2025-08-25 18:49:59
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Chapter one hundred and Thirteen
The night settled heavily over Hayes mansion, its silence broken only by the occasional rustle of leaves in the garden and the muted footsteps of staff lingering in nervous anticipation. Nathan sat alone in the study, a half-drained glass of scotch untouched beside him.He didn’t hear Cassandra enter until her reflection appeared in the glass of the tall window. She had that quiet strength about her again, the kind that wrapped itself around him without demanding attention. But tonight, there was something different—an urgency, a weight in her expression that told Nathan she had been carrying more than she’d let on.“Nathan,” she said softly, closing the door behind her. “There’s something you need to know.”He turned in his chair, brow furrowed. “Another warning about patience?” His voice was tired, sharper than he intended.Cassandra shook her head and came closer, placing a small envelope on the desk. “No. This is something I should have told you earlier. I didn’t, because I wasn’t
Chapter one hundred and twelve
Nathan sat in the library of Hayes mansion. His leg ached, a dull throb from the injury that hadn’t healed properly, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the storm inside his chest. On the table before him lay his phone, the latest message from Liam still open on the screen.The video played again, despite Nathan’s reluctance. He forced himself to watch, his fists tightening against the carved oak table as Mr. Hayes appeared on-screen. His father’s hair was disheveled, his face hollowed by exhaustion—or the appearance of exhaustion. The camera angle was crueler this time, deliberately catching shadows that deepened the lines around his eyes. The voiceover, Liam’s cold and theatrical tone, announced:“You’ve stalled long enough, Nathan. Fifty-one percent of Hayes Holdings—or the old man suffers worse. Twenty-four hours. Fail me, and the world sees what kind of son you are.”The image cut abruptly, but the silence afterward was louder than the threat.Nathan pressed pause, exha
Chapter one hundred and Eleven
Nathan had always known the weight of legacy could crush a man, but tonight the pressure pressed heavier than the ache in his injured leg.The message still flickered across his phone screen: “Time is running out. Your father’s fate depends on your decision.”It wasn’t just a threat—it was a calculated performance, staged to tighten the noose around Nathan’s resolve.Yet beneath the surface panic, Nathan held something Liam didn’t know: the tracker’s report. The villa, tucked behind those iron gates, had betrayed itself with deliveries and power spikes. It wasn’t much, but it was a starting point.He traced the floor plan on the desk with his fingertip, lips pressed tight. “If I can keep him believing the negotiations are real, he’ll slip. And when he does…” Nathan’s voice trailed off, but the determination in his eyes sharpened like steel.From the window, Cassandra watched him in silence. Her reflection in the glass seemed almost ghostly, her brow creased with worry. She had argued
Chapter one hundred and ten
The video spread like a virus.Not thirty minutes after dawn, Nathan’s phone buzzed incessantly with alerts, news outlets, gossip blogs, investors’ groups, even political commentators sharing the same cryptic clip. The image was grainy, shot in dim light: Mr. Hayes, hunched in a chair, his wrists tied, his head drooping as if each breath weighed a ton. A blurred voiceover, Liam’s unmistakable sneer masked by distortion, taunted, “The empire collapses when its pillars rot. Fifty-one percent for a man’s life. You have until sundown.”Nathan stood frozen before the television in the mansion’s lounge, his reflection ghosted across the screen. His father’s frail figure flickered there — not dead, not gone, but humiliated, displayed like some grotesque exhibit. His jaw clenched until the muscles ached. Rage pressed hot against his ribs, yet beneath it lay a sharper edge: fear.The markets reacted instantly. Hayes Telecom’s stock line dipped red as analysts speculated, spinning theories that
Chapter one hundred and nine
The next morning, Cassandra had scarcely left Nathan side. The staff moved like whispers through the corridors, each one watching the clock, each one afraid of what Liam’s next move would bring.It came just after dawn.The phone rang, a simple vibration against polished oak, but the weight of it was crushing. Nathan answered, jaw clenched, and Cassandra leaned close enough to hear. No words, this time—only another video file, transmitted with chilling efficiency.When Nathan opened it, the room filled with the sound of torment.Mr. Hayes lay slumped in a chair, his face bruised, his breaths ragged. A hand—Liam’s—tilted his chin toward the camera. “Time is slipping, Nathan,” Liam’s voice hissed. “Your father’s strength is slipping with it. Make the trade. Fifty-one percent, and this ends.”Then the screen went black.Behind them, Marjorie had been watching. She gasped, one hand clutching her chest, the other reaching toward the phone as though she could pull her brother out of it.“No
Chapter one hundred and eight
The chandelier in the Hayes mansion’s study cast fractured light across the oak-paneled walls, but Nathan sat in its shadow. His leg ached from the old injury—a dull, insistent throb that seemed to worsen whenever he tried to think clearly. Stacks of contracts and draft proposals littered the desk before him, yet his eyes were fixed not on the numbers but on the memory of his father’s face in Liam’s video—bloodied, half-conscious, pleading.Forty-eight hours. Already a day had passed. Time was slipping.But still he told himself: no surrender.Across the room, Cassandra watched him with quiet intensity. She had spent the morning combing through encrypted records, following faint trails Liam thought buried. And she had found something: proof of the villa’s ownership buried under layers of shell companies, finally linking it to Liam’s shadow network. A location—remote, coastal, nearly unreachable without notice.Her first instinct had been to rush the document into Nathan’s hands. But t
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