2026-02-03 00:59:57“Hey.”
The voice startled him. He sucked in a sharp breath and bolted upright. “Hey, are you okay?”
He stared at the ceiling, heart slamming so hard it hurt. White paint. A familiar crack near the corner. The faint hum of the refrigerator through the wall.
Not concrete. Not blood. Not darkness. “Did you fall asleep sitting up again?”
He turned slowly. She stood in the bedroom doorway, silk robe tied loosely, hair still damp. Alive. Calm. Untouched by guilt.
His wife. “You look awful,” she added. “Did you even eat?”
His throat worked, but no sound came out. She frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”
He swung his legs off the bed too fast. The room tilted. His palm slapped against the dresser to steady himself.
This was impossible. “You’re shaking,” she said. “If this is another one of your moods.”
“What day is it?” he asked.
She blinked. “What?”
“What day?” he repeated, slower, forcing the words out. “Is it?”
She laughed under her breath. “You’re serious?”
“Answer me.”
Her smile faded. “It’s Thursday. Why?”
“What date?”
“Are you feeling sick?”
“What. Date.”
She hesitated, clearly annoyed now. “The twenty-second. The IPO is today. Happy?”
The world snapped into focus. The twenty-second. He swallowed. Today. “That’s… today,” he murmured.
“Yes,” she said sharply. “The biggest day of my life. Which you’d know if you were paying attention.”
He looked at her properly then—the robe. The faint bruise-colored mark near the collarbone she’d claimed was from a necklace clasp.
He remembered that mark. His pulse spiked. “I need a minute,” he said.
She scoffed. “You’ve had ten years of minutes.”
She turned and walked away. He followed, every step slow, deliberate, like he was afraid the floor might dissolve. The dining room lights were still on.
Candles burned low, wax pooled at their bases. Plates sat untouched. The food he remembered cooking—hours spent perfecting it- had gone cold. “You didn’t wait,” he said.
She paused near the counter. “You didn’t answer your phone.”
“I was here.”
“Physically,” she said. “Not mentally.”
He stared at the table. “I made all this,” he said quietly.
“And I appreciate it,” she replied automatically. “Truly. But tonight is important.”
“You said dinner mattered.”
“I said I’d try,” she corrected.
He looked up. “When did trying replace caring?”
She opened her mouth. Her phone buzzed on the counter. Once. Twice. She moved fast, but not fast enough. The screen lit up.
A video began to play. Sound filled the room before either of them could react. Laughter. Music. Applause. He turned slowly.
The video was framed vertically. Dim lights. A private room glowing gold. His wife sat at the center of the table. Evan sat beside her. Too close. “Cheers!” someone shouted.
She lifted her glass, smiling wide, radiant in a way he hadn’t seen in years. Evan leaned in. Their glasses touched. The sound was sharp. Intimate. Someone wolf-whistled.
Evan said something, inaudible, but she laughed, head tipping back, hand brushing his arm. His wife lunged for the phone. “That’s not.”
“Don’t,” he said.
She froze. “Let it play.”
Her jaw tightened. “You’re misreading it.”
He watched silently as Evan’s hand slid to her lower back. As she didn’t move away. As the video ended. The room went very quiet. “That was sent to you,” he said.
She crossed her arms. “It was a joke.”
“From him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She rolled her eyes. “Because he’s young and stupid.”
“And you encourage him.”
“I manage him.”
“You’re drinking with him.”
“Everyone drinks,” she snapped.
“You’re touching.”
Her gaze hardened. “Careful.”
“Tell me,” he said. “Right now. Is there something going on?”
She didn’t answer. He nodded slowly. “Okay.”
She blinked. “Okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I see how this works.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“I’m remembering them,” he said.
She frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” he replied. “Yet.”
She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “Listen to me. Today is critical. If you embarrass me.”
“I embarrass you?”
“Yes,” she said, without hesitation. “You do.”
He laughed softly. “I gave up everything for you.”
“No,” she said. “You gave it up because you couldn’t keep up.”
The words landed exactly where they had before.
Only this time, they didn’t hurt. They clarified. He straightened. “You’re going to the banquet tonight.”
“Obviously.”
“With him.”
She hesitated. “He’s part of the team.”
“Don’t lie.”
She met his eyes. Something flickered there. Calculation. “I don’t owe you my itinerary,” she said.
“No,” he agreed. “You owe me the truth.”
“You can’t handle the truth.”
He stepped back, nodding. “That’s what you think.”
Her phone buzzed again. She glanced at it instinctively. He caught the name. Evan. Her lips pressed together. “I’m late.”
She grabbed her coat. “You won’t answer,” he said.
“I don’t have time for this.”
She walked past him. “Tonight changes everything,” he said.
She paused at the door. “For me, yes.”
Then she left. The door shut. He stood alone in the candlelight. Slowly, his hands began to shake. Not from fear. From precision. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out.
A notification filled the screen. IPO CELEBRATION BANQUET — TONIGHT | 8:00 PM
He stared at it. Then he smiled. Just slightly. “Not if I get there first,” he said to the empty room.
Outside, the city hummed, unaware that something it had already buried was about to walk back into the light.
