2025-11-12 20:19:36“We've finally found you, Young Master,” A breathless, excited voice said from the other end of the line.
Declan’s pupils widened for just a second and his breath caught in his throat.
Then reality kicked in.
“Another scammer,” he muttered to himself as he ended the call.
Slipping his phone back into his Walmart uniform pocket, he looked down at the gift box in his hand.
A smile spread across his face.
Today was Valentine's day. Laura had been so sweet about it too. She'd told him not to worry about taking her out - she knew that he was occupied with handling both his academics and part-time work, so she didn't want to add his load.
But how could he not worry? He wanted to surprise her. Three months ago, she'd told him she wanted a Dior bag and a Lululemon two piece set while they were window shipping downtown.
The price tag had made his stomach drop - two thousand, eight hundred dollars on a ten dollar an hour wage. But he'd worked every shift he could get for months, skipped meals, scraped together every cent just to see her smile when she opened this box.
Laura deserved it. She never complained when he couldn't afford to take her out on dates. She was patient and understanding
That's why he wanted to do this for her.
Declan’s heart pounded with excitement as he stood outside her apartment door.
He could already picture the excitement on her face when she opened up this box.
The way her eyes would light up and she'd throw her arms around him and tell him that he didn't have to do this but he wanted to.
He took a deep breath and pushed open the door.
And his smile faded instantly.
There on the living room couch, tangled together, were Laura and his younger brother, Carlos.
Carlos’ hands were all over her, gripping her waist, sliding up her thighs.
Her dress was halfway up, showing skin Declan thought only he had seen.
They were kissing desperately like they couldn't get enough of each other.
The gift box fell from his hands and crashed to the floor.
Laura turned to him, shocked. Her lipstick was smeared and her hair was a mess. "Declan, what are you doing here?" she gasped as she pushed Carlos away from her. "I thought you said you had a night shift?”
Declan’s throat burned. For a couple of seconds, he couldn't get any words out.
The air felt too thick.
"I took the night off secretly, wishing to give you a surprise.” His voice came out bitter and raw.
"I spent nearly three months' worth of savings on this bag for you." He pointed at the box on the floor. "I've been helping you with your rent all this time. And this is how you repay me?”
Being questioned made her fly into a rage out of humiliation. She stood up from the couch, adjusting her dress, her eyes blazing. "You entered my home without permission! You violated my privacy! What kind of payback did you expect?”
Declan stared at her in disbelief. "You're cheating on me with my brother and you're talking about privacy?"
She let out a cold harsh laugh, shaking her head, “You guys are from the same family anyway. Does it make any difference who I sleep with? How is it even cheating?”
Each word hit like a knife to his chest. His teeth ground together and he stepped forward, his body tensing, ready to lunge. He couldn't breathe or even think straight.
Carlos sat up on the couch with a smirk plastered on his face like he'd just won something, “Why are you overreacting?" he said casually. "So what if I stole your girl?”
He leaned back against the couch again, completely relaxed like all this was some sort of joke to him.
“Don’t forget u were adopted into our family. Everything you have rightfully belongs to me, the real young master. You're just an ordinary orphan.”
“I'm not an orphan,” Declan shot back. He clenched his fists so hard his nails dug into his palms.
“Wake up, Declan,” Carlos said in a contemptuous tone. He stood up slowly and straightened his shirt, “You were nothing but a contingency plan. Mom and Dad thought they couldn't have kids, so they got you from some adoption agency. You know, as a backup. But then medical advances came along and boom, they had me. Their real son. Naturally, you got tossed aside."
Declan had always known he was adopted. His parents never hid it from him. But the way Derek said it, the way he threw it in his face like he was a worthless little thing made his blood boil.
Carlos walked over to the table and grabbed a bag, a brand new Hermès bag with the tags still on it.
He waved it in front of Declan's face, "With all the family resources at my disposal, I can easily get things you couldn't afford even after saving for a year. Hell, I could buy ten of these without blinking. So of course she chose me. Who wouldn't?”
