they worth?" Leo cut him off flatly.

Thomas folded his hands behind his back. "In liquid valuation, equity, and unlisted sovereign holdings... approximately fifteen trillion dollars."

A quiet gasp escaped one of the executives at the end of the table. Leo’s breath caught in his throat. He stared at the glowing numbers, his mind struggling to process the scale. A billion was staggering—fifteen trillion was unfathomable.

Then, his survival instincts kicked back in. He searched for the trap.

"Wait," Leo said, narrowing his eyes at Thomas. "If my family—if my grandfather had this kind of money... why isn't he on Forbes? Why isn't the Vance name plastered across the news or listed among the world's richest families?"

Thomas smiled faintly. "The Forbes list is for people who need the public to validate their existence. Your grandfather had no interest in media lists. The billionaires on Forbes beg governments for operating permits; your grandfather made presidents."

The cold gravity of the statement hung in the room. Leo looked down at his grease-stained hands, a sudden, heavy ache settling in his chest as his thoughts turned to his own blood.

"If this trial was a mandate for the heir..." Leo’s voice dropped, his gaze locking back onto Thomas with sudden, fierce intensity. "Where were my parents during those ten years? Were they forced into the gutter too, or did you abandon them the same way?"

Thomas’s posture stiffened slightly. A shadow crossed his aged eyes before disappearing behind an unreadable mask of absolute discretion.

"That... is a story for another time, Young Master."

Leo’s eyes narrowed into slits, a cold flare of anger sparking in his chest. "Really? You expect me to accept a mountain of gold from strangers who won't even tell me if my own mother and father are alive?"

"Young Master," Thomas said, bowing his head lower, his tone heavy with unyielding reverence. "The truth of your parents is bound by the highest security protocols of the Apex Association. Until you officially assume the supreme mandate, I am legally forbidden from speaking their names. It is not to mock you—it is to protect you."

Beside the tablet, Senior Analyst Victoria silently slid a sleek black leather folder bearing the gold Vance seal across the mahogany table, stopping it directly in front of Leo.

Leo stared at the leather folder, his jaw set so tight a muscle twitched in his cheek. He realized the game being played. Without the Vance authority in his hands, he was just an outsider asking questions they had no obligation to answer. If he wanted the truth about his parents, he had to take the crown first.

Leo turned his cold gaze toward Butler Thomas, looking at the folder not as a gift, but as a weapon.

"So I need the Seal to get my answers," Leo said, his voice dropping into an icy, dangerous calm. "Fine. You said on the phone that I needed to fulfill a prerequisite before everything is formally transferred to me. What is it?"