2025-07-07 06:46:17The boardroom was silent. Not the peaceful kind — the kind that prickled Derek’s skin, heavy with unspoken threats.
Twelve men sat around the polished obsidian table, each a giant in their field. Men who had once smiled at his father, toasted with his grandfather. Now they stared at Derek Dawson with eyes that tried to undress him of his legitimacy.
“You called this meeting,” said Gerald Linford, a senior partner from the London wing. “We assumed it would be something… pressing.”
Derek leaned forward, sliding a document to the center of the table. “It is.”
The paper bore a simple title: Unauthorized Asset Liquidation & Funds Diversion — Internal Audit Report. It was enough to suck the arrogance from every man in that room.
One by one, the names surfaced in the report. Gerald Linford. Charles Mendel. And worst of all—Martin Cray, his late father’s closest ally. The very man who had whispered advice into Derek’s ears since he was twelve.
“You embezzled over forty million dollars from Dawson’s subsidiaries,” Derek said quietly, his voice like steel wrapped in silk. “Do you deny it?”
Mendel scoffed. “You think this throne makes you a king? You’re a figurehead, Derek. A boy in a man’s chair. You don’t know how this empire breathes.”
Derek smiled thinly. “You’re right. I don’t know how you breathe — stealing behind closed doors, stabbing the family that fed you. But I know how to suffocate betrayal.”
He tapped the table twice. A door opened. Two lawyers and a security officer entered with folders and sealed warrants.
“This is a hostile extraction,” Derek said calmly. “You’ve been relieved of your duties effective immediately. Legal proceedings begin tonight.”
There was shouting. Threats. Gerald pounded the table with an arthritic fist. “You’ll regret this! You don’t understand who we are!”
“I do,” Derek said, rising. “You’re enemies in velvet gloves. But I’m no longer the errand boy.”
Thirty minutes later, Derek sat in his private office, the storm still thrumming through his chest. He poured himself a glass of whiskey but didn’t drink it. His hand trembled—not from fear, but from fury barely contained.
He picked up the framed photo of his parents. His mother had died young, and his father… his father had trusted the wrong men.
Never again.
His phone buzzed.
Incoming call: Tahlia.
Derek stared at it, lips tightening. He hadn’t heard her voice in weeks. She had gone from radio silence to blowing up his phone ever since news broke of his new position.
He let it ring out.
Moments later, a text came in:
Tahlia: “Please, Derek. Can we talk? It’s not what you think.”
He almost laughed.
That evening, Derek returned to his penthouse. He didn’t expect company.
But she was there.
Tahlia.
Dressed in white silk like some tragic movie heroine, mascara smudged just enough to suggest remorse.
“I let myself in,” she said softly. “Still remembered the code.”
He didn’t respond.
She stepped closer, hands trembling. “I heard what you did. The boardroom. The firings. You’re… you’re incredible, Derek.”
He studied her, unmoved.
“I was foolish,” she continued. “So lost. I didn’t know how to support you when you were struggling. I thought you had nothing left.”
“You thought wrong,” he said coldly. “You left when things got hard. That’s not love. That’s convenience.”
Tahlia’s eyes welled. “I want to make things right.”
Derek stared at her. Then quietly said, “You want back into the empire. Not into my life.”
The silence stretched. She blinked, her lips parting, but no defense came.
And that told him everything.
He turned away. “Leave the keys on the table when you go.”
The next day, Derek called in his trusted private investigator, Wyatt.
“I need you to look into Tahlia’s movements during the last six months. Especially her involvement with Miles Beckford.”
Wyatt raised a brow. “The actor?”
Derek nodded grimly. “Something about their timing doesn’t sit right.”
He’d let her walk for now, but Derek wasn’t a man who forgave betrayal easily. And he was beginning to suspect that the rot in his life ran deeper than the boardroom.
Later that night, an anonymous email slid into his encrypted inbox.
Subject: TRUST NO ONE. THEY’RE CLOSER THAN YOU THINK.
Attached was a photo.
Tahlia. Miles Beckford. And…
Martin Cray.
The man he just fired.
Derek leaned back in his chair, heart pounding as his entire body tensed.
The betrayals weren’t just greed.
They were planned.
Coordinated.
Personal.
His rise had disturbed something far more dangerous than corporate fraud.
Cliffhanger Ending
Just as Derek was processing the email, his office lights flickered.
Then went out.
A second later, the red emergency bulb glowed dimly.
And a voice echoed from the security intercom.
“We warned you not to dig too deep, Dawson.”
Derek froze.
Not because of the threat.
But because the voice belonged to someone he thought was long dead.
His uncle.
Dead for ten years.