Laura stepped forward, her heels clicking. She grabbed Carlos by the collar and kissed him hard. Then she pulled back, breathless, and pressed the Hermès bag against her chest.
"This is what a real man gets me," she purred, trailing her fingers down Carlos's jaw. "Not cheap garbage I have to pretend to like.”
She bent down and picked the box Declan had dropped, "Leave the bag and go," she said flatly, like she was dismissing a delivery guy.
"You don't deserve it," He said through gritted teeth.
Carlos's face twisted with rage. "How dare you speak to her that way!" He lunged at Declan, his fist flying toward his face.
Declan didn't have time to think. Carlos lunged at him, swinging wild and clumsy. Declan caught his wrist easily - years of hauling heavy stock had made his grip iron.
He twisted and threw a punch that connected hard with Carlos' jaw. Carlos went down like a sack of bricks, crashing into the coffee table. The glass shattered and he hit the floor, groaning as blood trickled from his split lip.
Laura screamed something but he didn't hear it. His ears were ringing. His vision was blurred with rage and pain and betrayal.
Without waiting to see if Carlos got back up, Declan turned and stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him so hard the walls shook.
The cold night air stung. He stumbled onto the street with shaky legs and trembling hands.
For a moment, he just stood there under a flickering streetlight.
His fists were clenched so tight that his nails drew blood from his palms.
His chest heaved as he took sharp breaths.
One day, he thought, he'd have the power to get back at everyone who'd wronged him.
Everyone who'd looked down on him, stepped on him, treated him like he was nothing.
Laura. Carlos. His adoptive parents who'd always favored Carlos over him and never failed to remind him of his position in the family.
Every single one of them. He would make sure they'd regret it.
Just then, his phone buzzed in his pocket.
He pulled it out, expecting to see another spam call. But what he saw on the screen made his heart stop.
**$100,000,000 deposited into account ending in 4829.**
**Balance: $100,000,247.83**
He blinked and rubbed his eyes rapidly. Was this a dream?
He looked again but the numbers remained the same.
"What the hell..." He whispered, counting the zeros one by one. One hundred million dollars in his account. His hands started shaking worse than before.
His phone rang. It was the same unknown number from earlier.
His hand trembled as he answered. "Hello?"
"Young master, please don't hang up," the voice said urgently. "I know you think I'm a scammer. That's why I just wired one hundred million dollars to your account. Check it. It's real. I can wait while you verify it with your bank if you need to.”
Declan's mouth went dry.
He stared at the notification again, his heart pounding so hard he could hear it in his ears. This couldn't be real.
It had to be some kind of mistake. But he could see the numbers right there, glowing on his screen.
"Who... who are you?" He managed to say, his voice barely above a whisper.
"My name is Franklin. I'm the head butler of the Steele Family. And you, young master, are the heir we've been searching for.”
The Steele Family.
His mind reeled. That name echoed through his head.
The Steele Family was one of the top oligarch families in the country.
Everyone knew their name. They controlled industries, influenced politics, and owned half the city's real estate.
They were the kind of people you only saw on the news or in Forbes magazine.
The real untouchables.
And this man was saying he was their heir?
"That's impossible," Declan said, his voice shaking.
"It's not impossible, young master," Franklin said gently. "It's the truth. You are the young master of the Steele Family. And we've finally found you.”
