The Billionaire They Buried

Chapter 1: The Birthday Party

"So, you actually came?"

I turned to find my half-brother, Ryan Hayes, walking toward me with a glass of wine in one hand and that familiar fake smile plastered across his face.

"Were you expecting me to miss Grandfather's birthday?"

Ryan laughed and stopped beside me, lowering his voice like he was letting me in on something. "Birthday? Is that really why you think everyone came here? They're here for one reason, Ethan. Grandfather is naming the next chairman of Hayes Group tonight." He glanced around the ballroom before looking back at me. "So don't embarrass yourself expecting your name to be called."

"I'm not here for an announcement, Ryan."

"You're good at pretending money doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters. Just not more than family."

He shook his head, still laughing. "You still believe this family exists?"

Before I could answer, Victoria Hayes appeared beside us in an elegant red evening gown, smiling warmly like she'd walked into the middle of a much friendlier conversation. "There you two are. Must every conversation between you boys turn into an argument?" She looked at me and touched my arm lightly. "Ignore him ,he's been impossible all week. Your grandfather's has been asking after you all evening. He hasn't been himself lately. Age catches up with everyone eventually."

The chief servant approached before I could respond. "Mr. Ethan, Chairman Hayes would like to see you in his study."

"I'll be there in a moment."

As I walked away, Ryan called after me, "I hope you're ready for a big disappointment." I ignored him. Behind me, I heard him drop his voice to Victoria "What was that supposed to mean?" and her answer, calm as ever: "Just be patient. Tonight will change everything."

I reached Grandfather's study and knocked.

"Come in."

He was sitting beside the large window overlooking the mansion gardens, and his face lit up the moment he saw me. "Close the door. Come here, my boy." I crossed the room and sat across from him. He studied me for a moment before speaking. "You've grown into the kind of man your parents would have been proud of."

"I'm only trying to make you proud."

"You already have." He reached for a sealed white envelope on his desk. "Do you know what's inside?"

"The succession papers?"

He nodded, then paused in a way that didn't feel like celebration. "Everyone believes tonight is only about naming the next chairman. But there are things about this family that no one knows. After tonight, you will."

A strange weight settled in my chest. "Grandfather, you're beginning to get me worried."

"Sometimes the truth arrives when we least expect it." He set the envelope back down and looked at me with an intensity I'd rarely seen from him. "I need you to promise me something. No matter what happens tonight — don't leave this house until you've spoken to me."

"I promise."

Someone knocked before I could ask what he meant. "Dinner is served, sir."

He rose slowly, and I found myself laughing despite the unease still sitting in my stomach. "You always enjoy making a dramatic entrance."

"Old age earns a man that privilege."

We walked together toward the grand dining hall, and the room fell silent the instant he entered — the way it always did, guests rising to their feet like he was still the only person in the room who mattered. Dinner began, but almost no one touched their food. Every conversation eventually circled back to the same question: who would inherit Hayes Group. I caught Ryan watching Grandfather with a barely-concealed impatience, and heard a pair of directors murmuring behind their glasses, I've always believed Ethan would succeed him. Charles has trusted him for years. Ryan's jaw tightened. Victoria rested a hand on his arm without looking at him and whispered something I couldn't hear.

Then Grandfather rose, and the room went quiet on its own.

"My dear friends. Thank you all for joining me as I celebrate another year of life. When I founded Hayes Group, I never imagined it would become what it is today. But every great empire must prepare for the future." He lifted the envelope. "The time has come."

Ryan leaned forward. Victoria didn't blink. I just watched.

Grandfather opened the envelope and his smile vanished.

His hand began to tremble. The envelope slipped from his fingers before he could even look at what was inside. A cough tore out of him, violent enough that his wine glass shattered against the floor, and the entire hall froze around him.

"E... Ethan—"

His voice was barely a whisper before his knees buckled.

"Grandfather!"

I hit the marble floor beside him, my mind refusing to accept what I was seeing. Not him. Not tonight. "Call an ambulance!" Servants scattered. Guests crowded in around us, a chaos of voices give him space, move back, what happened while one of the family doctors dropped down to check his pulse and someone started CPR. I grabbed his hand. His fingers twitched weakly around mine, his lips moving like he was trying to say something.

No sound came out.

Then his hand went still, and a silence dropped over the room heavier than anything I'd ever felt in that house.

"No," Victoria whispered, covering her mouth. Then she looked at me. "Ethan. You were the last person alone with him."

I stared at her. "What?"

Ryan stepped forward like he'd been waiting for the cue. "I saw Ethan leave Grandfather's study just before dinner." A director echoed I remember seeing them together too and then another voice, and another, until the whispers had spread across the entire hall like something contagious.

"That's not what happened," I said. Nobody answered. Outside, sirens were already closing in on the mansion, and by the time the front doors opened, two detectives were walking straight toward me like they already knew exactly who they were looking for.

"Ethan Hayes?"

"Yes."

"We're placing you under arrest for the attempted murder of Charles Hayes."

I looked around the room for someone ,anyone who might say this was a mistake. The directors avoided my eyes. The guests stood frozen. Not one person who had known me my entire life said a word in my defense.

In the space of a few minutes, I had gone from the grandson everyone admired to the man everyone believed had tried to kill the head of the Hayes family and somewhere underneath the shock, a colder thought was already taking root.

This nightmare was only getting started.