2026-02-26 11:59:47“Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, the students of Braxton College are about to change the world!”
The thunderous, unanimous applause from the nine hundred and fifty-plus audience members was clear evidence that this would not only be a significant night for Braxton University, but it would be the biggest event any university would ever host in the entire history of America.
Students were ready, professors were ready, investors were ready, everyone was eager to see what the brilliant minds of Braxton had to offer.
It was the biggest, long-awaited Demo Day for Braxton. For the students, this meant a secured future, dream come true, and lots of cash. For the professors, this meant joy and pride in their achievements. And for the investors, this was like buying a rare plant for pennies before it grew into a money tree.
But for Nathan? This was more than a mere dream coming true. This was his life’s work. He would finally be respected and loved by everyone who had ever mocked him because he was poor.
“Everyone would you look at this?? Walter is here too!” a voice whispered through the silence from the backseat. “What did you create, dipshit? Oooh.. let me guess, an AI brush that washes toilets better than you do, huh?”
The students around who heard the jab all laughed heartily, trying not to be too loud. Nathan didn't have to look up to know who it was. Mark, the son of the university’s proprietor, along with three of his friends, all Nathan’s bullies. Mark was draped in a tailored Italian blazer that probably cost more than Nathan’s tuition.
“Cut it out, Mark. Be nice and stay quiet!”
That wasn’t Nathan, that was Amanda, Nathan’s girlfriend. She squeezed Nathan’s hand, her palm surprisingly clammy.
Nathan didn't turn around. He just stared at the stage, his chest felt tight, like his heart was trying to punch its way out.. He was used to Mark. He was used to the insults about his worn out hoodies and the fact that he walked everywhere because he couldn’t afford an Uber, let alone a car. None of that mattered tonight.
Tonight was his night. Tonight felt like a wall between the life Nathan had lived and the one he was about to start. The night he would show the world his life’s project and the night he would finally propose to his girlfriend to be his fiancee’ in front of the world. He was so excited.
In his hand, he gripped the ring box so hard that the corners dug into his palm. It was a cheap blue velvet box he’d found at a thrift shop, but the ring inside was real silver, bought with the very last of the money he hadn't poured into the machine.
“You’re shaking,” a voice whispered.
Nathan turned. Amanda was looking at him, her eyes bright under the gloomy backstage lights. She looked incredible in the black dress he’d saved up for weeks to buy her. He’d told her it was an investment in their future. She had even kissed him then, a long, soft kiss that made him feel like his life’s savings he had spent on the project didn't matter.
“It’s the biggest night of our lives,” Nathan said, his voice a bit raspy. “six months, Amanda. Every night in that cramped basement. It’s finally ready.”
“It’s more than ready,” she replied, reaching out to straighten his collar. He was wearing his only suit, a charcoal one that was a little loose in the shoulders. “You are literally about to change the world. And soon, everyone will respect you! The world isn't ready for what you built, Nate.”
“What ‘we’ built,” he corrected her.
She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes this time. “Right. We. Um.. listen, I... I need to go to the restroom. My nerves are shot. I’ll be back before the MC calls our names, okay?”
“Hurry,” he said, giving her hand a quick squeeze. “We’re after the next two people.”
She nodded and slipped away into the shadows of the hallway. Nathan leaned against an equipment crate, taking a deep breath. He checked the flash drive in his pocket, the one containing the final source code for the Quantum Machine. Check! He also confirmed that the box was sitting right next to him. Check!! In it was the prototype of the Quantum Machine!
Meanwhile, the main physical machine, a sleek, beautiful cube of obsidian and glass, was already positioned behind the center stage riser, hidden by a black tarp.
He looked at his watch. 7:45 PM.
Just then, Mark and his three friends stood up to leave.
“Leaving so soon, Mark?” Nathan asked, trying to keep his voice steady. “I thought you were up next.”
“I am. I’m just making sure the help hasn't tripped over the power cords,” Mark sneered, stepping into Nathan’s personal space. “I can’t wait to see what’s in your fucking box, Walters. Who knows, maybe a live chicken with no feathers!”
Mark’s friends erupted into laughter. One of them pushed Nathan’s shoulder, making him stumble back against the box.
“It’s a Quantum Machine,” Nathan said, his jaw tight. “Something your father’s money couldn't buy.”
Mark’s face darkened. He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a low, vicious hiss. “You think a few equations make you one of us? Look at you. You’re a fucking charity case, Nathan. You’re the kid who washes the floors while we decide the future of the world. Even if you built a time machine, nobody would buy it from a guy who looks like he buys his fucking clothes at a fucking garage sale.”
“We’ll see about that when the bidding starts,” Nathan replied.
Mark smirked, a satisfied look crossing his face. “Yeah. I guess we will, blockhead!”
He turned and walked toward the stage entrance, his entourage following him like a pack of hyenas. Nathan checked his watch again. 7:52 PM. Amanda should have been back by now.
The MC’s voice boomed through the speakers. “And now, a project that promises to redefine technology as we know it. Please welcome the son of our own illustrious Proprietor, Mark Epstein!"
The applause was thunderous. Nathan frowned. Mark wasn't a programmer. He wasn't an engineer. He was even horribly bad at math. He spent his nights at clubs and his days hungover in the back of lecture halls, yapping like a frog. What could he possibly be presenting? His father had probably paid some professional to cook something up for him. As expected.
The anxiety started as a small spark in Nathan’s chest. He checked his phone. No texts from Amanda. He called her. ‘The person you are trying to reach is unavailable. Please leave a…’
“Amanda, come on,” he muttered.
He slipped out of the backstage area and headed toward the restrooms in the east wing. He had to find her. They were next. The plan was for them to walk out together, hands held high. And of course, he kneels down and proposes to her after the bidding is complete.
