2026-01-05 16:33:46The taxi crawled through Meridian City's morning traffic. Kai Walker sat in the back seat, watching the skyline shift from shabby mid-rise buildings to gleaming corporate towers.
The driver, a middle-aged man with graying temples, kept glancing at the rearview mirror. Finally, curiosity got the better of him.
"Zenith Corporation, you said?" He eyed Kai's plain black t-shirt and faded jeans. "You work there?"
"No."
"Job interview?"
"Not exactly. Just going to take a look." Kai's gaze remained fixed on the approaching skyscraper. "The CEO there works for me."
The driver's chuckle died in his throat. His eyes flicked to the mirror again, this time with something between pity and amusement.
Poor delusional kid. Probably watched too many CEO dramas. The driver shook his head internally. Next he'll tell me he's secretly a billionaire.
"Right. Sure he does, kid," the driver said aloud, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "And I'm best friends with the mayor. You need me to drop you at a hospital instead? Get your head checked?"
Kai didn't respond.
The driver snorted. "Look, son, I've been driving this cab for twenty years. You know how many kids like you I've seen? Walking into these big buildings thinking they're gonna be somebody? The world doesn't work like that. Those people up there?" He jerked his thumb toward Zenith Tower. "They'd step over you without even noticing."
Silence filled the cab for the rest of the drive.
When they pulled up to Zenith Tower's entrance, the driver just took the fare and drove off, shaking his head.
Kai stood on the sidewalk, tilting his head back to take in the full height of the building. Fifty-three floors of dark glass and steel. Ten years ago, Master Donovan had set this up for him. Now, Vincent had turned it into something magnificent.
He straightened his shoulders and walked through the revolving doors.
The lobby was a cathedral of marble and chrome. Water features trickled along one wall. Abstract sculptures dotted the space. Men and women in expensive suits moved with purpose, their footsteps clicking against polished floors.
Kai made it three steps before a voice stopped him.
"Excuse me, sir?"
The receptionist looked up from her desk. She was young, professional, with dark hair pulled into a neat bun. "Can I help you?"
"I need to see Vincent Shaw."
Her smile tightened. Around them, several people in the lobby turned to look. A businessman in a three-piece suit paused mid-stride. Two women near the elevator bank stopped their conversation.
"Mr. Shaw?" The receptionist's voice rose slightly. "Do you have an appointment?"
"No. But if you call him and tell him I'm here, he'll come down."
Whispers rippled through the lobby.
"—did he just say Vincent Shaw would come down—"
"—what's this kid thinking—"
"—probably doesn't even know who he's talking about—"
The receptionist forced a polite smile. "I'm sorry, but Mr. Shaw is extremely busy. Without an appointment, he won't see anyone. If you'd like to submit a formal request through our website—"
"Just call him," Kai interrupted quietly. "Tell him Kai Walker is in the lobby."
“Sir, I really wish I could, but..." Her voice held genuine regret, like she actually wanted to help but her hands were tied. "That's not how this works. Mr. Shaw has protocols. I could lose my job if I—”
"He will for me."
A businessman let out a short snort, and the whispers in the room grew louder.
The receptionist reached for her phone.
"Ms. Park."
A woman’s voice sliced through the lobby—smooth but firm, carrying unmistakable authority.
Every head turned. The crowd immediately straightened, several people offering hasty greetings.
"Good morning, Ms. Hwang—"
"Ms. Hwang, wonderful to see you—"
The woman who approached was tall, probably in her early thirties, with sharp features. Her burgundy suit was perfectly tailored, her heels adding another three inches to her already impressive height. She moved with the confidence of someone who knew exactly how much power she wielded.
Claire Hwang's gaze swept the scene and landed on Kai.
"What's going on here, Ms. Park?"
The receptionist looked visibly relieved. "This young man is insisting on seeing Mr. Shaw without an appointment. I was just explaining—"
"I see." Claire's attention fixed on Kai. She looked him up and down. "And you are?"
"Kai Walker. I need to speak with Vincent Shaw."
"Mr. Shaw doesn't take walk-in meetings." Claire's voice was cold. "Particularly not with unscheduled visitors."
"He'll make an exception."
Claire's expression hardened. She turned to Ms. Park, her voice rising just enough to carry across the lobby.
"Is Mr. Shaw someone you can see just because you want to? Should we start letting every person off the street demand his time? Today it's him, tomorrow it's someone else, what about the day after? Ms. Park, if you can't handle basic screening procedures, perhaps you'd be better suited to working in the warehouse!"
Ms. Park's face flushed. "I'm sorry, Ms. Hwang. I was just—"
"I'll handle this." Claire turned back to Kai. "Young man, I suggest you leave now. Be sensible. Walk out that door with your dignity intact."
Kai didn't move.
Claire's eyes narrowed. "The security here isn't just for show, don't make this difficult."
Kai remained where he stood.
Claire's patience snapped. She gestured sharply to the security guards positioned near the walls. "Security! Teach this man a lesson."
Three guards in dark uniforms moved forward. Their hands rested on their belts, near their weapons. The crowd pulled out their phones, some could barely suppress their excitement.
