The Ultimate Power

Chapter 1

“Your daughter has a fractured skull and worsening intracranial bleeding. Surgery must be done before noon today!”

“The operation costs one million dollars. I don’t care if you go through insurance or pay directly—everything must be settled by 10 a.m., or the patient won’t survive.”

The doctor’s words hit Logan Brooks like a sledgehammer.

His vision spun, his knees buckled, and he nearly collapsed on the floor.

Dragging his heavy steps, he walked into the hospital ward.

Logan’s eyes were red as he stared at his daughter, Chloe, lying motionless in the emergency pod, her tiny body covered in tubes.

She had just turned three.

Her pale little face was as pale as a ghost—like a shattered porcelain doll, her breathing faint, barely hanging on to life.

This morning, when he and his wife left home, Chloe had been perfectly fine.

Not even an hour had passed before the nanny called, screaming that Chloe had fallen from the third floor.

She was so little… falling from such a height—how much must that have hurt?

Logan’s heart bled at the thought.

If that useless, negligent nanny hadn’t been a family acquaintance hired by his wife’s grandmother, he would’ve torn her apart and fed her to the dogs.

He gave his daughter one last sorrowful glance before stepping out of the room.

Then, Logan pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts until he found his wife’s grandmother’s number.

He’d wanted to call his mother-in-law, Barbara, but knew she never answered his calls—and even if she did, she’d hang up instantly.

“Grandma Sullivan, my daughter fell and hit her head. Can you lend me one million dollars to—”

Before he could finish, Grandma Sullivan’s voice snapped through the line.

“You useless man! Others bring gifts to their elders—yet you, broke as a beggar, have the nerve to ask me for money? Let me be clear, unless you divorce my granddaughter Charlotte, don’t even think about getting a cent out of me!”

Logan’s voice choked.

“Grandma Sullivan, I will never divorce Charlotte.”

“She’s my wife, and Chloe is your great-granddaughter! Can you really bear to let her die?”

One side was the woman he loved most.

The other was the daughter born of that love.

He would never abandon either.

“My great-granddaughter?” Grandma Sullivan sneered.

“With your filthy blood in her veins, she’s not even worthy of the name.”

“If you won’t divorce Charlotte, then go ahead—watch that little bastard die. And don’t ever call me again!”

She hung up.

She didn’t care if Chloe lived or died.

All she wanted was for Logan to disappear from Charlotte’s life.

Only then could she “sell” her granddaughter for a better price.

Logan sighed.

He and Charlotte had known each other since high school—eight years of love, and right after college, they began preparing for marriage.

At the time, he was just a poor 'orphan' who’d fought his way up from nothing, while the Sullivans were a millionaire family with multiple companies under their name.

To marry Charlotte, he had agreed to all of their harsh and absurd conditions.

He was treated with disdain, forbidden from working, confined to house chores, and even had to ask Grandma Sullivan or Barbara for money just to buy groceries.

But as long as Charlotte and their daughter were happy, Logan didn’t care about the mockery, the status, or the money.

Even if the world saw him as a good-for-nothing live-in son-in-law, he was willing to endure it all—as long as his wife and daughter stayed by his side.

But now… his daughter’s life-threatening injury shattered his naïve illusion.

Without money or power, he couldn’t even protect the ones he loved most.

Just as despair was sinking in, a familiar figure appeared at the door of the ward.

Charlotte, her face streaked with tears, rushed in, breathless and panicked.

“Oh Logan, how is our daughter?”

Her hands trembled as she handed him a bag of cash, stumbling toward him.

She was still wearing her work clothes—clearly she had run straight from the office.

Logan looked at the bag, confused. “Charlotte… what’s this?”

“I heard we need to pay for the bills. It’s what I’ve saved up over the years… behind Grandma and Mom’s back. It’s only $100,000, but let’s pay what we can and buy Chloe some time.”

“I’m sorry, Charlotte. I couldn’t protect you or our daughter… I’ve made both of you suffer.”

Logan knew how frugal Charlotte was—always cutting corners, never buying anything expensive.

She shouldn’t have had to live like this. Not as a Sullivan.

But ever since her grandfather passed, Grandma Sullivan had taken control of the entire family.

Of her six children, three sons ran separate companies.

Charlotte’s father, the eldest, ran the weakest one, Elysian Bloom—a health and beauty enterprise, which he had inherited from his late father and now transferred to his eldest daughter, Charlotte, to take over.

Naturally, they were the least favored.

That’s why Charlotte’s life, her clothes, even her meals, were the worst in the family.

Seeing her hand over years of savings for their daughter, Logan’s self-loathing deepened.

“It’s not your fault, Logan,” Charlotte said through tears. “You’ve done your best. Let’s just save Chloe first.”

Together, they rushed to the front desk, paid the deposit, and the doctors immediately transferred Chloe into emergency surgery.

Three hours later…

“The operation was timely. We managed to drain the internal bleeding, and your daughter’s condition is stable… for now.”

“But this is only temporary. You must gather the full amount for the craniotomy as soon as possible.”

“The longer you delay, the higher the chance of brain death. Frankly, even if we proceed now, she’s likely to end up in a vegetative state.”

Charlotte collapsed, her legs giving out beneath her.

Logan felt as if his chest was being torn apart.

His body went cold, but he forced himself to stay strong and help his wife up.

“I’ll go ask my parents for money,” Charlotte said, wiping her tears and rushing out.

Logan stared at her fading figure, then slammed his fist into the wall—blood seeping from between his knuckles.

“I’m such a failure…”

His daughter was dying, and he was powerless.

“No… not yet. I still have one last option. I will save my baby girl!”

With trembling fingers, he opened his contact list—scrolling to a name buried long ago.

A number he had blocked for over ten years.

It was the man he hated most. His father.

When Logan was just a child, he’d watched helplessly as his mother was pushed from a rooftop.

He had hoped his father would stand up for his mother and give her the justice she deserved.

But his father did nothing—instead, he told him to keep quiet.

No research, no investigations, no revenge.

Nothing!

That left him filled with both confusion and hatred.

From that moment on, Logan had severed ties, choosing to live on the streets, travel through states and cities, beg with the homeless, and grow up in an orphanage rather than ever return to that man’s home.

But now… that very man was the only one who might save his daughter.

For the sake of his daughter, he was willing to “bow his head” to the person he hated most.

Just as he was about to press the number, his phone suddenly rang.

His eyes widened in shock when he saw the caller ID.

It was Felix Graves—his father’s most trusted aide and the chief butler of the Brooks Heaven’s Order Group.

Before he could think too much, Logan answered the call.