rise of the underdog

the man behind the mask

# Chapter 2: The Man Behind the Mask

The penthouse fell into silence at 11:47 PM.

Alex stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows of his study, watching the city lights blur into streaks of gold and white twenty-three floors below. Manhattan never truly slept, but at this hour, it at least pretended to rest. Unlike him.

His reflection stared back from the darkened glass—still wearing the same pressed shirt, the same patient expression that had served him through dinner. But now, alone in the room Victoria never entered because she found his "boring work stuff" tedious, he allowed the mask to slip.

The man in the reflection had different eyes. Sharper. Colder. More familiar.

His phone buzzed against the mahogany desk. The caller ID showed a number most people would recognize—if they moved in the right circles.

"Grandfather."

"Alexander." The voice carried the weight of eight decades and the authority of building an empire from nothing. "I was beginning to think you'd forgotten how to use a phone."

Alex turned away from the window, sinking into the leather chair that had cost more than most people's cars. "I've been busy playing house."

"So I've heard. The quarterly reports from your little marketing firm are... interesting. Thirty-seven million in revenue last year. Not bad for a company that doesn't officially exist in our portfolio."

A ghost of a smile touched Alex's lips. Sterling & Associates Marketing was more than a front—it was a testing ground, a way to prove he could build something from nothing, just like his grandfather had. The fact that Victoria's family assumed he was struggling while his "small firm" quietly outperformed several Fortune 500 companies was just another layer of the game.

"The Sterlings still think I'm barely scraping by," Alex said.

"And your wife?"

The question hung in the air like smoke. Alex's fingers found the wedding band on his left hand, twisting it slowly. "Victoria thinks she married beneath her station. Tonight confirmed it."

"Alexander—"

"She's taking a job with Morrison Holdings, Grandfather. David Morrison's company."

Silence stretched across the line, but Alex could practically hear the old man's mind working. Chen Wei-Ming hadn't built a multi-billion dollar empire by being slow to connect dots.

"Morrison Holdings. The shipping company that's been trying to muscle into our Pacific routes for the past two years."

"The same." Alex leaned back, watching the city sparkle below. "David Morrison, heir apparent. Handsome, charming, and very interested in my wife's... qualifications."

"How interested?"

Alex closed his eyes, seeing again Victoria's fingers intertwined with Morrison's, the way she'd lit up at his attention while barely acknowledging her husband's existence. "Interested enough that I suspect the job offer isn't the only offer on the table."

"I see." Another pause. "And what do you intend to do about it?"

It was the question Alex had been asking himself all evening. For three years, he'd played the role Victoria wanted—the grateful, slightly-beneath-her husband who knew his place. He'd endured her family's condescension, their casual cruelty, their assumption that their daughter was doing charity work by staying married to him.

But tonight, watching her touch another man at their own dinner table, something had crystallized.

"I'm going to let her make her choice," Alex said finally. "And then I'm going to show her what choices cost."

"Careful, boy. Revenge is a luxury that men in our position can rarely afford."

"This isn't revenge, Grandfather. This is justice."

Chen Wei-Ming's laughter was dry as autumn leaves. "You sound like me at your age. Just remember—when you decide to stop playing the game, make sure you're ready to win it."

After hanging up, Alex sat in the darkness for a long time. Through the walls, he could hear Victoria moving around their bedroom, probably getting ready for bed. Or maybe texting someone. The someone whose name started with 'D' and made her giggle like a teenager.

His laptop chimed softly with an encrypted message. Marcus, his older brother, sending the monthly family business update that Victoria would never see. Chen Empire's expansion into European markets was ahead of schedule. The tech subsidiary had just landed a contract with three major governments. The real estate division had quietly acquired half of downtown Seattle.

All while Alex played house with a woman who thought he couldn't afford to take her somewhere nice.

His phone rang again. This time, the caller ID showed Elena Chen—his sister, the brilliant attorney who'd graduated summa cum laude from Harvard before she turned twenty-five.

"I heard you talked to Grandfather," she said without preamble. Elena had never been one for pleasantries.

"News travels fast in the family."

"It does when the prodigal son finally calls home." Her voice softened slightly. "Alex, are you okay? Really?"

He considered the question. Was he okay? Three years ago, he'd thought love was enough to bridge any gap. He'd believed that Victoria would eventually see past the careful fiction of his diminished circumstances to the man underneath. That patience and devotion would win out over her family's poison and society's expectations.

He'd been spectacularly wrong.

"I'm exactly where I need to be," he said.

"That's not what I asked."

Elena had always been able to read him, even across a phone line. "No," he said finally. "I'm not okay. But I will be."

"What do you need?"

"Time. And maybe a good lawyer when this is over."

"You have both." Elena's voice carried the steel that made opposing counsel fear her in courtrooms across the country. "Alex? For what it's worth, I never liked her."

After Elena hung up, Alex opened his laptop and began typing. Not the marketing reports and client proposals that cluttered his official desk, but something else entirely. Something he'd been preparing for months without quite admitting it to himself.