A jolt of shock rippled through the lobby. This was the kind of drama people would talk about for weeks.
Kai's expression didn't change. He stood calm and composed, his body shifting slightly as he prepared to move.
"STOP!"
The voice exploded through the lobby like a gunshot. Everyone froze.
Vincent Shaw stood by the elevators, his face pale with shock, then flushed with fury. His hand was raised, commanding absolute attention.
"Everyone," he said, his voice carrying across the marble floor. "Stop. Now."
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Chapter 48
The pillow barrier came down on a Tuesday.Neither of them announced it. Kai moved the pillows back to the headboard stack before Lila came out of the bathroom and when she emerged and saw the bed she looked at it for a moment and then got in on her side without comment. He turned off the lamp on his side. She turned off hers.The dark was the same dark as before. The distance was different.He was aware of her in the specific way you are aware of someone when the physical boundary that had been organizing that awareness is removed. The sound of her breathing. The particular way the mattress registered her weight and position. He lay on his back and looked at the ceiling and thought about the legal deadline and the evidence package Patricia was compiling and whether any of it would be sufficient and then made himself stop thinking about it because that was not a useful way to spend the night.He fell asleep eventually.He woke at two-seventeen by the clock on the nightstand, sitting u
Chapter 47
The conference room was on the third floor of a building that housed family court mediation services, which meant the walls were painted the particular shade of institutional beige that communicated neutrality and produced the opposite effect. Kai sat at the table with their lawyer, Patricia Chen, and looked at the beige walls and thought about how Richard had managed to make this happen in a week.The answer was that Richard had probably been preparing it for longer than a week and had filed when the moment suited him. The gala coverage had forced his hand. A positive morning in the papers was a shrinking window and Richard understood windows.The opposing lawyer was a man named Forsythe who had the specific manner of someone who had been paid to be unpleasant and had made peace with that. He arranged his documents on the table with the deliberateness of someone who wanted you to see how many there were.The judge overseeing the preliminary hearing was a woman named Caldwell, mid-six
Chapter 46
The morning papers arrived at seven and Vincent sent the digital links twenty minutes before that. Kai read them at the desk in Marcus's study, which had been cleaned and lit properly now that the generators were running permanently, and which he had been spending more time in than the master bedroom.The coverage was better than he had expected and he understood why immediately. The venue story had leaked before the gala, which meant the journalists who attended had arrived expecting a visible failure and found something else instead. Failure redeemed made a better story than success maintained. He understood this. He had given them the narrative they needed and they had used it.The Thorne Heir's Dramatic Return, one headline read. Another called the ruins venue audacious. A third ran a photograph of the entrance arch with the string lights visible through it and a caption about legacy reclaimed. Gerald Vance was quoted in one piece saying he found the evening impressive. Mrs. Black
Chapter 45
The first cars arrived at seven-thirty.Kai watched them from the entrance arch, the headlights moving up the drive through the cleared grounds, and thought about the last time vehicles had come up this road. Ten years ago they would have been fire trucks. He let the thought arrive and pass and straightened his jacket.The transformation held. That was the thing he hadn't been certain of until this moment, standing in it with other people present. In the daylight it had looked like ambition applied to wreckage. In the evening, with the string lights running through the open roof frames and along the standing walls and across the garden where the crews had cleared a decade of growth, it looked like something else. The blackened stone caught the light differently than new stone would have. The empty window frames became architecture. The collapsed east wing, carefully bordered and left as it was, looked intentional, a monument rather than a ruin.He heard a woman near the entrance say i
Chapter 44
The decision came at eleven-thirty at night, which was probably relevant to how it got made.Kai was sitting in Eleanor's study with a list of venues Vincent had compiled, each one annotated with capacity, availability, and the specific way it fell short of the Aldridge. A hotel ballroom that could manage the numbers but carried the aesthetic of a corporate conference. A private club that was technically available but whose membership list overlapped significantly with the people most likely to interpret the change as retreat. A rooftop space that was too small and too casual and would reframe the entire event in a way that served Richard's narrative rather than dismantling it.He set the list down and thought about the property Eleanor had returned to him.Lila was at the other end of the desk when he said it. She looked up from the catering contract she had been trying to salvage."The Thorne estate," he said.She looked at him for a moment. "Kai.""It's my property. It's large enou
Chapter 43
The rehearsal dinner was Lila's idea, framed as a practical necessity. Twelve guests, people who would be at the gala and who carried enough social weight that getting them wrong on the night would have consequences. A dry run, she called it. An opportunity to practice before the actual event.Kai understood the logic. He did not enjoy the three days leading up to it.Lila had constructed a system. Index cards, which she presented without irony, each one carrying a name, a face pulled from a social directory, a brief history of the relevant relationships, and the specific things that should not be said. She went through them with him at the desk in Eleanor's study each evening, running the stack like flashcards, asking questions, correcting errors, starting again.He was not good at it.The problem wasn't retention. He could retain information. The problem was that the information felt constructed, a scaffolding of social facts assembled to simulate familiarity that didn't exist, and
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