Theron's POV
The sun dipped low behind Eldoria's jagged skyline, spilling gold and wine-colored streaks across the floor-to-ceiling windows of my office. From this height, the city almost looked beautiful—quiet, even. Like it hadn't clawed and bled its way into every inch of my skin for the past six years.
But Eldoria had a habit of wearing a mask. A glossy one. Beneath it? Monsters. Hidden daggers. Familiar last names.
And the ones smiling in the light were often worse than those lurking in the dark.
I turned away from the view, the glass cool under my fingers. Behind me, the room breathed power—black marble floors polished to a mirror sheen, a chandelier from Prague that bathed the space in fractured light, and an antique Qing Dynasty sword mounted on the wall like a quiet threat. My office wasn't just an office. It was a declaration. Every inch of it whispered control. Superiority. Warning.
I moved toward the bar in the corner—mahogany, custom-built, stocked with bottles handpicked for taste and intimidation. I reached for a scotch that cost more than most people's rent and poured it neat, watching the amber liquid settle.
The silence was a comfort. The only kind I could trust.
A knock came—sharp, followed by the groan of someone who'd rather be anywhere else.
"You finally decided to show up," I muttered, not bothering to turn.
John stumbled in, his tie crooked, sweat lining his forehead. "Boss, I had to run from the top floor to the fifteenth and back. I swear I've lost two kilos in thirty minutes."
I took a slow sip, letting the scotch burn down my throat. "And yet here you are, just in time to remind me why I need a new assistant."
His face paled. "You wouldn't."
"Would I?" I leaned back against the bar with a smirk, letting my gaze settle on him.
He cleared his throat, straightening his tie in desperation. "No one else can handle you. You're... a complex ecosystem, boss. I've evolved to survive in it."
"Hmm. Since you've 'evolved,' you'll be fine with a ten percent pay cut, right?"
His eyes widened like I'd just announced I was setting fire to his bank account. "Boss!"
"You need motivation, John."
"If I don't get paid properly, I'll crash at your villa. That's motivation enough."
I raised a brow, amused. "My villa? No. But the Drakos family mansion? That's available."
He blinked. Once. Twice.
The color drained from his face faster than I expected. "B-boss, I'll sleep on the street! In a dumpster! But not the mansion. Please not the mansion."
I downed the scotch and placed the glass on my desk, the clink echoing. "Afraid of ghosts, John?"
"I'm afraid of living people, boss. Your uncle lives there. Damian Drakos. The man once made a grown CEO cry during a breakfast meeting."
I chuckled, swirling the remaining ice in the glass. "He's efficient."
"He's unholy."
He wasn't wrong. The Drakos family estate wasn't just a house—it was a monument to everything wrong with power. A sprawling gothic mansion carved into the cliffs, built of cold stone and colder secrets. Every corridor whispered betrayal. Every hallway creaked with memories better left buried.
And at the heart of it sat Damian Drakos—my uncle.
My father, Samuel Drakos, still lived there too. A shadow behind Damian's larger one. A relic, haunted more by silence than guilt. And above them all was Hector Drakos—my grandfather. The original puppeteer. A man who taught ambition without compassion and carved out loyalty with a knife.
That mansion was a chessboard soaked in blood.
And John, for all his nervous chatter, understood that.
"Write me an apology letter," I said casually. "Five hundred times. In cursive. Before morning."
John looked like I'd slapped him with a lawsuit. "Boss, come on—"
"Unless you want to bunk with Uncle Damian. He loves visitors."
"I'll write it in calligraphy. On parchment. With gold ink if you want!"
He practically ran from the office, muttering prayers under his breath as if warding off demons.
I exhaled, a soft scoff escaping me. The momentary amusement vanished, swallowed by the returning silence. The kind that lingered. Heavy. Personal.
John didn't know the half of it.
He thought the Drakos mansion was terrifying. He didn't know what it had already taken from me.
Six years ago, I returned to Eldoria with fire in my lungs and vengeance in my spine. They said I was reckless. Cold. Merciless.
They weren't wrong.
But they didn't know what I'd seen.
They didn't know how my family fed off each other like wolves. How power was passed not through legacy, but through manipulation and silent assassinations—character or otherwise. They didn't know about the betrayals wrapped in smiles, the deaths swept under silk carpets, or the countless innocents who paid for sins they didn't commit.
And the man behind it all?
Damian.
He never raised his voice. Never got his hands dirty. But somehow, the dirt always stuck to everyone else. He made sure of it.
He turned family into pawns. Turned me into a weapon.
But I was done watching.
I crossed the room to the window again, drink abandoned, gaze falling over the glowing city beneath. Eldoria shimmered—glass and steel, ambition and greed. So many lives moving beneath those lights, unaware that the ground under them was already cracking.
My phone buzzed on the desk. A message from the internal team. The Adkins file had been updated. Jason, Isabella, and Lucas had submitted their proposals. The fight for that land was accelerating.
Good.
The pieces were shifting. The board was almost ready.
And I was done playing fair.
Let the others cling to rules and illusions.
I'd been raised in a house where monsters taught manners and smiles meant nothing.
Let the game begin..