Benjamin Wayne's Rise to Power

Benjamin's POV

"We've finally found you, young master." The caller who sounded a little bit over-excited, said over the phone. My breath caught almost instantly. 

Young master? Me? Was there even the slightest—no. The whole thing seemed a bit too shallow and I immediately sensed what this was. 

"Sorry man, but you hit the wrong target today." I replied and immediately hung up.

I, Benjamin? A young master? I scoffed at the thought of it. The lengths at which people go these days to rip others of their hard earned cash. 

"Scammers." I muttered, before slipping the phone into the pockets of the Walmart uniform I was putting on.

I shifted my gaze back to the red gift box I had been holding all along and smiled. Some months ago, Rose had talked about getting this exact handbag, but due to the pricetag—$23 thousand—attached to it I couldn't afford it at the time. 

Today was valentine day and what better way to make her happy than to surprise her with it.

The box wasn’t too large, but it still felt heavy with meaning. Three months of late-night shifts, skipped meals, and double shifts at the warehouse had gone into it. I’d hidden the bag carefully in the staff locker all week, counting down the hours. Rose had even told me I didn’t need to bother doing anything for her this year, as she wanted me to focus on my classes and save money, but that only made me want to do more.

I stood outside her apartment, my fingers curling around the satin ribbon tied neatly on the red box. For a second, I pictured her face—wide eyes, that half smile she gave when she was genuinely surprised, her arms slipping around my neck in that quick, grateful hug and the thought made my chest warm. 

I brushed my hair back, steadied my breath, and pressed down on the door handle.

The door creaked open and I stepped inside before I could second-guess myself.

Her laugh hit first, soft but unmistakable, then followed by a deeper voice that froze the air in my lungs. 

Rose and Ryan.

My girlfriend and my younger brother.

Both of them were tangled together on the living room couch, Rose's blouse half open and Ryan's hand tracing her bare shoulder. 

The red gift box slid from my hand, crashing against the floor with a dull thud.

For a moment, I couldn’t move. My vision blurred, and everything around me slowed, like I’d slipped out of my own body. 

“Ben?” Rose called out as her head snapped around. “What are you—what are you doing here? I thought you had the night shift!”

The words barely reached me. 

“I… took the night off,” I managed to say, my voice quieter than I expected. “I wanted to surprise you. I’ve been saving up for months just to buy this for you.” My gaze dropped to the broken ribbon and the expensive bag now half-sliding out of the box. 

“Rose... I even helped you with rent.” I looked back up at her, the hurt rising in my throat. “This is how you repay me?”

She blinked rapidly, and I could see the embarrassment on her face. “You came into my house, without my permission,” she snapped. “Do you even realize what you just did, Benjamin? You invaded my privacy!”

“Privacy?” My voice rose, cracking slightly. “You’re cheating on me—with my brother—and you’re talking about privacy?”

Her lips curved into a cold, humorless smile. “Cheating?” she echoed. “Ben, you two are from the same family. Sleeping with one or the other—what difference does it make?”

The air drained from my chest immediately she said that. I just stood there, dumbfounded. Those words were too cruel to be real.

"Adopted, Rosy. He's adopted." Ryan chipped in and I shifted my gaze to him. 

He then leaned back on the couch, his arm still lazily draped around her shoulders. “Besides man, you’re overreacting,” he said smugly. 

Overreacting? The word hit me like a punch to the face. Did he just say I was overreacting? This is my girlfriend we're talking about and you think I am overreacting? 

“So what if I stole your girl? I mean... you should have known she’d eventually want someone who could give her more than cheap gifts.”

My stomach twisted. That right there was the height of it. “Ryan,” I said through clenched teeth, “that's enough.”

He laughed. “What? You're gonna report to my parents? Oh, so you seriously think you’re one of us? You really don’t get it, do you?” He stood up, brushing imaginary dust from his shirt, looking down at me like I was some stranger. “Let me make this clearer for you then." He added, then walked up to me.

"You... were... adopted, Ben." He said poking his index finger at my chest three times. One for each word. "An orphan we took in because my parents thought they couldn’t have kids. You were just a placeholder until the real son came along. Me.”

In that moment, everything went silent—everything except for Ryan.

“You should be thanking us, Benjamin,” he continued. “If it weren’t for my parents’ pity, you’d still be rotting in some group home. 

“Ryan—” I began, but my voice trailed off

"You don’t belong in our family, Benjamin. You never did.” He added.

Ryan reached over to the table and grabbed a sleek Hermès bag, flaunting it like a trophy. “This? I bought this for her today. It’s real luxury, Ben. Not something you scrape together with months of minimum wage. That’s what women like her deserve.”

Rose smirked, sliding her hand along the bag’s leather strap before turning to me. “Just leave the box and go, Ben.”

I had been awfully quiet for some seconds but when she said those words, I felt something crack inside me and I stared at her for a long moment. The woman I’d thought I loved looked like... a stranger.

“You don’t deserve it,” I said quietly.

Her face hardened and in that split second, Ryan lunged at me. “What did you just say to her?”

Before I could react, his fist came swinging toward my face. The blow glanced off my jaw, sharp and clumsy. And everything snapped back into motion. I grabbed his wrist, twisted it, and shoved him backward. He stumbled, knocking over a vase. But I didn’t stop there. The anger I’d swallowed for years, the insults, everything surged all at once. 

My fist connected with his face, once, then again, and again, and again, until he hit the floor with a groan.

Rose screamed, rushing to his side. I just stood there, chest heaving. My knuckles burned, but I didn’t care. I was done being spat on, being looked down upon.

“You can both go to hell.” I said finally, my voice low, almost calm. Then I turned and walked out before she could say another word.

The cold night air slapped against my face as I stepped onto the street. For a moment, I just stood there, staring at the traffic lights flickering red and green over the empty crosswalk. My breath came out in shallow bursts. My hands shook. Everything I’d built, every effort to make things right, to belong somewhere, felt like it had collapsed in a single evening.

I pressed a hand to my forehead and laughed bitterly. “One day,” I muttered under my breath, “I’ll have the power to get back at every one of you.”

Just then, my phone vibrated.

I frowned, pulling it out of my pocket. It was the same number as before and I almost ignored it, but something—something made me swipe to answer.

“Listen,” I started, my voice tight. “I told you earlier, I’m not—”

Before I could finish, the man’s voice came through again, calm and clear this time. “Young master, I understand your doubts,” he said. “So I’ve sent something to your account to prove to you that I’m not lying.”

“What?” I asked.

“Check your balance,” he said simply then hung up.

I hesitated for a moment, before opening my mobile banking app. But when I did, my fingers froze midair.

One hundred million dollars.

The number blinked up at me like a hallucination, long strings of zeros dancing beneath my name. My throat tightened. “What the hell?”

The phone rang again before I could process it. I pressed it to my ear slowly, heart pounding.

“Now you believe me, young master?” the man said, his tone even more formal than before. “I am your family’s butler and we’ve been searching for you for years.”

"Searching?" I asked confused. Everything seemed like a dream. Like one of those stories you read on some w******l platform.

"You are the rightful heir of the Wayne Family." He replied. 

I couldn’t breathe. The world—everything, felt so unreal.

The Wayne Family?

Weren't the Waynes the most powerful oligarch family in the country.