Divorce papers.

He'd had them drawn up by the best family law firm in the city—not Elena's firm, which would be too obvious, but a boutique practice that specialized in high-net-worth separations. The kind of firm that knew how to protect assets and ensure clean breaks.

The documents were thorough. Comprehensive. And completely devastating to anyone who'd assumed their spouse had nothing worth taking.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard as he read through the financial disclosures. Sterling & Associates Marketing: $37 million in annual revenue. Personal investment portfolio: $127 million, carefully diversified across markets Victoria had never heard him mention. Real estate holdings: four properties in three countries, including the Manhattan penthouse she thought her father had helped him afford.

And that was just what he'd built on his own, separate from the Chen family fortune that would someday be partly his.

The bedroom door opened down the hall, and Victoria's voice drifted toward his study.

"Yes, I know it's late... No, he's in his office doing whatever it is he does in there... Of course I'm sure... David, you worry too much."

Alex's jaw tightened. She wasn't even trying to hide it anymore.

He saved the divorce documents and closed the laptop, then walked quietly down the hall. Victoria was in their walk-in closet, still in her black cocktail dress but with her phone pressed to her ear, her voice low and intimate.

"I can't wait either," she was saying. "Tomorrow night? The Carlisle Hotel? David, that's so expensive—"

She turned and saw Alex in the doorway, her face flushing guilty red.

"I have to go," she said quickly. "I'll... I'll call you tomorrow."

She ended the call and stood there, phone clutched in her hand, looking for all the world like a teenager caught sneaking out.

"Working late?" Alex asked mildly.

"It was... David had some questions about the new position. Details we need to iron out."

"At midnight."

"He keeps unusual hours." Victoria turned back to the closet, hanging up her dress with unnecessary care. "You know how it is with successful businessmen. They work when inspiration strikes."

Alex leaned against the doorframe, studying his wife's profile. Even caught in an obvious lie, she was beautiful—the kind of classical beauty that turned heads in restaurants and made other men envious. Her dark hair fell in perfect waves down her back, and her figure was maintained by expensive trainers and careful dieting.

Three years ago, that beauty had been enough to make him forget everything else. Now he wondered if it had ever been real or if he'd simply been seeing what he wanted to see.

"Victoria," he said quietly.

"Hmm?" She didn't turn around, still focused on her clothes with the intensity of someone trying to avoid a conversation.

"Are you happy?"

The question seemed to surprise her. She paused, a silk blouse halfway to its hanger.

"What kind of question is that?"

"A simple one. Are you happy? With us? With our marriage?"

Victoria finally turned to face him, her expression guarded. "Why are you asking me this now?"

"Because three years ago, you told me you loved me more than air itself. Tonight, you could barely look at me without boredom in your eyes."

"Alex—"

"I'm not accusing you of anything," he said, though they both knew that wasn't quite true. "I'm just asking. Are you happy?"

For a moment, Victoria's carefully constructed mask slipped, and he saw something raw in her expression. Guilt, maybe. Or regret. But when she spoke, her voice was steady.

"I'm happy with my career opportunities. I'm happy with the direction my life is taking."

"That's not what I asked."

"It's the answer you're getting."

Alex nodded slowly. "Fair enough."

He turned to leave, but Victoria's voice stopped him.

"Alex? What about you? Are you happy?"

He looked back at her, this woman he'd loved enough to hide his entire identity for, and gave her the same kind of non-answer she'd given him.

"I'm exactly where I deserve to be."

Later, lying in bed while Victoria pretended to sleep beside him, Alex stared at the ceiling and made his decision. Not the emotional, heat-of-the-moment choice he might have made three years ago, but the calculated decision of a man who'd finally stopped lying to himself.

Tomorrow, he would give Victoria what she wanted—the freedom to choose her own path. But he would also give her something she wasn't expecting: the consequences of that choice.

The bedside clock read 2:17 AM when his phone buzzed with a text message. The number was blocked, but the message was clear enough:

*"She's not worth it, but you already know that. The question is what you're going to do about it."*

Alex deleted the message without responding, but his smile in the darkness was sharp as a blade.

Game on.

At 2:34 AM, Victoria's phone lit up on her nightstand. She reached for it carefully, trying not to wake Alex, but he was already awake, watching through half-closed eyes as she read her message.

Her sharp intake of breath told him everything he needed to know.

Whatever David Morrison had just texted her, it wasn't about business.

And tomorrow, Alex would stop pretending it was.

The grandfather clock in the living room chimed three times, marking the end of one day and the beginning of another. But for Alex Chen, it marked something more significant.

The end of his marriage, and the beginning of his awakening.

Victoria would get her freedom, her successful businessman, her chance to be something more than the wife of a "struggling" marketing coordinator.

What she wouldn't get was the happily ever after she'd been dreaming of.

Because tomorrow, Alex would start becoming the man he'd always been underneath—the man she'd never bothered to discover.

And by the time she realized what she'd lost, it would be far too late to get it back.