As he ran down the polished marble hallway, he saw a group of girls.. Amanda’s friends… standing near the water fountain. They were all dressed in high-end fashion, clutching champagne flutes. When they saw Nathan running toward them, they didn't hide their smirks.
“Oh look, it’s the boy genius,” one of them said, blocking his path. “Are you looking for your better half, Nathan Walter?”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 216: The Chamber
Nobody moved.Nineteen people sat around that table, and not one of them made a sound. They had all just watched the same thing, and they were all thinking the same thought. The ground under this family had a trapdoor in it. And somebody had just pulled the lever.Nathan walked back to the foot of the table. He stayed on his feet."Ronav Walters. Abigail Walters-Croft." No anger in his voice now. That was the scary part. The anger had been used up somewhere else, days ago, in private. What was left was just business.Nathan continued, "Sixty-two million dollars. Eleven years. Two hundred and seven counts. You stole from every single person sitting here. From the aunts whose trusts you skimmed. From the cousins whose inheritance you priced into your own pockets. Fro
Chapter 215: Receipts
The first document was a wire transfer.It was small, as these things went. Four hundred thousand dollars, eleven years old, moving from a Walters real estate subsidiary into a consulting firm in Zurich that had no employees, no office, and no function except to exist. Dwayne laid a copy in front of every chair like a dealer at a card table, unhurried, letting the paper do its own talking."The Meridian Shore purchase everyone is so concerned about," Nathan said, "was real. It was also bait. Not for me. I wasn't in the country. It was structured, eleven years ago, as a place to hide this." He tapped the page. "One payment. The first one. There are two hundred and six others."The second document was a chart, and the chart was where the room stopped breathing.It was simple by design. Nathan had spent four of his eighty-six hours making it simple, because a boardroom does not convict on complexity, it convicts on shape, and the shape was unmistakable. Eleven years of money leaving the
Chapter 214: Raw!
"Why should this family trust a review conducted by a boy with eight days of experience?" The whole table held still. It was the question underneath every other question, the one they'd all carried in with their coffee. "You shouldn't," Nathan said. Cordelia's eyebrows rose a quarter inch. "Trust isn't what I'm asking for," he said. "Every figure I've cited this morning has a document number attached. The documents are in this room. Check me. Check all of it. I'd encourage it, honestly, because a Walters who asks to be trusted instead of checked is usually about to cost this family money." He looked at her, level, respectful, unafraid. "I didn't come here to be believed, Aunt. I came here to be verified. There's a difference, and the difference is the whole job." Cordelia stared at him. Eighty-one years of stares had gone into the making of this one, and lesser men than Nathan had confessed to crimes under weaker versions of it. Then she picked her pen back up, and
Chapter 213: The Long Table
The grand boardroom of the Walters estate had not been used, truly used, in six years.It sat at the very heart of the main house like a chamber of state. One table, forty feet of black walnut cut from a single tree, polished until the ceiling lights lay on its surface like coins at the bottom of a well. Nineteen chairs. No windows. Sage had built it that way on purpose. In this room, there was no weather, no time of day, no world outside. There was only the family, and the truth, and whichever of the two proved stronger.By nine o'clock, every chair was full.They had begun arriving at half past eight, and the seating itself was a war conducted in silence. Aunt Cordelia, eighty-one and the oldest living Walters, took the chair at Sage's right hand as birthright and dared anyone with her eyes. Uncle Amos, who ran shipping out of Singapore and had flown sixteen hours for this, positioned himself dead center where he could watch both ends of the table at once, which was Amos all over. P
Chapter 212: Knots
Friday arrived like every other day. Quietly, and exactly on schedule.In the east wing, Ronav Walters rose before the sun out of forty years of monastic habit and sat for a long time on the edge of his bed, prayer beads moving through his fingers, click by click, like a man counting down instead of counting blessings. He dressed in gray. He had read somewhere, decades ago, that gray was the color judges trusted. He had never needed the information until today.Two floors down, Abigail Walters-Croft stood at her mirror and applied her makeup with the slow, surgical care of a woman preparing for a photograph that would outlive her. She had slept four hours and looked like she'd slept nine. That was a skill. It had cost her thirty years and two marriages to learn it, and she intended to spend it all this morning.In a modest room in the south wing, modest by choice, Theodore Walters knotted a charcoal tie he had owned for eleven years and drank his tea standing up, reading through a slim
Chapter 211: The Beekeeper Writes Back
Nathan's breath left him in a short, sharp sound, somewhere between a gasp and a growl, before he could stop it.Across the room, Dwayne was upright in under a second, one hand already halfway to the sidearm holstered at his hip, his eyes wide and instantly, fully awake."Report," Dwayne said, voice rough but urgent, already scanning the room for the threat.Nathan's jaw worked. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, half-formed instructions already lining up — ‘trace this, break the encryption, get me an address, get me a team… do this, do that — and beneath all of it, a colder, older feeling he hadn't let himself feel since the streets. He wanted to say all of it. He wanted Dwayne to fix this the way Dwayne fixed everything, with a phone call and a very quiet, very final kind of certainty.But he didn't say any of it.Because that was exactly the problem, wasn't it. He was the heir. Not the ward. Dwayne was his right hand, not his crutch, and there was a difference between leaning o
You may also like
Trillionaire they never noticed
Alfred ifeanyi76.2K viewsRise Of The Supreme General
Anakin Detour106.5K viewsRevenge of the Secret Heir
Belladonna86.0K viewsThe Heir's Revenge
Twine Twin80.7K viewsUNWANTED SON-IN-LAW
Onome Rae131 viewsBecoming A War God: Rise Of Darius Holloway
Morning Star169 viewsThe Genius She Treated Like a Dog
FrankintheHouse105 viewsRevenge of the Adopted Child
Khay milagros108 views