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CHAPTER 12 — The Phantom Investor
The city’s pulse was muted tonight. Rain slicked streets reflected neon streaks, but he didn’t notice them. His attention was on the screen in front of him: a live stock ticker, flashing irregularly, rhythm disrupted.A subtle anomaly, almost invisible to anyone not paying absolute attention. Not random, he thought. Calculated.His fingers hovered over the keyboard. A soft ping alerted him to an incoming call. Caller ID: “Market Liaison.”“Evening,” a smooth, practiced voice said. “You’ve noticed the fluctuations?”“Notice? I predicted them,” he replied evenly, letting the words hang.A pause. “I see. You’re… confident.”“Confidence isn’t the word. Awareness is.”There was a soft laugh. “Interesting. Most people think awareness is reaction. You… anticipate.”“Exactly,” he said. “Which is why I called. Or rather, why you called.”He knew the intermediaries, the whispers behind the real investors. The board thought they were untouchable, hidden behind layers of proxies and shell corpora
CHAPTER 11 — Shadows in the Boardroom
The city lights stretched like veins below him as he adjusted the webcam on his laptop, the glow reflecting off his sharp, calculated eyes.His apartment felt colder tonight, sterile, but he preferred it that way. No distractions. No witnesses. No emotion.He opened the secure virtual conference link he’d acquired months ago, back when ambition and careful observation had been the only allies he trusted.The boardroom appeared on his screen, sleek, leather chairs filled with familiar faces he once called enemies. Some unaware of how easily he could pierce their control. Some already suspecting.He typed quickly, a few keystrokes here, a minor script there, then leaned back. The video feed remained unaltered, the audio channel clean. He wasn’t just watching, he was inside.“You’re muted,” a voice complained on the feed.He smiled faintly, pressing a key that let a single line of text appear in the private chat channel. Only the CFO received it. Check subledger 7B. Transaction 34. Overs
CHAPTER 10 — The Second Rule of Survival
He didn’t sleep. Not because he couldn’t, but because sleep belonged to the man he used to be.The apartment was silent except for the hum of electricity and the soft ticking of a wall clock he hadn’t noticed before.He sat at the table, the file still open on his laptop, blue light carving sharp angles into his face. A test. A candidate. A contingency.They hadn’t just removed him. They had selected him. He closed the file. Slowly. Deliberately.Emotion rose, hot, instinctive, but he pressed it down before it could bloom. Rage was inefficient. Grief was a liability. Even satisfaction had a cost. “Rule one already failed,” he said quietly. “I cared.”The whisper stirred, faint approval brushing the edges of his thoughts. You learned.“Yes,” he replied. “I did.”He stood and moved to the whiteboard he’d bought that morning. It still smelled faintly of plastic and solvent. He erased the names he’d written earlier, hers, Evan’s, the board members.Personal targets. Too small. He wrote th
CHAPTER 9 — Enemies in Silk Suits
“They want to meet.”The voice on the phone was careful, practiced. A man used to saying dangerous things without sounding like it. “Who?” he asked.A pause. Just long enough to matter. “People who have an interest in how this ends.”He smiled faintly. “That’s vague.”“It’s intentional,” the man replied. “Tonight. Private room. No records.”He didn’t hesitate. “Send the address.”The call ended. He didn’t ask how they’d gotten his number. He already knew. The restaurant sat above the city, glass walls curving outward like the edge of a blade. No signage. No reservation list.The kind of place where money didn’t announce itself, it assumed obedience. He arrived alone. Inside, three men and one woman waited.All dressed impeccably. Silk suits. Subtle watches. Calm faces that had never learned panic. She wasn’t there. That told him everything. “Mr. Hale,” the woman said, standing. “Thank you for coming.”“I’m curious,” he replied. “That’s different.”One of the men gestured to a chair. “
CHAPTER 8 — Ghosts Don’t Stay Quiet
The whisper came before the sound did. Move. The word slid through his head like a blade through silk. He stopped walking.A second later, a delivery truck roared past the corner he’d been about to cross, horn blaring, brakes screaming. Wind slapped his coat as the truck missed him by inches.People shouted. Someone cursed. Time snapped back into place. He stood there, heart pounding, not from fear, but from recognition. “That wasn’t instinct,” he murmured.His phone buzzed. A news alert flashed across the screen.COURT ACCEPTS EXPEDITED HEARING — DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS ADVANCEGood. He stepped back onto the sidewalk, moving slower now, senses stretched thin. The city felt… wrong.Sounds lagged, like audio out of sync with video. Footsteps echoed a half-second too late. Conversations blurred into a low, underwater murmur until individual words surfaced, sharp and isolated.“…lawsuit”“…camera footage”“…he’s unstable”Faces did it too. People’s features smeared when he looked at them dir
CHAPTER 7 — Divorce Is Just the Beginning
“You’re asking for assets you don’t legally control.”The attorney’s tone was careful. Too careful. Across the table, she sat perfectly straight, hands folded, face composed in a serene enough expression to fool strangers.The glass walls of the conference room reflected her confidence in her like a crown. He leaned back in his chair. “No,” he said. “I’m asking for assets I built.”She laughed softly. “You cooked dinners.”“I structured cash flow,” he replied. “I negotiated early vendor contracts. I rewrote the first investor deck when your English wasn’t good enough to sell ambition.”Her smile twitched. “That was informal support,” her attorney cut in. “There’s no documentation.”“There is,” he said calmly.He slid a folder across the table. Not thick. Precise. Emails. Drafts. Timestamped revisions. Wireframes. A signed NDA she’d forgotten she'd made him sign, one that listed him as a Strategic Consultant.Her attorney flipped pages, frowning deeper with each turn. “You never told m
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