The Conglomerate Heir Awakens

5

The elevator doors slid open onto the top floor of Vale Tower, revealing a room lined with glass walls and men and women who controlled more wealth than entire nations. Ethan entered with the quiet confidence Rowan had drilled into him.

The board members rose—some genuinely respectful, others putting on a performance.

“Welcome home, Master Vale,” an older woman said, offering a firm handshake.

Another man followed, smiling too widely, the kind of smile that meant: I’m calculating what you’re worth.

Ethan nodded politely, letting them each take his measure.

Rowan stood at his side, expression stern. “This is the heir of the Vale family,” he announced. “He will be taking an active role moving forward.”

Several board members nodded approval.

Others shared quick glances.

Ethan caught them instantly.

The ones who feared losing their influence.

The ones who had profited from his family’s downfall.

The ones who already imagined replacing him.

A man with silver hair finally spoke. “If the young master wishes to lead, he must prove his capability. The conglomerate is… vast.”

Ethan almost smiled. There it was—the first pushback.

Rowan bristled, but Ethan placed a hand on his arm. “A test is fair,” Ethan said calmly. “I’m not interested in titles without work.”

Some were pleased by his humility.

Others were irritated he didn’t rise to the bait.

The silver-haired man nodded slowly. “Very well. You will be given oversight of one of our subsidiaries. A difficult one.”

Ethan didn’t blink. “Let me guess—one on the verge of collapse?”

A few board members chuckled, impressed he saw through it.

Silver-hair didn’t laugh. “We’ll see whether you can save it.”

Ethan met his stare without flinching.

“I wasn’t saved from death just to fail at life.”

The room fell silent.

For the first time, several board members understood that Ethan wasn’t a figurehead.

He was a threat.

***

Ethan’s car pulled up in front of a worn-down corporate building—its logo faded, half the lights off, and a cluster of exhausted employees smoking outside.

So this was his “test.”

“BravoTech Manufacturing,” Rowan muttered beside him. “Once a mid-level supplier. Now a disaster.”

Ethan stepped out, surveying the cracked pavement and broken security gate. “How long has it been bleeding money?”

“Three years,” Rowan replied. “Three CEOs were removed. Two audits failed. Staff turnover at fifty percent.”

Ethan raised a brow. “And they gave this to me on purpose.”

“To watch you drown,” Rowan confirmed.

Good.

Let them think he would fail.

He walked into the lobby—if it could still be called that. The receptionist jolted awake from a nap, straightened her shirt, and tried to smile.

“W-Welcome to BravoTech! How may I—?”

“I’m your new chief director,” Ethan said gently. “No need to panic.”

Her jaw dropped.

He didn’t waste time. He toured the facility, jotting everything in a small notebook: obsolete machines, filthy break rooms, piles of unsorted inventory. In the office wing, he found entire departments empty.

It wasn’t just failing.

It had been abandoned.

When Ethan entered the main conference room, the remaining managers stood up—some hopeful, most defensive.

Ethan didn’t sit.

“This company is sinking,” he said plainly. “But it’s not because the market changed. It’s because someone drained it from the inside.”

A few managers stiffened visibly.

There it was—the stench of guilt.

Ethan closed his notebook with a soft snap.

“I won’t tolerate thieves,” he said. “From this moment on, every account, every contract, every expense will be audited personally by me.”

The guilty ones paled.

The honest ones finally breathed.

Ethan stepped closer, voice low but steady.

“You all have two choices: help me rebuild this place… or get out before I find out what you’ve done.”

The war had begun.

By the second week, Ethan had uncovered enough corruption to fill a courtroom.

Two managers had created fake supplier companies.

Another was siphoning “maintenance fees” into a private account.

One had been selling confidential designs to a rival.

Ethan didn’t yell. He didn’t threaten.

He simply fired them one by one, each in quiet, surgical executions of power.

“You can’t—” one of them stammered. “Th-The board will protect me!”

Ethan tilted his head. “Will they?”

Security dragged the man out. His screams faded down the hall.

Word spread fast—BravoTech had a new king, and he didn’t tolerate rot.

For the loyal employees, the change felt like breathing for the first time.

Ethan brought in new equipment, modernized systems, hired competent engineers, and restored departments that had been ghosts for years.

Production picked up.

Orders increased.

Employees smiled again.

But as BravoTech rose, so did the tension in the shadows.

Late one evening, Rowan delivered a sealed envelope.

“It’s from the main office,” he said darkly.

Ethan opened it.

Inside was a single sentence:

“You’re fixing what should stay broken.”

No signature.

No sender.

Just a warning.

Ethan folded it calmly.

“Let them come.”

Rowan frowned. “Be careful. Some of these people… aren’t businessmen. They’re predators.”

Ethan met his gaze.

“So am I.”

****

Ethan’s day had gone unusually smooth—too smooth. Meetings finished early, audits checked out, and for once, no manager tried to fight him.

That should’ve been the warning.

But the danger hit before he sensed it.

As Ethan approached his car in the underground lot, Rowan called out from behind him.

“Wait—!”

A sharp, unnatural click echoed from beneath the vehicle.

Ethan froze.

Rowan tackled him to the ground.

A split second later—

BOOM!

A fireball erupted from the car, heat slamming into the concrete walls. The shockwave rang in Ethan’s ears as alarms blared throughout the building. Shattered glass rained down.

Rowan gripped Ethan’s shoulders. “Are you injured?!”

Ethan shook his head, chest heaving. “No… I’m fine.”

But fine wasn’t the right word.

Something inside him—the power in his blood—had reacted.

For a split moment, just before the explosion, he’d felt a strange ripple under his skin, like a warning.

And now, even through the smoke, he sensed something else.

Watching eyes.

Intent.

Murderous intent.

Security rushed in, shouting into radios, but Ethan barely heard them.

He scanned the shadows of the parking lot.

Someone was still there.

Someone who wanted to make sure he died.

Rowan followed Ethan’s gaze. “Someone paid for a professional.”

Ethan stood slowly, ignoring the debris around him.

“So they want to kill me.”

His voice was steady.

“Let them keep trying.”

That night, Ethan sat alone in his apartment, lights off, the city glowing beneath him. The explosion replayed in his mind—not the blast, but the moment before it.

That strange pulse in his chest.

That sudden tightness in the air.

That instinct telling him to step back.

The Vale bloodline wasn’t just physical strength.

It was something older.

Something sharper.

Ethan closed his eyes and focused.

Within seconds, the world grew clearer.

He heard footsteps on the floor below.

A window sliding open down the street.

The faint crackle of a radio from a building over.

And then, suddenly—

A spike.

A sharp, cold prickle at the back of his neck.

He turned his head.

Across the street, on another rooftop, sat a man hidden behind a ventilation unit. Ethan couldn’t see him physically—but he felt the man’s hatred, like a tiny needle aimed at his spine.

Murder intent.

The first clear sense of it.

Ethan’s heartbeat slowed.

He didn’t panic.

He didn’t move.

He simply whispered to himself:

“So this is what it means to be a Vale.”

The assassin soon retreated—Ethan felt the intent fade—but the message was clear.

More would come.

But now?

Now he could feel them before they struck.

And that changed everything.