THE FORGOTTEN HEIR

CHAPTER 8: THE MOLE IN THE EMPIRE

The boardroom at Dawson Holdings was silent—unnaturally so. The kind of silence that came just before a storm ripped through the room and tore everything apart. Derek stood at the head of the obsidian table, shoulders squared, jaw clenched. His eyes, sharp and unyielding, scanned the room full of men in polished suits and curated smiles.

They had underestimated him. Still did.

“I’ve read through the Valenci deal,” Derek said, his voice steady. “We’re pulling out. Effective immediately.”

A few gasps echoed. Mr. Callahan, the CFO, blinked like he hadn’t heard right. “With all due respect, Mr. Dawson… sir, we’ve invested—”

“Five point six million dollars,” Derek cut in, already turning pages. “Into a shell company run by Vincent Tran, who is currently being investigated for fraud in Singapore and Switzerland. Did no one bother to do due diligence?”

A tense pause followed. Callahan’s mouth opened. No words came out.

“I did,” Derek answered himself coldly. “Last night. Alone.”

Silence turned to discomfort. Eyes averted. Suits shifted in chairs. Derek slammed the file shut. “From now on, I don’t need people who smile and nod. I need people who dig. You either come clean, or get cleaned out.”

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. Power no longer needed noise.

And he knew exactly what had gone wrong—they wanted him to fail.

He could see it clearly now. These weren’t allies. They were vipers in silk. Loyal to his late father, maybe. Loyal to his grandfather, more likely. But to him? To the new President? They’d rather see the empire crash than be led by the ‘poor bastard’ who married up.

He knew their whispers. “The charity case.” “The houseboy president.” “The mistake.”

They didn’t know he’d grown up learning to listen more than he spoke. They didn’t know what poverty teaches you—how to read a room before it devours you.

And now, they would learn.

Derek’s office was vast, but the view felt empty. Glass stretched across the city, but it didn’t show you the shadows behind doors. Behind loyalty. Behind fake smiles.

He picked up his phone. Dialed.

“Lena,” he said, voice low. “Run background checks on Callahan. Anderson. The whole advisory circle. Off-record. And I want the real kind. Dig until you hit something.”

“Yes, sir,” his assistant said immediately. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Find out who’s leaking my boardroom decisions to the press. I want names, not guesses.”

He hung up and leaned back. His reflection stared at him from the glass.

He looked the part now—tailored Tom Ford suit, a Rolex that cost more than his childhood apartment block. But the eyes were still the same. Quiet. Watchful. Hungry.

Just then, the door clicked open.

Tahlia.

Her perfume hit before her voice. A scent he used to love—before it smelled like betrayal.

“You’re hard to reach these days,” she said, gliding in like she owned the air between them. “Mr. President.”

Derek didn’t move. “I’m busy. State your business.”

“Come on, Derek,” she pouted playfully. “Is that how you speak to your wife?”

“Ex-wife,” he corrected. “Soon, legally.”

Her smile cracked slightly, but she masked it with a soft laugh. “You’re really going through with it, huh?”

Derek stood and walked toward the window. “What do you want, Tahlia?”

She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she walked to his desk, traced her finger along the edge like she used to trace his jaw when she wanted something.

“I made a mistake,” she said finally. “I was scared. You weren’t the man I married. You were… drowning. And I couldn’t carry us both.”

“No,” Derek said coldly, turning. “You jumped ship. You didn’t drown with me. You handed me the weights.”

Tahlia flinched.

He continued, “You didn’t just leave, Tahlia. You humiliated me. Let your mother walk all over me. Replaced me with a singer who can’t even spell fidelity.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “I didn’t know you’d… become this.”

“That’s the thing,” Derek said, his tone flat. “I was always this. You just never looked.”

She reached for his hand, voice soft. “But I’m looking now.”

He pulled away.

And with that, she realized: the old Derek was gone.

Later that evening, Derek met with Grant Maddox—one of the few men he trusted. They sat in a quiet bar downtown, far from corporate glass and boardroom traps.

“You were right,” Derek muttered, nursing his scotch. “They’ve been sabotaging deals from the inside.”

Grant leaned back. “They were betting you’d be too green. Too emotional. You didn’t come through the pipeline. You were forced in.”

Derek chuckled humorlessly. “They think I’ll crack.”

Grant leaned forward, eyes sharp. “So show them you won’t.”

Derek nodded. “Time to flush them out.”

The trap was simple.

He leaked a fake expansion project—‘Dawson Pacific’—to only three people. A plan that didn’t exist. A move that would cost billions if real.

Two days later, the press had it.

And just like that, he had his mole.

Callahan.

But what Derek didn’t expect… was that the betrayal went even deeper.

Lena’s voice came through his office speaker a week later, trembling slightly. “Sir… we found something else.”

“Go on,” Derek said.

“There’s a private account. Offshore. Linked to Callahan. But there are deposits… made from someone in your own family.”

He stilled. “Who?”

She hesitated. Then, “Your uncle. Leonard Dawson.”

A beat.

Derek’s eyes darkened.

Leonard—his late father’s brother. The one who vanished after the funeral. The one who had refused to recognize Derek as a ‘true Dawson.’

The one who always believed he should’ve inherited the throne.

So it wasn’t just sabotage.

It was war.

And it was just beginning.