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Chapter 26: The Silent Betrayal
The council chamber was too quiet. Derek could hear the ticking of the ancient clock fixed above the arched doorway, each second echoing like a hammer striking his chest.The round table before him gleamed with polish, though it felt more like a battlefield than a place of dialogue. Across from him sat men and women who carried dynasties in their names, their legacies stretching back centuries. They wore masks of calm, but Derek could feel the disdain beneath their words, their unspoken question: What right does he, the forgotten heir, have to sit among us?He did not flinch. He met their eyes one after another, cold, unblinking, letting silence become his ally.“You summoned us, Derek,” said Lord Harlan, the silver-haired head of one of the most powerful branches of the dynasty. His voice was smooth but carried a sting. “I trust you have something worthwhile. It’s not our custom to dance around with words.”“I don’t dance,” Derek said, his voice hard as stone. “I make moves. And toda
Chapter 25: The Silent Betrayal
The night was thick with silence, broken only by the distant hum of the city that never really slept. Derek sat alone in his study, the dim light of the desk lamp spilling over stacks of documents, dossiers, and maps. Every line he read, every file he touched, only deepened the pit in his stomach. Enemies everywhere. Traitors closer than he thought. And now, the empire he had only just begun to reclaim was being hollowed from the inside.But what shook him most wasn’t the chaos outside. It was the quietness inside his own home. For days now, Serena had been… distant. She smiled less. She avoided his gaze when she thought he wouldn’t notice. There was a coldness in her touch that left Derek restless at night. He told himself she was tired, that the weight of their battles had finally settled on her fragile shoulders. But tonight, something told him otherwise.He closed the file and leaned back, eyes tracing the cracks in the ceiling. If betrayal comes, it won’t come with a roar. It wil
Chapter 24 – Shadows in the Smoke
The blast still echoed through the walls of Dawson Tower as smoke poured into the boardroom. Alarms screamed overhead, red lights flashing like a heartbeat in crisis. Board members scrambled for the exits, their expensive suits and dignity abandoned in panic.But Derek Dawson did not move. His eyes were fixed on the side door, where a figure had slipped away seconds before the chaos.“Mason!” Derek barked.“I saw them,” Mason growled, drawing his firearm from under his jacket. “This way!”The two men pushed through the smoke, ignoring the shouts behind them. Tahlia’s voice rose above the din—“Derek, wait!”—but he didn’t turn back. If she was innocent, then someone had gone to great lengths to frame her. And if she was guilty, then the traitor who just vanished might be the proof he needed either way.The hallway outside was a warzone—flames licking from a ruptured vent, sprinklers hissing overhead, smoke blurring vision. Security personnel were already racing toward the blast zone, bu
Chapter 23 – Whispers of Betrayal
The night in Dawson Tower was unusually quiet. Too quiet. Derek could feel it in his bones as he walked through the top-floor corridor, the leather soles of his shoes echoing against polished marble. Outside, the city glowed beneath the curtain of midnight, but inside the tower, there was a silence that pressed on his chest like an unseen weight.He paused by the glass wall, his reflection staring back at him—hard eyes, tired lines, but sharper than ever. A man who had once been discarded now stood at the helm of an empire. Yet power had a way of drawing shadows closer, and Derek knew tonight those shadows would whisper louder than ever.His phone buzzed in his pocket. A secure line. Only three people had the code.He answered. “Derek Dawson.”“Sir,” came the hushed voice of his head of security, Mason. “You need to hear this in person. It’s about the board meeting tomorrow. And about someone close to you.”Derek’s grip tightened on the phone. “Where are you?”“The sub-level archives.
Chapter 22- SHATTERED CROWN
The boardroom smelled of power and betrayal.Derek sat at the head of the obsidian table, the walls lined with towering windows that offered a sweeping view of the city he had fought so hard to claim. Yet the room felt smaller, suffocating. Every gaze fixed on him carried a hidden weight—expectation, fear, or something far darker.“Gentlemen,” Derek’s voice cut through the thick silence, low and commanding, “we are here to secure the legacy my father built. But I must ask—whose loyalty lies with this dynasty, and whose loyalty has already been sold?”A ripple of unease moved through the room. One of the directors, a gray-haired man who had once clasped Derek’s shoulder in paternal encouragement, shifted uncomfortably. Derek noticed. He noticed everything.Before anyone could answer, the double doors at the end of the chamber banged open. A woman strode in with the confidence of someone who knew she belonged—even though she hadn’t been invited.It was Evelyn.Gasps broke out around the
Chapter 21: Echoes of Betrayal
The chill in the room was nothing compared to the frost settling over Derek’s heart.He stood motionless, fists clenched at his sides, as the private investigator laid the final photo on the mahogany table. It was grainy, but unmistakable — Alina, holding hands with Sebastian Harrow, the same man who had tried to bankrupt Dawson Holdings six months ago. The same man who Derek had once punched during a hostile board meeting for threatening his family’s legacy.Now, that snake was back — with Alina.“You’re telling me this was taken two days ago?” Derek asked, voice low and dangerous.“Yes, sir,” the investigator nodded. “Outside the Langford Hotel. They spent nearly three hours inside.”Three hours.Derek’s jaw tightened until pain bloomed up his temple. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. For a moment, the world tilted and spun, and all the control he had fought so hard to regain in the last few weeks unraveled like loose thread.Alina. The one woman who had sworn she’d never betray
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