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Chapter 0309 - The Compromise
Chapter Three Hundred and Two – The CompromiseHis wife said she needed three weeks to rebuild what the server attack had destroyed and to verify that the replacement systems hadn’t been compromised, said she needed that time to ensure that whoever had infiltrated her organization during the previous attack had not left backdoors or hidden access points that would allow ongoing monitoring of her organization’s work.Declan said three weeks was acceptable, said that operational timeline allowed for coordination with coalition resources and allowed time for his daughter to develop further positioning within Continuum’s recruitment systems, said that three weeks was strategically viable.His wife replied that three weeks wasn’t fine with her, but she would manage it.The distinction was important and he understood it immediately.She was not saying three weeks was an acceptable timeline, was not agreeing that the schedule worked for her personally or professionally, was saying that she w
Chapter 0308 - The Pressure
The executive who found the irregularity had done so by accident in ways that suggested either extraordinary luck or the kind of attention to detail that prevented people from becoming victims of sophisticated deception.He had cross-referenced a technical specification contained in the acquisition target’s documentation against a public research paper he had happened to read the week before the acquisition was scheduled to close, had noticed that the code comments in the paper matched the acquisition target’s internal documentation almost word for word, had recognized that such perfect correspondence could not be coincidental.No legitimate company would copy code comments directly from published research without modification.The match suggested that someone had taken publicly available code and embedded it inside proprietary systems, had created fake documentation designed to pass cursory review, had constructed an entire acquisition designed to appear legitimate while actually ser
Chapter 0307 - the infiltration
Meanwhile at D Corporation, which had rebuilt itself steadily over the decade following The Court’s collapse and which now operated again as one of the country’s more significant conglomerates under management that Declan had carefully selected but did not directly control, a senior executive requested an urgent meeting with the board.The executive’s name was Patricia Morrison, someone Declan had recruited years ago specifically because she possessed both the business acumen to run a major corporation and the moral clarity to resist pressure to compromise that acumen for short-term profit.She had discovered irregularities in a recent acquisition.The irregularities were subtle, were the kind of discrepancies that would be invisible to most executives reviewing acquisition due diligence, were carefully constructed to appear as normal variations in data collection and analysis methodology, were designed to survive cursory investigation while containing fundamental falsifications.When
Chapter 0306 - Enough
Nathan had been patient long enough.He sat in his office at Vanguard Corporation, looking at the latest reports from his team. Apex was still standing. Still operating. Still holding its ground despite everything he had thrown at them over the past week. The supplier acquisition hadn't been activated yet, the surveillance on the Harper girl hadn't produced anything useful, and the hacking attempt had been blocked clean.None of it had worked the way it was supposed to.He picked up his phone and made a call.Frank Chen answered on the second ring."I have a proposal for you," Nathan said.There was a short silence on the other end. "I'm listening.""You know Apex better than anyone. You spent twenty years inside that company. You know how it works, where it's vulnerable, who can be turned." Nathan leaned back in his chair. "I want you to use that knowledge.""In exchange for what?" Frank asked."A senior position at Vanguard. Compensation that makes what Apex was paying you look like
Chapter 0305 - The Deepening
Declan did not lose his temper.He had spent too many years learning what that cost, had learned during his years in The Court’s systems that anger was a luxury only people with power could afford, had learned that reacting emotionally to threat closed off the strategic options that required clear thinking and measured response.But his wife, watching his face from across the room where she had been reading, quietly set down her book and waited.She understood what that particular stillness in his expression meant, understood that he was processing information that changed the entire landscape of what they were facing, understood that rage was building behind careful control and that her role was simply to be present while he determined how to respond.He told his daughter to keep communicating with Adrian and not to pull back suddenly.The words came out with the precision of someone who had learned to give orders that could not be questioned, someone who understood that the instruct
Chapter 0304 - The Recognition
The Lin family woman called Declan on a Thursday morning before he had finished his first coffee, called with the kind of urgency that suggested she had discovered something that could not wait for formal meeting or secure channel or any of the standard protocols designed to protect sensitive information.She didn’t say hello.She said she had a name.The name wasn’t Adrian.It belonged to someone much older, someone who had been completely invisible in Declan’s understanding of what had survived The Court’s collapse, someone who had never been tried because they had never been found, someone who had disappeared so completely that everyone working with Declan had assumed either death or successful escape beyond the reach of any investigation.For ten years, Declan and everyone working with the Lin family woman and the coalition networks had operated under the assumption that this person was gone, was either dead in the chaos of The Court’s collapse or had escaped to some location wher
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