CHAPTER - 1

{In the bright daylight...In an office}

Ring...Ring ..Ring....

"By the time the phone rang, my company was already gone."

I picked it up without checking the caller ID.

"Mr. Lin."

The voice was unfamiliar. Calm. Professional.

"Your controlling stake in Axiom Innovations has been successfully liquidated."

For a second, I didn't understand.

Then—

"What?"

My grip tightened around the phone.

"That's impossible."

"Collins Capital has acquired all outstanding shares," he continued smoothly. "The transaction was authorized this morning."

A pause.

"By your brother."

Silence.

Not the quiet kind.

The kind that presses against your lungs until breathing feels optional.

"…No."

My voice came out lower than I expected.

"He wouldn't."

"Apologies, Mr. Lin. It seems you weren't informed."

Something snapped.

"Shut up."

The words were ice-cold.

The phone left my hand before I realized it—slamming against the glass. It shattered on impact, fragments scattering across the floor.

My chest rose sharply.

My brother… wouldn't do this.

Would he?

A faint light flickered from the broken screen.

A message.

A document.

His signature.

My fingers trembled as I stared at it.

The room went completely still.

"…He wouldn't dare."

"My brother would never do something to hurt me!"

The words tore out of my throat, hoarse and desperate.

My fingers tangled in my hair as something inside me cracked.

"No… no…"

Rage hit the next second.

Violent. Blinding.

I swept everything off my desk in one motion—the files, the monitor, the lamp—watching them shatter against the floor. The sound should have satisfied me.

It didn't.

I stood there, breathing hard, surrounded by the ruins of everything I had built.

Glass crunched beneath my shoes.

Outside, the city moved on.

Unaffected.

Indifferent.

The skyline that once felt like power now pressed in like a cage.

My chest rose unevenly as I looked at the destruction… and then—

Silence.

A strange, hollow calm settled in.

Like everything inside me had burned to ash.

I walked toward the window.

My reflection stared back from the cracked glass—distorted… unfamiliar.

A stranger.

My fists clenched.

This wasn't just loss.

It was betrayal.

Family.

Trust.

All of it—gone.

Adrian Blake's voice echoed in my head.

Your brother.

Something snapped.

My fist slammed into the glass.

Once.Twice.

Again.

Pain didn't register.

Blood spread across the jagged cracks, dripping slowly.

I didn't stop.

"I'll kill him."

The words came out quiet.

Empty.

I pulled my hand back, staring at the blood for a second before turning away.

The office door slammed behind me.

My steps were unsteady—but my mind wasn't.

Not anymore.

The elevator button lit up under my shaking fingers.

The doors opened.

I stepped inside.

{Inside the Elevator}

My reflection followed.

Torn shirt. Blood-stained hand. Eyes—

Dark.

Unrecognizable.

The doors slid shut.

And for the first time—

I wasn't thinking about why.

Only about what comes next,And what will I do.

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